[langgam = ants]
I'm in my 8th week now. Unbelievable :) It's a strange feeling to know that my internship is more "complete" than "incomplete"
Work
I'm not any further along in coding or analysis because I'm still waiting on my translator. In the meantime I've been reading and journaling and enjoying the company of my host family. And I wrote some papers!
Life
I love having my supervisor back! She's such a joy to be around! Some of our family adventures in the last two days include:
Operation Food: I got to cook dinner again :) This time my host mother helped me (because she's home from Rwanda) and it cut cooking time in half!!
Operation Medicine Cabinet: My host parents and I visited hardware stores to find a medicine cabinet for the downstairs bathroom and looked at mugs and African art and pretty lights and admired shower heads and bathroom tiles and...then I stuck my hands in a model urinal and pretended to wash them because I thought it was a model sink. Yeah. It was funny.
Operation Get Dinner: drove through the pouring rain (through many flooded areas...the motorcyclists were wading through the water...it was really very eye opening for me...I think it had only been raining for an hour) stopped at the grocery store and bought food to cook for dinner...and it rained and rained and rained.
Mission Ant: Pastor Benjie bought a new vacuum specifically for this purpose. We're waging war. Today we vacuumed ants.
Other adventures of the weekend include:
-Two coffee dates.
-Awesome realization of our "small world" and evidence that God knows what he's doing!
-Met two new friends! (One who is a soil scientist at IRRI [which I'm actually nervous mentioning because I now know about the IRRI blog filter and newsletter secret! but since I've decided to mention it anyway...Hello! I think the work you guys are doing at IRRI is really fantastic!] and one who is a student at Wheaton College, interning in Manila with an organization I'm planning to visit in the next two weeks! Crazy right?)
-Ate delicious blueberry coffee cake (provided by my new friends). Yum. It made me miss my roommate. We like blueberry everything :)
-Walking in the rain and not being splashed by passing vehicles! All the drivers are so considerate! Or maybe I was lucky?
Feelings
I'm finally beginning to feel at home here and now there's only a month left. It's a weird mix of anticipation and unwillingness. I can't wait to go home and hug my mommy, daddy, and little brother (little brother who's not so little anymore! wah. He's going to Calvin College this fall...maybe my parents will pick me up on their way to drop him off so that I can participate in his send off; that'd be fun! Mommy, any comments on this?) and being in our home and sleeping in my bed and driving my car and eating cereal and oatmeal and oranges and using chopsticks and suches. I'm looking forward to being back at Covenant with my good friends and taking classes and studying in the library and spending time with the crazy wonderful girls on my hall. But I really like the pace of life here. I like taking it easy. I like the sense of humor. I like the fresh fruit and yummy desserts! And I like my new friends! And I'm not looking forward to graduating! I like college. I like Covenant College.
I'm really learning a lot more than I write about. I feel bad that my blogs don't do justice to that learning for you. I don't think I will be able to process all that I'm taking in until I've gone back to the US because I'm sure there are many things I will not see until I'm in the future looking back. Also...75% of what I'm learning has nothing to do with my research. I think I'm mostly learning about God's faithfulness and providence; His love and provision for his people. And my heart? It's so much less anxious because of it.
Other:
If this van does not remove itself from my window now I might pass out from inhaling carbon monoxide. Please. Leave.
Also, my first batch of pictures are up (from the first two weeks or so of my internship): Click Here
Monday, July 5, 2010
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