Caught in Between

I guess I should write about my internship, huh? :)

We’re 5 weeks in and I really don’t get how. Like I don’t understand how it has been possible for time to fly by SO QUICKLY. I really did just get there! Wow. Wowowowowowow. Hard to believe I will be finished in 3 measly weeks. If you couldn’t tell, I’m upset about this.

So this internship is thru Hopkins, namely thru the Center for Social Concern–Community Impact Internship Program. An anonymous donor (if you happen to be reading this blog very randomly, I’d just like to say THANK YOU so much for giving students like me who want to be in the community but weren’t quite sure how, this opportunity…words cannot express how grateful I am :)  ) gave 1.25 million dollars to the CSC for this program and for 5,000$ internships. I bit my lip, applied, and was accepted along with 24 other eager and socially-concerned students of all ages. Read more here: JHU Gazette Article

So, Martha’s Place. This is a transitional housing center for women seeking to overcome drug addiction and homelessness. Now, I can’t really tell you what compelled me to choose this area of social concern except for curiosity. The application allowed us to rank areas of interest–environmental issues, women, children and family issues, criminal justice, health policy, and education. I guess it was more process of elimination and the desire to try something new. I was VERY skeptical at first (why do we do that? Like why are we scared of trying new things?) but I am so glad I’m here now. I’d never really thought about drug addiction and homelessness beyond what those things superficially presented themselves as–sad situations that needed to be fixed. But, being here has made me see addiction in a different light, and it’s made me see the strength of willpower and desire.Here, addiction is seen as a disease that can be treated.

And of course, it’s all public healthy–but on the community side. Last summer, my amazing internship was health policy focused and all of the things we did affected urban areas in southwest Michigan. But there was no interaction with the community. This summer, I am deep in the community and seeing the ramifications of public health and health policy from a distance–so it’s cool seeing things from the opposite side.

This is Martha's Place...the women live in this house while they're in the program. The mural is kinda like the face of Martha's Place.

Women in the program have to have completed a 28-30 day detox treatment program before entering. So MP is more of a recovery place than a treatment facility, and focuses on making the women independent. How?

-Structure. The house has strict rules that many of these women aren’t used to. Keep in mind several never grew up in stable homes, so having a 6pm curfew, having to be told to do chores (that get checked daily), having to have your bags searched and receipts checked everytime you enter your own house, not being allowed to have a cell phone, having to have someone else manage your money for you…and much more…would be quite strange. Upon first glance this may seem harsh, but for people who never had to live by rules, it’s kind of necessary.

-Focus on job attainment. The women have to diligently search for jobs every day. Many have records, so this is hard, but not impossible. Martha’s Place sets them up with a job employment agency and works with the ladies on how to do job searches.

-Recovery and Restoration. Each day (except for weekends and holidays), the women have to attend 3 NA meetings as a part of their recovery. I actually went to one yesterday because one of the women was celebrating one year being clean and it was really something. Hearing her story about using drugs and being married to a drug dealer and doing all sorts of behavior she thought she would never do was just crazy. I loved her honesty and her willingness to remain clean, and I could see other people at the meeting were inspired. And of course, there were others who were just there, not really listening or getting anything from the meeting. But what I have been learning is that as long as they keep coming back, one day something may just click. That’s how it is most of the time–multiple failures before an addict finally gets tired of him/herself and finally decides to change–for good.

this is hanging in the hallway. i loved it so much it's my phone's wallpaper.

-Personal Enrichment. MP is under an umbrella organization called Newborn Holistic Ministries, so it has Christian foundations and the women are encouraged (though not forced) to embrace that. Whenever I am here, I see many of them reading Bibles and journaling, as well as writing letters. They can’t watch tv until 4pm so when they’re not cooking, job searching, or at NA meetings, they’re reading or writing usually.

-Therapy. The women meet with an addictions counselor weekly, as well as a therapist. They each also have a sponsor whom they can call when they are struggling and need someone really special to talk to. The sponsors are usually former addicts who are fully recovered.

dining room/sitting area where they hang out and have meetings

I spend much of my time in the house at the front desk, working on various projects, answering phones, getting the ladies their medications and watching them take it, answering questions, monitoring phone usage, checking groceries and receipts, and other things. The other half of my time is spent at the administrative office across the street, where I talk with my supervisor about what needs to be done.

