At Long Last...Pictures

So, yes, it took me until the last day of class to get pictures to post to my blog. Whatever. This is PSI. Or, this is the building that houses PSI. We own the whole building, but only occupy about 4 of the floors. We rent out the other ones. After two months the security guard still didn't recognize me.
I think you can tell a big nonprofit from a small nonprofit by their wall decorations and their lobby. This was the hallway leading into the lobby. The collage was huge and some graphic designer obviously spent a long time working on it. And was paid. Our lobby was also pretty swanky. (PSI is a big nonprofit).
Finally, this is the aforementioned Greek Deli. It's not much to look at but the line went out the door for several hours every day. Try it.

PSI on YouTube

I just discovered that PSI has its own YouTube channel. There are videos concerning all of the issues that we deal with, namely malaria, reproductive health, water/child survival, and HIV.

The countries that were included in the PSI definition of Southern Africa were Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. I'm not really sure why Mozambique and Namibia didn't qualify. But they didn't. The PSI YouTube page doesn't have many videos up dealing with these countries, but there are a few TV spots for Zambia and a cool video of Ashley Judd (who is on the board of directors) and Sally Cowal, our Senior Vice President, demonstrating PSI's point-of-use water purification products to Madeleine Albright. There's also a video narrated by Ashley Judd that looks at our HIV programs in India, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia. I think it gives a pretty good overview of the kind of work that we do, plus it focuses on one of the countries that I did so much paperwork for.

Summing It All Up

I didn't meet the head of the Southern Africa department until my very last day at PSI. When I did, he asked me what I had learned over the past two months. I looked at him, and smiled, and said "Scanning." He laughed, I laughed, my site supervisor laughed.

In a sense, this was a very true statement - I did a lot of PDF scanning during my time at PSI. It was not exactly the bane of my existence, but I had been warned that being an unpaid intern at a nonprofit might merit this kind of work - and it was true. I scanned, I copied, I printed, I stapled, I made reservations for company bowling parties, I emailed, I fact-checked spread sheets, I drank free V8 from the company vending machines, and I ran one errand to Staples. I never had to fax anything (thank God). I was not by any means a necessary cog in the PSI machine, but every so often I helped make the organization run a little bit more smoothly, and when this happened I was aware of it. Even if that just meant making sure that someone's ergonomic keyboard had the right adapter.

I never had a formal orientation or any kind of training at PSI. This made for a situation in which I was really learning things as I went along. I didn't know the PSI acronyms, I didn't know where the media room was, I didn't know what projects we were working on, I didn't know what the term "private sector" meant (I'm still not sure that I could operationally define private sector, but I'm really good at saying "PSI works to find private sector solutions to health problems in the developing world..."). Everything at PSI was totally new to me - the entire world of nonprofits was new to me. I was happy to be at the office, and I felt that the office was happy to have me. I rarely found myself wondering when I got to go home, or why I was given such crap work to do, but I did feel like I was learning to walk and learning to run at the same time.

In the end, though, I got it down. I knew where the media room was, I knew how to scan a Brazilian passport, I knew how to access whatever computer file I had to access, I knew the acronyms, and I could sit through a brown bag lunch and understand (most of) what was going on. It's hard to articulate how a set of office skills is really in any way a helpful thing to have gained from my time at PSI - after all, becoming a good scanner wasn't exactly the goal of this endeavor - but scanning a document that proves that the Gates Foundation gave the organization that you intern for $4 million can sometimes be a really good thing.

What Might Have Been: The Lunch Blog

Even though I was not a fan of waking up early, commuting, or dressing in business-casual attire, I have to say, I'm kind of going to miss PSI. At first I thought that being the Southern Africa intern would mean that I'd adjust to waking up early (never happened), that I'd be impeccably dressed every week (didn't exactly happen), and that I'd eat really interesting lunches at different downtown locations every week. I had planned on keeping a running tab of my lunch adventures on this blog, with mini-reviews and pictures of the interesting food I'd eaten. Clearly, this never really happened. Here's why: (Mostly the why is just because I never took pictures/ate at interesting places/ate lunch at all.)

