BENGARLAND!com

I am seriously on the fence about whether or not I will recommend that anyone else from UGA comes to EARTH University. At least not until they improve the intern program here. The following criticisms may be harsh, but all of the interns here feel more or less the same way. They might not agree on the same issues, but they have just as many complaints. And let me say first and foremost the complaints are not really with the people… the people are great [well, except for the final complaint]. Everyone here is extremely nice and I have made lots of friends. The problem is with the rules and the general administration and organization of things.

One.

The first problem, for me, is that I HATE the living situation here. We are forced to live in the dorms even though there are empty rooms in the on-campus hotel as well as on-campus temporary housing (like a shared apartment).

Living in the dorms means putting up with a roommate who doesn’t go to sleep at the same time as you, who turns on the lights even if you are sleeping, plus other people who generally make noise (everyone here YELLS when they communicate for some reason), and the dickheads who think that playing their idiotic “Reggaeton” music at full blast at 2am on a Wednesday is a good idea. Not to mention that I have to share a community bathroom that looks and smells like a pig sty, because the students are responsible for (not) cleaning them.

Now I know you might be saying, wow, that’s a really spoiled position to think that I should get my own place to live. But I really don’t think it would be a big deal if all of the interns shared one of the apartment houses. There is room for 8 people, and there are currently 6 interns here right now. But my biggest issue with this is that EARTH students who come to the US for their internships get their own apartment — they don’t have to live in the dorms at UGA (or any of the other universities I’ve heard about). Why should we not be treated the same here?

When I came here to learn and work, and I have to get up at 5am almost every day, getting enough sleep is my top priority. Unfortunately I can count the days that I’ve gotten more than 7.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep on both hands. Ultimately, a significant part of why I have been unable to get the full potential out of my experience here because I’m tired nearly all of the goddamn time.

Two.

The next problem I may be misinformed about, but according to the students that I’ve talked to here who have done an internship at a university in the U.S., all of their associated financial costs have been paid for by the host university. That is, when an EARTH student comes to UGA, UGA pays for their flight, their food, their apartment, etc.

Why does the money not flow both ways? I had to pay $700 for my plane ticket, about $200 in incidental expenses, and $600 for the meal plan here. That’s $1500. Thankfully, part of this was paid for by various organizations and offices at UGA (but I had to ask and keep my fingers crossed) — there is no official program to pay my expenses in full. Why not?

Three.

The third problem is that the internship program here does not make use of our time. I don’t know why this is, because there are a few people here at EARTH who are working hard to make the internship program a success. But all of the interns feel like we are wasting our time here.

I’ve learned a few things, had fun for the most part, and made a lot of friends. But most of the time my day at the organic farm consists of shoveling pig shit and cutting sugarcane and other plants for the pigs to eat. There is/was a project to build a bio-digestor but that got held up because for some reason the bulldozer came and dug the hole for it, but the hole wasn’t big enough, but nobody told the bulldozer guy that before he left. So then we have been waiting another 3 weeks for the bulldozer to come back and make the hole bigger. In the meantime I have been shoveling pig shit.

The organic farm is also not as big as I thought it would be. Or rather, not as built-up. There are about 50 pigs, there are 8 buffalo, and maybe 20 goats. But they don’t even really know why they have the buffalo, and the pigs and goats are part of some long-term project that I don’t really understand. There were 300 chickens but they had to kill them all because they got some weird lung virus. It just seems like a bunch of random parts that aren’t connected yet. There are hardly any fruits or vegetables grown. Basically, it just doesn’t seem like a production farm (because it isn’t), so there is little I can learn.

Both of the other interns have expressed similar disappointments with their internships in social work with the community and the chemistry lab here. It seems we were all promised or led to believe that we would be part of a project, or some kind of plan, and it turned out that we are nothing more than basic laborers. Sad.

The internship program here needs more organization and more planning to make sure that our time is put to better use. We all wish we could be helping and learning at the same time. There should be goals set up… a plan… so the interns can actually LEARN something. Isn’t that the point of hosting interns, to teach them and have them help out? It’s like every day we have no idea what (if anything) we are going to do besides lame-ass basic labor.

As one intern put it:

“What am I going to do today? Hmm. Sleep. Sit around. Do some meaningless work. Wait for lunch. Get bored. Wait for dinner. Go to sleep.”

I feel bad for the other interns, because I think I’ve actually had one of the better experiences here. I’m participating in two classes, and I was working on a community organic farm for a few weeks before I had to quit due to the chicken virus quarantine (which was at EARTH’s organic farm). The other interns do basically the same thing every single day.

It would also be nice if they could have some bikes for the interns to use. Most of the students here have bikes (some of which are apparently owned by the university). And the campus is so big it’s nearly impossible to go explore it without a bike. I’d be a lot happier here if I had a bike to ride. But in the scheme of things this is a very minor complaint.

Four.

Communication. The communication here is so bad I don’t even want to get into examples. People just expect you to KNOW things. Like through osmosis or ESP. “Hey, why weren’t you at the meeting the other day?” — umm, maybe because 1) nobody told me and 2) nobody sent me an email. Perhaps? I mean what am I a fucking psychic?

Actually I will get into an example that is primarily about communication but also about so much more.

Last night and today there were the “EARTH Games”, a competition between different teams on campus. All of the other interns, as well as several of my friends, were on a team called “Almendro”. And they asked me to dance with them, and do the swimming relay, play mud volleyball, etc. So I said sure.

We practiced our dance for a few days, got everything down, and had a good time. Meanwhile, the day before the competition, the people in my building (”Cedro”) tell me that I have to compete on their team because I live in that building. And that I should have “known the rules” (like magic!). This is after they already knew I was on the Almendro team, and when they could have asked me to be on their team before my friends on Almendro did. But they didn’t. And nobody told me of this stupid rule.

I went to talk to one of the people at the internship office, and they told me the rule did not apply to me because I am not a student… and that I can play with whichever team I want, as long as I stick with that team during all of the games. Which makes sense, right? I’m not a student, I’m only here for a few weeks, and I wanted to play on the team that my friends are on… who cares, right?

Well, somebody from Cedro complained to the judges last night after the dance competition and got our Almendro team disqualified (from the dance), because technically I should be on the Cedro team “according to the rules.”

Then this morning, the judges told me I have to play with Cedro because I live there (actually, I only go there for about 7 hours every night to try to sleep, but I digress). Never mind the fact that I’m not a student, I was told by the intern office that it was okay, all my friends are on the Almendro team, Cedro never asked me to play with them until they found out I was on another team, etc.

We talked to at least 3 different people, and even the woman in the internship office who told me it was okay, talked to one of the women on the judges panel… and the judges still wouldn’t let me continue to play with Almendro. What is wrong with these people?

At this point I should point out that these judges are adults on the administration staff. They were being complete asshats, acting like we were competing in the fucking Olympics or the Tour de France.

Have they never heard of FUN or TEAM SPIRIT or JUST GODDAMN BEING NICE???

I mean really, it’s not like 10 babies were going to die if I competed with my friends on Almendro. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

So the Almendro team lost 5 points for the dance (even though we were 2nd place out of 6 teams, from what I heard) and the only way I could have participated in the sports today is to play with Cedro, which I wasn’t about to do because of their bad sportsmanship and the fact that they really didn’t want me on their team, they just wanted to fuck over Almendro.