Work
From Day 1 I got well integrated into the agency of promotion and advertisement at the FEMA university. The university holds various events throughout the year. When I was there for 4 weeks only I lost count on how many events there were. Because of FEMA having several courses, such as photography, physiotherapy, medical science, business administration, computer science, etc. they have a lot going on every time of the year. The students of the course called “publicidade e propaganda” were working at the agency with me. I was very happy to see that they saw me as a friend from the very first day and would help me with any concern. I spent a lot of time with them introducing me to the daily work they do for the FEMA. Most of them created posters, banners, etc. for the events using Photoshop. I took part in meetings and joined on the preparation before the events were held. As everyone opened up to me very easily I could also be a lot more open than I used to be.
Experience
My accommodation lacked comfort, cleanliness and air conditioning but besides that, it was still manageable for me to stay there for 4 weeks. Still, in Germany IAESTE Brazil has sent me an email with contact details of my host that I would share the room with. I did not like the idea of sharing the room but thought its probably normal. As soon as I got there I found out that it is not so common. So I could have changed the accommodation but I liked my flatmates and didn’t want to move. As the town had two universities, the FEMA and the UNESP there were many students living in Assis or in the area, and also three other interns. In the beginning, I only met the other german guy because he was working at my uni. Later on, I met the two Austrian girls that were working at the UNESP. During my first week, I got introduced to a lot of students that work at the FEMA TV and FEMA FM (Radio), registered myself at the gym and got to know my flatmates, that were also cooking sopa de mandioca (Maniokeintopf) for me. On the weekend I went to Sao Paulo and stayed in a hostel with other interns, mostly german. In my second week, I went out to a bar with the students and also had lunch with a girl I met at the gym. On the weekend I travelled to Rio de Janeiro with two other german interns. In my third week the FEMA wrote an article about us interns and they took some photos of us, the students invited us to a typical Brazilian barbecue and we went to the bar again. On Friday I headed off to Foz do Iguacu, a very famous place at the border to Paraguay and Argentina where you can see beautiful waterfalls. In my last week, my professor invited me to have dinner with her and her son and I also had dinner with a student I became friends with and his boyfriend. In addition to rice and beans, Brazilians eat a lot of manioc/tapioca, coxinha (fried pulled chicken, similar to croquettes), pastels (fried beef empanadas), Poa de Queijo (cheese bread), pacoca (candy made of peanuts and sugar), brigadeiro (candy made of condensed milk and chocolate) or drink mate tea (hot not cold) or coconut water directly from the coconut ♥
Discover
As everyone opened up to me very easily I learnt to be more open than I used to be and I kind of lost the fear of start talking to people. Sometimes I get anxious about things that I have never done before or start worrying about how things will turn out before I even get started. Being there made me see things that I used to be scared of less important or less frightening. It made me feel more confident and also I started to just let it happen. I now have more positive thoughts on my mind in situations that I cannot control. Because that is something you have to adapt to when you travel in a whole different country- YOU HAVE TO TRUST OTHER PEOPLE/s choices and you depend on them. That was and still is not easy for me. So yeah you can plan the whole thing in advance but in the end, it will probably turn out totally different. Ultimately left to say: the internship has greatly enriched my life and will remain unforgotten.
