Life as an Intern

I arrived home last night well after 10.  We had our quarterly community meeting at Creekside and it was my first large event with the organization.  It was exciting to see residents, Creekside staff, board members and city officials come together to share concerns and talk about ways to address pressing issues in the neighborhood such as abandoned homes, vacant lots and a lack of police presence.  My favorite part was when a young girl stepped forward during our housing coordinator's presentation to remind everyone to pick up trash and recycle because that was the best way to keep the community clean!  

It was a productive but long meeting.  The upside to leaving late is missing the hair-pulling, teeth-grinding traffic the City of Detroit spits out every day after regular work hours.  The downside: making it home and realizing that I have to get up in 7 hours and do it all over again.  

I can't really complain though, because Tuesdays lack the high energy required to prep for all the meetings that seem to fall on the first day of the week.  I also surprised myself throughout the morning as I answered the phone and I was able to recognize several voices on the other end...I guess there might be something to this community outreach.  By early afternoon I was feeling pretty good about my progress on the board development project I was assigned.  Then we received a visit.

Our visitor called last week and briefly talked to our housing coordinator before the phone was handed over to me because the gentleman spoke Spanish.  I was thrilled to be speaking Spanish again!  He was interested in seeing the floor plans to our Creekside houses and we encouraged him to stop by the office to see them.  He visited us today and I was excited to share the housing details with him, although I too spoke in broken Spanish.  I guess they didn't  teach me how to say "five-star energy rating" in undergrad. 

After spending time with the prospective buyer I realized how much I miss working with Spanish-speaking clients.  I hope we have more situations like today's-but I guess I should brush up on my realtor vocab first!