I pretty much just had the best first day ever.
I just had my first day at my internship! My program is divided into two main sections, the second of which is a 6-week internship within the thematic focus I selected for the program. Considering my human rights focus, I am undertaking my internship at a women’s rights legal organization called l’Association des Juristes Sénégalaises (the Association of Senegalese Women Juristes).
According to my most recent LinkedIn post, here’s what I’ll be up to: “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Intern at l’Association des Juristes Sénégalaises/AJS as part of my study abroad program in Dakar, Senegal! For the next six weeks, I will be working on various legal rights’ projects with AJS’ international partners, observing women’s legal clinics, and learning from mentors who manage the organization in administrative positions. Furthermore, my entire internship will be in French! I am very excited to learn about Senegal’s legal challenges, approaches, and solutions at both a grassroots and international level. Thank you so much to the School for International Training for facilitating this opportunity!”
I truly hope my internship is as amazing as I tried to make it sound on LinkedIn; so far, it has been. On my first day, I took a 15 minute taxi ride from my house to the office. I was so worried about traffic potentially making me late that I ended up arriving 25 minutes early. I decided to sit outside on the steps and wait until a far more reasonable time to arrive. A few minutes later, a woman came up to me and asked if I’m the “stagiare” (intern). I said yes, and explained to her I was worried about being too early. She laughed and told me to come inside. We walked up the stairs into the office.
As soon as I stepped inside, my supervisor greeted me with a smile. I had met her the previous week for my internship introduction so I already knew who she was, but I knew no one else yet. Therefore, my supervisor spent the next half hour or so introducing me to the other members of AJS. They were all extremely friendly, especially when I greeted them in Wolof and knew more than just the basic salutation phrases. I made it a goal to try to learn everyone’s name!
An hour or two into my first day, the president of AJS arrived and invited me into her office. She pulled out her agenda and asked if I wanted to attend three conferences with international stakeholders in the next two weeks. Was that even a question?! After enthusiastically responding yes, she gave me a bunch of material to prepare for the Wednesday-Thursday conference this week.
The focus of the upcoming conference is a discussion about abortion rights in Senegal. Currently, any form of abortion is illegal according to Senegal’s national law. The only exception is when multiple doctors agree that the life of the mother is in danger, they concur that an abortion is necessary and will perform an abortion despite the fact it is technically illegal. The conference I will attend aims to integrate the Maputo Protocol, signed by Senegal in 2004, which states that the right to a “medical abortion” should be permitted. This includes abortion in the case of rape, incest, danger to the life of the mother, or malformation of the fetus.
In the midst of researching, I was invited to sit in on a Zoom meeting to coordinate the communication and press for the conference with one of AJS’ donors, a Canadian organization. Unfortunately, as soon as I sat down, I recognized the major tech issues they were having, particularly about the translation software. As it turns out, the donor representative only spoke English, and the AJS member I was shadowing spoke very minimal English. Trying to make myself useful, I translated what the Canadian woman said to explain they were having issues with the translation issues too. My mentor looked at me and asked, “Est-ce que tu peux le faire?” she asked me. “Can you do it?” I felt my adrenaline spike and responded that I’d try!
For the next 45 minutes, I translated from French to English and English to French to the best of my ability. I’ve been learning French for nearly a decade now, so my language skills are pretty decent. However, finding exact translations instead of synonyms, conjugating, and still listening to what they were saying so I could translate without stopping was a whole new ballgame. I don’t think I properly took a full breath throughout the entire experience, but it was thrilling! The conversation was made even harder by the fact that AJS has apparently never used Google Docs before. Both sides were trying to figure out this confusion simultaneously via my translation, and I’m pretty sure my brain nearly combusted at one but. But it was kind of awesome! As an intern/shadow for six weeks, I didn’t expect to actually feel useful on the first day. And here I was, using my language skills for a task that no one else at the agency was capable of doing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way before, but now I definitely want to accomplish something like this again.
I concluded my day with a few more hours of research and then I headed home, so excited to come back tomorrow!
Ba ci kanam / À bientôt / See you soon,
Caitlin