On my first day, my site supervisor took me out to lunch at Corner Table and I ate spaghetti carbonara. It was okay. There are no pictures.

My second week at PSI I went to Greek Deli for lunch. This place was literally next door to PSI and was totally famous in a secret, downtown, kind of way. There are a lot of things I could say about this place. Mostly, the food made me feel like I had to take a nap.

My third week at PSI I went to a brown bag lunch presentation on malaria in southern Sudan. Seeing as I hadn't packed a brown bag lunch, I didn't eat one. I drank a lot of V8 that day. Drinks from the vending machines were free, which was awesome.

My fourth week at PSI I grabbed a grilled cheese sandwich from Cosi for lunch. No one wants to see a picture of that.

My fifth week at PSI was the day after election day. I went to a brown bag lunch presentation on point of use water programs in Ethiopia. Everyone was too elated to care that after that a friend came and met me at the office to go to Greek Deli.

During my last two weeks at PSI I didn't leave my desk to eat lunch. So, the fun internship lunch blog never happened. Oh well.

Day 7/The End

Just finished my last day at PSI. I garnished it with a spreadsheet made in Microsoft Visio. I will do a reflective post in summation of my experiences (or perhaps more than one - many and learned as they have been) after I decompress.

Day 6

I have spent almost all of today fooling around in PowerPoint trying to make a new Southern Africa Organizational Chart. PC's aren't cut out for these kinds of tasks. They just aren't. I'm proud to announce that the Southern Africa Department won best group costume during the office Halloween party. I'm not really sure what we were, but the pictures are incriminating.

Anyway, I've spent 5 hours trying to figure out who's who on the ex-pat hierarchy of PSI. Can't talk. Am in hell.

Day 6 Nubbin

George Bush is going to spend the last 68 days of his presidency spying on me. No, really, he is. Rachel Maddow told me. Let me further evidence this story by telling you that when I got to work this morning ther were emails waiting on my computer. From the future.

Day 5

The office was empty when I got here this morning, so I left a note on my boss's desk that said "Hi Townley. I'm here. No one is in their office so I'm going to sit and enjoy my hot cocoa - and Obama's victory." One might argue that reading The Bell Jar (which I'm doing of my own accord, believe it or not) is not quite celebratory behavior, but I enjoyed starting the day with Sylvia Plath and a Grande Hazlenut Signature Hot Chocolate (they have the Christmast cups out at Starbucks, you know what that means) rather than being thrust immediately into the media room with a pile of documents to PDF.

The general attitude in the office has been one of relief. There has been lots of election discussion, lots of hugging and high-fiving, and thank-Godding. That said, an office wide email was sent out this morning reminding us all that "George Bush remains President until January 20, 2009. His Administration and its policies remain the USG operating environment for us until then... It's worth remembering that, overall, USG resources have allowed us to do great things over the past eight years. We may welcome this election for personal or policy-related reasons, but PSI is nonpartisan." In the midst of the excitement that's sweeping DC - the excitement that kept many of us up past our bedtimes last night - it's important to keep these facts in mind. Even if I did roll my eyes a little.

I was sent on my first PSI errand today - down the block to Staples to find an adapter for an ergonomic keyboard that Luke (the aforementioned Mr. Zambia/Zimbabwe) insisted he needed. I was trusted with the PSI Staples credit card, and tax-exempt card, and discount card. Big stuff.

I also attended another brown-bag lunch. This one was a presentation by Henock Gezahegn, the Director of Marketing and Technical Services for PSI Ethiopia. I'll be honest - a lot of the talk went completely over my head. The focus of the presentation was "exploring the Total Market Approach for sustainability of Point of Use water programs." I recognized some of the names of the water purification products that we market, but beyond that, I felt like I'd need a business degree in order to understand the rest. The PSI website breaks down our work on safe water in a more accessible way, and I might have done well to read this explanation of PSI Ethiopia before attending the talk.

