November 8, 2016 – finally the day I’ve been waiting for since, like, forever! (December 2015). I was so stoked to prepare for the internship in Durban, South Africa. At first, I was feeling shy about being part of the team. It’s normal especially if you don’t know anyone. But everyone in Montreal was so welcoming and our team (the Participatory Cultures Lab) was super supportive!
So, on the first week of my arrival, I was fortunate enough to come during the time Montreal was hosting the National Women’s Studies Association Conference. I was able to learn more about what some women were facing in some parts of Africa. Sadly, just before the week was over, I got sick.
Of course, our schedule was tight and well planned at McGill University, but there was so little time to do other workshops and activities. Practically every part of our time in Montreal and everything that we did there from the work to meeting people, building teamwork by using workshops, activities, writing blogs and having meetings, was valuable…
My favorite part as an intern, was the celebration of A Space for Arts. I learned how other people used different ways to express their feelings. As we have many artists back home that use different ways of arts to express themselves but these were different from what I had seen from home. The university was approved to bring some arts to bring colour and interest to the campus which was bit dull before.
I believe that our team at the Participatory Cultures Lab learned more about our home when Tonya and I made a presentation about Nunavut. Nunavut is a young territory, so not everyone knows about our place. They had just learned about how we lived then and now. During our presentation, I noticed that everyone had been attentive to everything we had written up for our presentation and asked a lot of questions which we answered keenly.
