Interviews, Jails, and postpartum depression

So, I've successfully conducted 3 interviews! I have another one today, and (buckle up!) SIX next week! I know a lot of the other interns have done like 50 interviews in one week, but that's a HUGE deal because I'm meeting with program directors, presidents and CEOs of these mentoring programs and a lot of them have summer programs they're starting, so it's pretty amazing that I have that many interviews in one week. I've got 2 scheduled for July, and a few more that I have to call later to schedule interviews with.

On Wednesday, I got to go on the Children of Inmates bus trip to the Everglades Correctional Institution. The bus trip is for the families of inmates there. COI brings a bunch of games, toys and food for lunch so it's not like a normal Saturday visit. This was a smaller group (about 14 kids) who went. Travis (the COI program director) had warned me to prepare myself to deal with my emotions in a professional way. So, I basically decided to keep my self busy setting stuff up and cleaning up after an activity so I wouldn't be able to focus on what was going on.

I want to tell you a little bit of what I saw. There was a little girl there who was in first grade. She walked in with one of the staff and looked at all of the inmates. The inmates were pretty quick to recognize their own kids, but none of them got up when this little girl came in. She looked at them curiously; we asked her, "Do you know which one is your dad?" She shook her head. We waited for her older brother to come in who saw his dad, and instantly gave him a huge hug. The little girl watched and slowly walked up to her brother's side. The brother introduced his little sister to their dad for the first time. The dad was so excited to meet her and was amazed by everything his daughter said and did. She never once called him "dad" but endearingly called him "him". I saw a man giving his 2 teenage daughters a serious talk about making decisions in life. I saw a man welcome his three sons by grabbing each of them and spinning them around in a tight embrace.

I can tell you these were heart wrenching scenes, but I didn't want to cry during any of them. Instead, I was glad to witness a bit of redemption in these horribly broken relationships. In my occupation, I'm surrounded by brokenness, and it's inevitably depressing. Seeing small acts of restoration (like a child who is forever affected by their father's decisions welcoming their dads with the words "I love you") makes the job oh so worthwhile.

On another plain, Jessica Chen (another Com. Dev. intern) and I had an interesting conversation about our negative feelings towards our internships. We basically came to a conclusion via analogy. The 12 interns have spent 9 months preparing for this summer. Preparing: meetings, physicals, emotional evaluations, applications, interviews, phone calls, emails, support letters, dealing with switches in locations and research designs, reading, and writing a huge research design paper (the process of which I described like giving birth to quadruplets, the only pain medication they're giving you is a flinstone vitamin, everyone around you yelling "they're coming!" but it's your fifth day in labor).

9 months of prayer requests and praises. "Pray that my visa comes!" a few days later, "My visa came!" and many others like this. We were all excited and curious about our summers, eagerly awaiting the day we departed. "I just want to be there!" was a common phrase said in the library during late night paper writing sessions by those of us who were sick of reading and writing about our internships and just wanted to be doing it.

And now, we're all on internships. The day came weeks ago, the 9 months of prep work all came down to this. But now, some of us (myself DEFINITELY included), don't want this anymore. "It's like postpartum depression!" Jessica said. I couldn't agree more, except we don't get arrested for child abuse or neglect. We get into this funk of homesickness, loneliness, cultural anxiety, etc. and end up calling what we used to call a blessing during those 9 months a curse. Ok, maybe not a curse per say, but definitely NOT a blessing.

So, fellow interns, I pray that God will give you the strength to wake up at 2am to comfort your screaming child of a summer. (in other words, May you have the eyes to see this summer as the original blessing we used to call it, no matter how freaking hard it gets).

Oh, right and pray for:
- interviews. That I can schedule the rest.
- wisdom. I don't know really what to put in my final report, but I have to have something.
- focus and love for my summer. and for the city of Miami.
- time to prepare for my position as RA in the fall. I'm still working on the balance of being focused on my work here in Miami, but I can NOT neglect preparing myself for a student leadership position.

Vaya con Dios!