Now that I'm finally comfortable in the office, I realize that it's talks like the one Henock gave that help to put PSI in perspective on the global scale. The work that this organization does is huge. It really is. I'm so happy to have the chance to be a part of it, even if some days my biggest responsibility is emailing an ex-pat in Zambia to ask for her cell number so we can update our personnel records.

Day 4

Note: Because I was sick last Wednesday what is supposed to be my fifth week at PSI is actually my fourth.

I was up early enough this morning to grab a copy of the NYT to read on the train. And, once I got downtown I stopped at Starbucks to get a Grande Caramel Apple Spice. I am a stereotype (albeit one that doesn't drink coffee). As my assignments were being doled out this morning at least 2 or 3 people asked me if I was feeling better - this is like .016% of the office staff, but it's nice to know they've noticed my presence, even if the security guard still doesn't recognize me.

When I walked into "my" office there was a Word document up on the screen titled "Writing Test" and then had some questions about how you would write a letter to the president, and so on. My first thought was "Jeeze, I'm only an unpaid intern. This seems like a little much." Turns out HR was using the office for what I imagine was a job-interview thing. "You can sit here, at Thidar's desk," my supervisor told me. "Oh, is Thidar not in today?" I asked. "Poor Thidar. She's stuck in Myanmar." Oh... It's not uncommon for things like that to fly around the office. Being stuck in Myanmar is kind of extreme, but at least once a day I overhear something like "No, we can't schedule it for that day. _____ is going to be in Namibia."

This morning I had to prep a bunch of files for an annual budget meeting. I was doing all of this for Luke, who heads up the Zambia and Zimbabwe departments. I can only assume this meeting was very important - there were several utterances of "I *expletive* hate these *expletive* things" and "My boss is so anal about this!" (He's still walking around, so I think it went okay). Luke put me on a timetable - "I need all of this in half an hour," - and instead of feeling flustered, pressured, or just scared of screwing something up I felt capable. I can finally make it to the media room without walking multiple laps around the 6th floor. It seems I've even begun to understand a little bit of what the hell all of the documents I'm working with are about because I've started to notice (and correct) mistakes in some of them. Basically, my confusion about PSI has lessened, and is shifting from the general (Wtf do they do here?) to the specific (What's the best thing that I can do here?).

Day 3

I spent the morning in Zambia - not literally, unfortunately, but filewise. I was working on developing a tool (i.e. spreadsheet) to help keep the Zambia field team on track. I also organized a bunch of Activity Status Reports for Zambia and Madagascar. This kind of work involves picking through documents that have been scanned so poorly that you can barely read them, looking for a certain date or number to verify another date or number on another piece of paper. Mostly, I think this stuff is very boring (and also frustrating because you can almost never find the piece of information you need). Every so often you run across an interesting fact or figure, but still. Are there not robots? Is the computer not a robot?

I was temporarily released from the holds of budgets and contracts when my boss suggested we go to a brown bag lunch presentation on malaria in southern Sudan. Most presentations that come to PSI are, as I might have guessed, pretty business oriented. This one, however, was a photo documentary of PSI's recent (and successful) efforts to deliver 1,000,000 mosquito nets to southern Sudan. There was some NGO lingo that went over my head, but I think I got the gist of it.

The campaign was remarkable in many ways, if not just for the sheer unlikelihood of its success. Planning was held up due to several unforeseen factors, including a census that was being conducted by the government. There were also big time constraints put on the distribution by southern Sudan's rainy season, which makes mobilization almost impossible. Somehow, planning and distribution were all successfully condensed into one four month period, starting in January of 2008 and ending in April.

Frankly, I'm kind of astonished that this accomplishment hasn't recieved more press. This is the first time mosquito nets have ever been given out for free in southern Sudan (also surprising). These nets are intended to cover 2 people, and officials estimate that it will take about 6 million more nets, with 2-3 people sleeping under each one, to fully protect the population of southern Sudan. PSI hopes to complete such a distribution by 2011.

