So, I'm not sure if any of this will turn out the way I wanted since I can't understand any of the directions or labels because it's all in Czech, but...
Greetings from Central Europe! Hope everyone is having a great internship/vacation.
Things are certainly interesting here as last night I watched the EuroCup final with about 2,500 other people in a beer garden. Now I know what you are all thinking, Colby's just there to drink himself stupid and explore the region. And although those are two major goals of mine, I'm also in for a bit of work as I found out today.
I was told that work was 9-5 so I showed up at the "office" (really a basement in an apartment building) at around 8:45. Well I rang the bell and loitered outside on the sidewalk, catching sideways glances from Czechs that lived in the building, for over half an hour until my boss (Ivan) made his way downstairs to the office from his 4th floor flat and let me in.
Ok, no problem. I sit down with Ivan and talk briefly. He hands me two 20 page single-spaced papers on the Romani and Initiatives, both of which wer written in excruciatingly poor english. After digging through them for over 2 hours I go back to Ivan and discuss the intiative that he emailed a link to me about.
So I ask "What next?" to which he replies "You can get started." At this point I'm a bit confused since all I have been provided with is an excel spreadsheet with a proposed budget for an education de-segregation project.
"You mean, fill out the proposal forms?" I inquire to which Ivan cheerfully responds "Yes, yes" never breaking his smile.
I told him ok and plunked myself down to write a grant, which I have never 'officially' done before.
Oh, and this just isn't any grant, oh no, of course it has to be for the Soro's Foundation's Open Society Initiative.
So I started scanning through the twenty plus pages of forms of which I needed to fill out including organizational structure, financial history, past projects completed etc...
Mind you this is in my 3rd hour of work.
I brought this to the attention of Ivan and he told me to only fill out what I could.
Lonnnngggg story short, by the end of the day I hadn't even begun the 30 page project description and barely made a dent in the 20 page Organization's History form.
But once this beast is out of the way at least I can move on to News Analysis, which will hopefully be a task I can actually perform well.
Na Shledanou,
Colby
P.S. I'll post pictures when I figure out the Czech word for up-load, it's definitely not the words that mean "navigate away from this page"
1 comment:
I love it bro. That sounds pretty prestigious Colby. I'm stoked for you. Hope you're enjoying the weather and the work and well... in terms of the ridiculous demands that they will throw your way; that's just to be expected (both interns and consultants are bitches until you figure out the boundaries, right?) and then you'll have to put your foot down and let them know what you'll actually have time to complete well in a professional manner.
Un abrazo enorme desde Managua.
MRM
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