By: Melina Mallari

This week has been the hardest for me so far, but it also came with the biggest learning curve. I was introduced to my coworkers and a fellow intern on my first day of work, had a great orientation meeting, and shadowed my friend who manages the company’s social media accounts. I had been feeling under the weather, but I tried to shake it off to not ruin any first impressions––until it became too unbearable to ignore.

I left work early, took a nap, woke up with a fever, took a COVID test, and you can guess how the rest unfolded from there. I’m currently isolating at the hotel where Dr. Leslie Steeves and the rest of the faculty stayed. Under any other circumstances, this would’ve been awesome, because this hotel is so nice! But while I’m still struggling to process missing nearly a week of my time here in Ghana and hoping I got no one sick, I’ve been overwhelmed with love and support from everyone around me. From peers and faculty, to my coworkers, to even the hotel employees, I’ve been surrounded by consistent care and reassurance. My group even visited me on my last day! I’m truly grateful to be experiencing such a stressful situation in this environment. The wonderful people who I’ve come to love deeply are really showing it right now, and I hope I can return the favor when I’m good as new.

Despite everything, this experience has shown me what it’s like to receive the care I tend to show to others. It has shown me the value of making the effort to build connections with those around me. Had I been my usual reserved self and not taken initiative, or constantly been overthinking my next sentence––as is my usual move––, I wouldn’t have felt so connected to those showing support.

I’ve noticed this kind of initiative translates to the workplace too. The only tasks I’ve been assigned at my internship have come from speaking up, like asking to shadow my coworker, or taking on an extra load, or pitching an idea about how to improve the company’s image. Despite not being able to come to work for at least a week, I’ve been able to do some meaningful work and research thanks to my persistence in proving that I’m capable of doing so while having COVID.

I sped through their quarterly social media reports on followings for local radio stations (so quickly that my coworker handed me his task to complete after finishing mine), created social media captions that provided incentives to donate to local campaigns or self-educate on national health and education programs, and am currently doing research for my boss on creating a proposal for introducing media literacy games targeted towards children.

While I wish I’d been in the office, I’m glad I refused to listen to my boss’s generous words telling me not to worry about work. Instead, I heeded her words about being innovative and taking initiative and hopped on that confidence train. I hope that upon returning to the office for our last two weeks, I can do even more.