I am back down in Coquitlam now, preparing to leave for Belgrade in 13 days. "Belgrade," you shriek, "what happened to Nigeria!?" Well...
Springtime is Application Time for CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) and DFAIT (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade) internships, and since I was finally in Canada and relatively un-busy this past March, I decided to dedicate a solid chunk of energy to giving these a shot. They are fairly competitive and only available to uni grads under the age of 30 --Canadians are only allowed to participate once in their lifetime-- so I sent off about 8 glossy packages and crossed my fingers.
I was interviewed for 2 placements and hightailed it up to Smithers as soon as One Sky invited me to their 10-day orientation... As detailed in HellCamp (July 07), I survived their tests and was stoked on the idea of leaving for Calabar in the fall.
Of course things didn't remain stable for long; on my way to Victoria for an Intercultural Sensitivity Training session mid-June, the phone rang...and I was offered a different placement. I then had to attend 5 days of these crazy sessions with the other One Sky kids, all the while living a lie and trying to come to a decision about what to do...
So, in the interest of holding your attention, I'll get to the point: after a few twists and turns, I have been assigned to the United Nations Development Programme, in the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator in Serbia & Montenegro.
My future boss, Nicholas Hercules, describes the job as such:
You will work directly with me and I report to the Resident Coordinator, the UN Secretary General's representative in this country. You will be responsible, with close support and guidance from myself and an information assistant, for all the communications emanating from this office which supports the work of the 13 UN agencies present as well as those non-resident UN agencies with operations in Serbia & Montenegro.
Working under the umbrella of the Millennium Development Goals, the work will involve devising outreach opportunities to promote the MDGs. We take the global UN days and celebrate them locally. Specifically, we would like you to support our efforts with the international media, so you might like to be in touch with Canadian media outlets to establish relations before departing for the Balkans.
I managed to swing staying in Smithers all summer in order to finish up my lit. review of Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation methodologies and help out with their annual fundraising auction. I felt so guilty about ditching after the past 2.5 months of living and working so closely with everyone...but the One Sky folks have been phenomenal: encouraging me to follow my gut and do whatever feels right. These people are probably human, but are unlike any I have ever known before!
The UNDP internship is pretty different in that, unlike Nigeria, I will have no Team of friends to live and work with. There is one girl, Melissa, who will also be working in Belgrade for an NGO called Group 484 --we're arriving around the same time and have discussed the possibility of sharing an apartment. The pay will be pretty basic, and will just barely cover my expenses --the purpose of this program is really to help me develop a network of contacts, not a healthy savings account...
So, I have less than two weeks to unpack, do laundry and repack, all the while parroting lessons from my new "Teach Yourself Serbian" CD:
Jeste li dobili moje pismo? Did you receive my letter?
Pili su kafu i razgovarali. They were drinking coffee and chatting.
Every day I look to the sky and thank the universe for my new friends and these unbelievable opportunities.
