Service Learning Placement

Disclaimer: this entry is less upbeat, but know that I still love it here!

I’m beginning to grow quite frustrated with the registration process for classes here. I am in a program that is pretty much set. I have several 9 hours a week of Theory of Service Learning and Community Development, 3 hours of Afrikaans, and 3 hours of a political science elective. I really want to take a number of them, but the ones I like best (and am allowed to select) are Negotiating Transitions and Transitional Justice. These were originally scheduled for Saturday morning and afternoon. Not surprisingly, they had low enrollment. The positives are that they are combining the two so I don’t have to choose one over the other and that they are rescheduling. The frustrating part is that I don’t know when (though Friday night is most likely), so I can’t finalize my schedule yet even though we’re two weeks into classes and final decisions are due on Thursday. Still, I’m sure I’ll learn a lot in whichever elective course I end up in and will be glad I could take it.

Today I found out my placement for the service learning portion of my course. I have to say, I was initially disappointed. Last week, the initial list (that was subject to change) posted me at CWS, partnered with my friend Carly. I didn’t know what CWS meant until today, but I was excited to be with Carly and we suspected we would be working with children since that is the most common placement and we both work at summer camps. I found out today that my placement changed to working in the Office of HIV Coordination. That’s an on-campus placement, and from what I can tell so far, it’s mainly an educational campaign. I was placed there because of my background in event management. It turns out that Carly and another girl will be working with children who are HIV affected (HIV+ but not AIDS) or infected (HIV has progressed to AIDS). That was essentially my dream placement. It’s a new community this year because the community where they worked last year isn’t so safe due to uprisings surrounding the upcoming presidential election. When I heard that, I was crushed. I felt cheated: instead of interacting with children in townships, I’ll be staying on campus and encouraging students to get tested and handing out condoms. That’s not what I signed up for.

Now, it’s not fair yet to judge the placement because I haven’t even gotten there yet, and I do enjoy organizing specific projects with an outcome rather than something that is less tangible like making children happier for six hours a week. I’ll have my first meeting with the organization next week and by the end of this semester, I’m sure that I will have a deeper understanding of how to effectively reach out to people and talk about HIV. I’ve wanted to work with HIV care and prevention for 5 years, and this is my chance. I suspect I’ll even be glad I got this placement by the end, but I just hope that I have a chance to get out into the community beyond the borders of the Stellenbosch bubble. For now, I’ll stay positive and try not to judge the experience too much before I find out the full description.