I came to Cape Town to challenge myself

I came to Cape Town to challenge myself, to learn about culture and politics outside of the US, gain new work experience, celebrate life, and adventure! I've been reconnected with my passion for women's right issues and with my risk taking and adventurous spirit. I've really enjoyed connecting with so many different kinds of people from all over the world and trying and seeing so many new things. I've really enjoyed hiking mostly on my own, paragliding, and sea kayaking -- and love taking in the stunning natural landscape of Cape Town, All the delicious food from all over the world, and South African wine tasting has also been delightful. Also a pleasure to meet and spend time with other VACorps interns, navigating their own adventures here.

I loved getting to meet and support the women at the domestic violence shelter where I was interning - and find differences and connections to their stories of women i've worked with in the US. The shelter has been faced with financial difficulties in my time there, and I was able to learn quit a bit about South Africa's social service funding structure. I was also interested in the organization's management and response to this challenge, which gave me additional perspective on social services work in different social and historical contexts.

My stay in Capetown will be 10 weeks, which feels about the perfect amount of time for an experience like this. I was able to see and explore many things inside and outside of Capetown, foster beautiful friendships, and get a taste of social service work in an international context. Honestly, I wish there had been more coordination with my internship site around what skills I had to offer them so we could have initiated a project for me earlier on in the experience. Similarly, my site could use some support identifying their organizational needs from interns, and committing institutional support of the intern projects. All told it took about 3 weeks for me to get a sense of how the organization functioned and discuss with the staff what I had to offer - and even still my work 1:1 counseling and group session work was not able to be offered on a regular basis due to a lack of organization of the women's time on the part of the shelter. Every day I arrived - I had no idea what I would be doing. While this is an experience in and of itself - and I'm able to take initiative and be flexible in many environments - I found this at least emotionally taxing and at most re-traumatizing, for both interns and women, who were operating in an environment that lacked transparent communication, whose daily schedule is unpredictable and reactionary, which created an atmosphere of suspicion and hyper individualism (ie. every woman for herself). While this in many ways can be seen as reflection of the post-colonial context, I had the opportunity to visit another domestic violence shelter, and conversed with other interns about their sites - narratives which did not reflect the above experience - but one of collaboration and appreciation. I offer caution placing interns at this site without a good deal more work prepping both with the site and the particular intern around the needs and capacities of both parties.

I appreciated the VACorps orientation week and Friday excursions the most as some lightly structured activities in which to connect with others and explore what this area has to offer. I'm grateful for VACs support especially in the beginning of the experience - having people to connect with and support getting information on the logistics of living life here - paying for electricity at the grocery store, the difference between data and airtime, different forms of public transport etc. I've also appreciated the accessibility of program staff to answer questions and support connecting with an opportunity to visit another domestic violence shelter while I am here - which offered a meaningful dimension to my internship experience.

If I could go back in time I would tell myself to bring mainly "athleisure" clothes - both for hiking etc, but also exploring all over the city and beyond - you really just need to be comfortable. I did bring my hiking shoes and was really glad i did - hiking trails here are pretty rugged, and sneakers alone do not feel sufficient.