We had the photographer and several of the team leaders with us for the talk, and then for the Q&A session. One woman asked "Did you try to use distribution sites for other kinds of education as well because you had such large numbers of women in one place at the same time?" The answer to that was a resounding no - let people worry about their mosquito nets, don't overcomplicate things. There were also lots of questions about proper usage - had there been net-hanging lessons, what kind of follow up was being done, etc... And then one guy said "I was having a talk with someone the other day about how the people in southern Sudan use these nets on their cows because they value their livestock more than their children. Are you doing anything about that?"

Today was a whirlwind, which I maybe should have seen coming when my train got stuck behind a broken one first thing this morning. It was gratifying to see some of what PSI does in a tangible, real world context. Also, I am out of staples.

You can watch photographer Jenn Warren's photo documentary 1,000,000 Nets: Fighting Malaria in South Sudan here.

Day 2

I did not know this building had a PA system. It just went off and I was rather startled. Other bits of housekeeping news include that my office now has a trash can.

My work today was all clerical - converting hard copies of timesheets and product orders and contracts to PDFs and saving them to the elusive and holy H Drive. As I walked into the media room at 9:20 (early) the IT guys were taking a computer out. Never a good sign. I had to wait a while for another one to open up, so I read through the documents I was about to scan. The finer points of business can be excruciatingly boring. I did, however, learn that our overseas staff seems to work about 44 hours per week. Not really sure when that will come in handy, but still. Today was a weird day because my site supervisor had to leave early to go on a trip, and I have apparently lost my mind seeing as the PA system just scared me again. I'm hoping that during the next few weeks I'll be able to sit in on a Southern Africa department meeting and see how those actually work.

Day 1

Today was my first day at PSI and although I generally try to avoid waking up this early (a 9 AM start time meant a 7AM alarm) I have to say it was worthwhile. Today was all about learning the ropes and getting situated. I am sitting in the corner office, which has huge windows and views of the business district. The extra office is nicer than the cubes the actually important people are crammed into, and I feel kind of guilty about it. The morning started off with my site supervisor, Townley, introducing me around the office as "the new Southern Africa intern." Everyone I met was incredibly welcoming.

I did a lot of reading today. I have a fancy color copy of the "Southern Africa Organizational Chart" which is kind of a pictoral hierarchy of the staff both here at the DC office and in Southern Africa. It looks sort of like a family tree. I also have a list of 255 acronyms that seem to be a standard part of office lingo. These vary from LUB (lubricants) to IS (iodized salt) to MPPT (malaria pre-packaged treatment), and the 252 others that come before, after, and in between. I've also been given a chart that explains which sections of PSI receive LAD (large anonymous donor) money. I don't really understand the whole LAD concept yet, but I do know that it is big and very important money and it means that the computer system is insanely secure. Or something. I also read a bunch of research articles on the benefits of male circumcision and HIV transmission reduction in sub-Saharan Africa.

I also spent some time familiarizing myself with the computer filing system, and learning how to scan documents to create PDFs. The office is really just a big circle, or several floors of big circles, and I inevitably end up doing a lap or two around before I figure out where I need to be. I did manage to put the outgoing mail in the correct box. I think.

I'd originally imagined PSI to be smaller than it is. Townley told me that there are more than 160 people in this office, and I think I remember reading in some document that there are actually 189. Not a small NGO! I was also a little surprised by the vast age range of the staff; I've met a few employees who are only a few years older than me, and one girl who originally started as an intern.

Although today was definitely a "first day" with lots of logistics to sort out and paperwork to do, I still found it really exciting to be here. While I was riding the metro to Farragut North with all of the morning commuters I felt like I was playing a game of dress-up-and-pretend-to-work-in-an-office. After 6 hours of actually being at PSI, it's starting to feel a little more real.