Of course, women living together is always weird ‘cuz cattyness comes out. And it’s encouraged that those feelings be talked about rather than suppressed. It’s weird being an intern because I hear a lot of behind the scenes stuff on the administrative side after things happen, but I don’t see them happen in real time. I guess being an intern is just weird that way in general. Being in this kind of place (a nonprofit I should say), I am allowed to hear more than I would at another type of agency because of the small amount of staff and just because of the real atmosphere. People’s lives are trying to be transformed so I guess there’s no need to be weird and hush hush–what needs to be said and done needs to be said and done and fixed. And I love that.

I think I will write a part 2 with more personal feelings about my internship as the end nears. Stay tuned! :)

-Dominique

Perhaps you have noticed (or perhaps not) that I haven’t blogged in a while. Where have I been? Well, the past month has been amazing, and amazingly busy.  I’ve gone on quite a few adventures, everything from a township home stay to a weekend-long music festival. There have been birthdays, beach days, a whale festival and some serious travel planning.

camps bay, cape town

Cape Town summer is now in full swing, meaning 75° and sunny is the norm. Heading back to winter will be a real shock to the system. Needless to say it’s been a struggle to stay focused on school, particularly in a city with so much to do outside. We’re surrounded by beaches, there’s a giant mountain in the middle of the city, and a 40 minute train ride will bring you either to more beaches, or beautiful wine country. It’s a tough life but someone’s got to do it.

Now, a bit more on exactly where I’ve been the past month. I’ll start at the very beginning.

After spring break, my program organized a home stay for us in Ocean View, a Coloured, Afrikaans-speaking township about 40 minutes outside of Cape Town. Ocean View was established in the late 1960s, when the apartheid government evicted Coloured South Africans from all the coastal towns in the area. Most residents used to live in Simonstown or Fish Hoek, but they’ve been in Ocean View for the last 40 years.

Unlike some of the other Cape Town townships, Ocean View is mostly made up of permanent residences (i.e. traditional houses, with a foundation). Other townships, Gugulethu and Khayelitsha, for instance, are mostly “squatter” townships, meaning that their houses are made of corrugated metal. Ocean View has about 20,000 people now, a high school, primary schools, churches, shops, basically everything a town should have, except it was all constructed in a matter of months when the government classified the surrounding areas as white in the mid-1960s.

About 75 Americans headed out to Ocean View for the weekend, bringing flowers and baked goods for our host families. I was placed with a really nice couple with two little boys, and twin two-month-old girls. So much fun, and so much babysitting! The sense of community at Ocean View was one of my favorite things about staying there. I’ve never lived close to my extended family, but entire families lived together on the same streets, seeing each other daily, eating and braai-ing together. I must have met fifty cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and little kids who ran around underfoot. It was such a cool weekend and a great experience to see a totally different side of Cape Town.

fellow Hopkins kid, Pearl.

After I headed back from Ocean View, we all celebrated my housemate Whitney’s  20th birthday. The next weekend was a three-day weekend for National Heritage Day (celebrated with a huge braai….I love South Africa). We spent Saturday out at the Hermanus Whale Festival. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and we got to wander around the festival. In the background of all our pictures you can see the whales—they were everywhere! Wandering around the town, I stumbled upon what initially seemed like a scene from a movie—a choreographed dance routine in the middle of the street. It was the Afrikaans equivalent of country music, accompanied by 40-50 dancers, decked out in cowboy hats and boots. Quite an entertaining discovery.

beautiful Hermanus!

After Hermanus was a weekend of exploring Cape Town art galleries with my friend Avery who is studying Art History here.

After galleries was an amazing hike up Lionshead Mountain at sunset, and after that, the highlight of the last few weeks, Rocking the Daisies (are you maybe seeing why my blogs have been delayed?)

Rocking the Daisies, a three-day music festival out in the lovely wineland town of Darling, was insane and amazing. Wecamped (apparently my new favorite South African activity) in tents that were about a quarter of the size you’d want them to be. Despite the incredibly high level of dirt, and overwhelming lack of sleep, it was one of the best weekends ever. I have officially gotten used to South African music, meaning house, electronica or dubstep without any words and the loudest bass you can imagine. It was gorgeous and sunny all weekend, prompting us to spend all of Saturday outside, lying on the “beach” at a lake that was mysteriously in the middle of the wine estate. Rocking the Daisies was also my friend Stewart’s 21^st Birthday, which she celebrated in style.

daisies!

