There's a soap opera on in Afrikaans in the background right now. It's a good break from Big Brother 2 Africa. A Namibian girl was voted off yesterday.

We started internships this morning. The ironing board came out, blouses were buttoned up, dresses, slacks, and tights were pulled on, alarms rang at seven am.
I'm at the Namibia National Farmers Union. The van dropped me off for that first day, and so I made my way across the street (not easy with the driving around here and this driving on the left side of the road still feels like it turns the traffic inside out and upside down and confuses me). So I rang a doorbell. No answer. I knocked. I tried another door, then another, and then I tried that first one again. I sat myself down on the stoop, and imagined coming back to the house and having no stories to report. I had nothing else to do, so I was prepared to wait at least an hour and a half, part of me expecting not to even get in the door that day.

I didn't have to. Fifteen minutes later, a truck pulled up into the lot. A man walks out, sees me sitting there and gives me this smile that just reflects back to me exactly what I am: the quintessential confused, early, nervous student intern. Some American kid dropped off in Namibia sitting on the steps, hoping and waiting for some kind of direction.

People filtered in. I was led into a board room, and looked up at a big poster with that day's agenda. Final item: Orient student intern.

We started with that while people filtered in. I learned names, shook hands, forgot names, asked again, forgot again. It I am just not used to the language, and so all the sounds just don't seem to stick to my tongue. I really hate introducing myself, too. Especially five times in a row when I already feel awkward and out of place.

After that very brief orientation, the new president walks in, car keys in hand, and announces that he's just come back from the farm. The official debriefing begins, and I have to say that it felt pretty cool to be sitting there listening to people talk about land reform and politics and policy as it actually impacted them. My exposure so far has been academic articles, non profit analysis, governments reports. Working at an organization like this will also be so different from everything that I've done before. They work so much more closely with the government, and it's not a little non-profit that I am hoping represents my personal politics.

I spent the day writing up a newsletter article. I'm not sure if they wanted me to or not, but I edited the parts that I was meant to cut down until they were pretty unrecognizable. I want to do as much as I can here. Writing up another newsletter article, I felt a little like I was back at the Center for Victims of Torture last year. For a second I felt nostalgic even about those thirty minute waits for the bus on University Avenue in twenty five degree windchill. That Minnesota winter I'm missing this year.

So, how exactly did I end up working with farmers in Namibia? Writing up newsletter articles on resolutions passed regarding livestock reports and the organization's galas and presidential elections? Chatting about my co-workers farms in Eastern Namibia? Listening in about government negotiations on land reform and exports and the politics of policy in Southern Africa? I really don't know.