The new job!

This semester is basically all internship, and my new one has been so good so far. I’m working in the Consejo Nacional de las Mujeres (CONAMU), the Nacional Council for Women. My internship is in the International Relations department.

It was a slow start (hello, Ecuador) but it’s picked up since then and my work’s been interesting. I’ve been doing a lot of typical intern-type things (researching, summarizing declarations, translations, meeting prep guides for my supervisor, etc). But interesting documents, so it’s good. I might develop my own project but we’ll see!

Nifty tidbits:

1) I have my own desk and computer (with internet! Crazy.)

2) 99% of the office is made up of women. The only men are the security guard, the tech dudes, and some of the legal team.

3) It’s unbelievably easy/direct to get to from home. I get a bus right away going to and coming home every day and it’s amazing.

It seems to be a typical Ecuadorian organization and even more of a typical state bureaucratic organization in that everyone’s late all the time and you have to be very forward to find out what the heck you’re supposed to be doing. It’s going to be a great experience, though, and I love my coworkers (at least the ones on my floor!). And I’m going to be learning a lot, which is the important part.

I share my office with Maike, a really nice German consultant who’s going to be here for two years or so, helping them streamline and plan and whatnot. She’s super nice and has been showing me the ropes, which has been very helpful and very much appreciated.

Anecdote: It was funny the other day when I was out to lunch with Maike, Pao, and Verónica (the two people in International Relations), and they asked me how old I was. When I told them 20, they had surprised looks on their faces and said, “But I thought you were around 23 or 24!”…that was just especially funny since my host mom in my last internship thought I looked 15.