Unfortunately, Rocking the Daisies marked the beginning of the end of classes, meaning it’s time to buckle down, write lots of papers, study for exams, and generally wrap up the semester. As I wrote recently, the end of the semester is a fairly scary concept, but I have some amazing things coming up in the next couple of weeks to distract me. This weekend my parents will be arriving on Sunday afternoon. They’ll be spending two weeks here and we’ll be driving the Garden Route, which I’m so excited for! In between exams and going home I’ll be heading out to Mozambique with my friend Nikki. We’re going to lay on the beach and recuperate from a week of finals. I can’t wait!

off to Mozambique!

-Lauren B.

posted by Lauren B.

So one of the most common questions I get asked at Open Houses is “what is a typical day like at Hopkins?” Aside from “hey, so what were your SAT scores…” I find this to be maybe the most irritating question, and I think the activities of the past 48 hours can explain why.

Phi Mu!

This week is the middle of formal recruitment, otherwise known as rush, for the three Panhellenic sororities on campus (Alpha Phi, Phi Mu and Kappa Kappa Gamma). Rush started on Saturday with “ice water” round, and finishes up with Bid Day on Thursday. The start of formal pledging is one of my favorite things about spring at Hopkins and really made my year so much fun. But rush was only the beginning of this strange, strange week.

My pledge class at Ice Water.

First off, the weather has been bipolar, with two days of heavy snowfall and two days of balmy spring. Sadly, neither of the snowy days were quite snowy enough to merit a snowday, but it made campus look amazing.

Beautiful Homewood Campus.

Though the week as a whole was fairly unusual, Tuesday had to be the weirdest slash greatest. It began when I had actually no class, which left the whole day open for frolicking in Baltimore. My roommate, Laura, is really involved with the Hopkins chapter of Engineers Without Borders. She helped to organize their fundraiser,  a desert reception to benefit their projects in Guatemala, South Africa and Ecuador.

She’s been doing the behind the scenes stuff for months, organizing the raffle, food donations, and all that madness. I got to help with the fun stuff on the day of though, and we spent the day rocking around the city in our friend Charlotte’s car, picking up food donations and attempting not to sample them.

We got to travel all over Baltimore, from Fell’s Point to pick up pies at “Dangerously Delicious,” which lived up to its name when we were inexplicably detained by two giant slices of broccoli quiche, to Charles Village for gluten free treats at Sweet Sin bakery, where we also managed to make a pretty serious purchase. Being allergic to wheat myself I was obviously thrilled to find this place so close to campus, and my fridge in Charles Commons is now packed with gluten free treats and cupcakes.

The real kicker to the afternoon, however, was our time spent in the kitchen of the Hopkins Club, where I learned that I would be a terrible, terrible chef. The lovely people there helped Laura and I arrange the millions of cupcakes on hundreds of trays (barely an exaggeration) and lent Engineers Without Borders tons of stuff for their reception. It was then up to Laura and I to wobble over to the Glass Pavilion with all the deserts (see the gem of a picture below).

After delivering those delightful treats to the reception, I sprinted back to Charles Commons just in time to dash off a response paper for my Econ class and submit it on WebCT within 30 seconds of the 6 pm deadline. Speed homework was followed by a quick dinner before I headed off to see the finished product of our strange day’s work. The reception was great, and two of my friends actually won great things in the raffle.

More lovely pictures of the snow, taken by Greco!

By the time we left it was near-blizzarding, and the rest of the evening  was occupied by frantic weather.com checks as we tried to analyze the likelihood of getting a snow day.

Beautiful gluten free cupcakes for the EWB reception.

Turns out I actually should have done a bit more homework, as school was most certainly on (with the exception of 9 am classes) today. Today was the opposite of yesterday, with class straight through from 10-4, a Study Abroad meeting just after that, and “Pref Night” for my sorority all night. Tomorrow will be bid day, another day without classes, and the start of pledging for the new baby Phis! The next few days bring everything from homework to amazing Phi Mu dinners, lunch with a prospective student to the Super Bowl.

I can’t imagine what the other SAAB-ers have been doing this week (I’ve
been up to my ears in rush) but I can almost guarantee it was nothing
like this, so I hope this helped you get a sense of how different each and every single day is here at Hopkins.

And as an aside…Hope all you East Coasters enjoy the FOOT OF SNOW coming your way this weekend!

-Lauren