I hate to be stared at. But in Haiti, white people stand out like cupcakes in a salad bar, so my internship advisor Dr. Blood, my co-worker Jacob, and I all drew stares everywhere we went. It almost seemed we were the only white people in all of La Victore (and actually, it may not be very unlikely).

To close up our summer internship, aqUV took a trip to do some work in Haiti. If you didn’t already know about it, go check out @jyager’s post (You may be impressed by his mosquito bite count—it is true, he had a lot more mosquito bites than I did, but for the record, mine swelled to a far more impressive size and looked far worse).

To be honest, I learned more because of this summer internship and through the ending trip to Haiti than I can say in one sitting. I even find myself learning new things in these weeks after as I think back and reflect on our work.  I hope this doesn’t go too long.

Believe it or not, installing the pump in this well was less strenuous than driving down a Haitian road. (And I don’t mean that the pump was easy).

As a girl studying in the STEM field, I have felt pressured to prove myself to be equally as capable as my classmates. I felt the same pressure growing up as I competed in various sports. But I had never felt so pressured to prove that women are capable problem solvers, tool users, or sports players as when I went to do work in Haiti. It was not that women were directly put down or discouraged, it was just that the Haitian culture includes a ‘women’s role’ and many Haitian women find no reason to leave their house.

The first day in La Victore, I woke up around 6 am. Being unable to speak Creole, I silently watched as the women and girls started their day cleaning the dishes. Mara, a young girl whom I had met the night before, (we bonded over a writing game and a paper airplane), filled a tub with water. Her sister filled another one with soapy water, and they went at it. The smallest girl chased stray dogs out of their yard yelling “put si!”, which I deduced either meant “dog” or “go away”. I avoided the fairly dangerous looking chickens that were creeping around, all the while trying to convey my goodwill and gratitude to the women for their hospitality through smiles. Eventually, one of the women started a conversation with me. Once we got a translator, I was told that she was inviting me to cook with her. I was honored. But I realized that she offered this because she, and the male translator, both expected that I would be staying behind in the house all day with the other women while the men went out to install the well pumps.

The finished power pack. Portable, to get around the fact that Haiti lacks a reliable power grid.

A few hours later when Dr. Blood and Jacob were up, we assembled the power pack in the front yard. The power pack essentially takes in energy from solar panels or a generator and stores it for use wherever it is needed, as energy is scarce and unreliable in Haiti. I was thoroughly grateful that Dr. Blood allowed me to handle some of the more impressive looking tools, even though I did this imperfectly, because the children and the two Haitians from before were watching. I was happy to show them that I didn’t come on this trip to watch the men do the work, but to engage myself and to learn.

Similarly, in both the locations we went to install pumps, I felt the locals staring confusedly at me and I could see them wondering something along the lines of “what is that female doing with a screwdriver?” or “why did these men bring a female along?”. As much pressure as I felt from these stares, I was relieved from it by my fellow travellers, Dr. Blood and Jacob, who constantly supported and affirmed me in my place. They trusted me to carry out work and gave me jobs, and almost made it a point to act like it was normal that I was there. Dr. Blood purposefully introduced both Jacob and I to the project manager, Evens, as his engineering students. Evens was astonished and fascinated that I studied engineering. Afterwards, he kept nodding his head in wonder, repeating “Kortney the engineer” (or in the creole accent “Koatnay da inginear”). I didn’t feel much like explaining to him that I was really only an engineering minor and only study engineering half of the time. I didn’t want to shatter this perhaps newly formed idea that women could become engineers.

Names from left to right: Dr. Blood, me, Jacob, Nate, and Jocelyn.

By the end of the week, I was over the stares. The little girls were following me out of the house to watch me play soccer with the boys. In a skirt. I didn’t mind their stares. Nor the stares of the townsboys. Nor the stares of men passing by. I was a girl, and I was white. I was going to own it.

I hope that I may have expanded some of the Haitians ideas about what a girl is capable of. Especially for those young girls I met in the house. These girls braided my hair, taught me songs in creole, showed me how to cut a mango. I taught them to play speed, to make paper airplanes, and hopefully, that they can kick a ball as hard as some of the boys out there.

I recognize that this post is already too long. But I’m going to keep writing anyways, because there are a few people I want to acknowledge before I log off. Sorry about that. If you get bored, I added some more pictures.

The Haitian countryside is beautiful.

From Dr. Blood I learned about holding your ground, about mentorship, integrity, and about investing in people. Thank you for telling me about your experiences serving and expanding my ideas about service in the world—Through this internship, you made all of this growth and confidence possible in me.

From Jacob, I learned about leadership, and I learned how to take things in stride. I learned how to be truly uncomplaining in any situation, and how humor and laughter can be powerful. Thank you for discussing scary things like careers and the future with me.

From Mara, I learned how to be bold, and how trusting and loving someone can immediately make you a friend. And how hopeless I am at braiding hair!

From Jocelyn, I learned about hard work, overcoming adversity, and dealing with people.

And from Nate, I learned the importance of curiosity, and how to dauntlessly serve others.

I am impressed you made it this far, give yourself a pat on the back. I hope you can see that this summer was truly worth every moment, and I am so blessed to have met all these people. I am so grateful to the CAPS Fellowship program for choosing me, and I am exceedingly excited for the future, and what work it could hold for me.

Sincerely,

Kortney Cena

“What is that you said you are studying? Global Service? Is that a major? I’ve never heard of it before. And an engineering minor you say?

I do have some time on the weekends! Enough to go see the view of Chicago from Navy Pier.

I always get these questions when I share my career as a student at Valparaiso University. I almost dread the questions, because I always have to explain my entire life-plan for it to really make sense.

Whenever I get these questions, I think about how there is a huge opportunity to use engineering in the field of development. But not only to build things, there is a need for people concerned with efficiency and sustainability, people with the mind of an engineer, in this field. I think about how there is a need for people who can draw on their technical knowledge to make practical plans, people who can communicate and research, and who tend to look from every angle to creatively develop solutions to ever arising problems. Engineers can fill the gap between an organization’s planning team and the technicians on the ground, preventing the in-cohesiveness that is present in many development projects around the world.

But how can I explain this all in the one-line answer that people expect?

I manage to stutter out something that includes the words ‘engineering’, ‘help’, and ‘developing countries’, and I’m usually satisfied that I had at least gotten the idea across.

Then, it’s not hard to tell that many people who have heard my elevator pitch life-plan tend to have some concerns about my future. I think it’s pretty nice of them to care about my future.

Generally, people tend to expect that I will work with a non-profit and so they worry that I won’t make any money. Then they begin to wonder whether an engineering minor is enough to provide technical expertise in engineering. These are fair concerns, and be assured, I have thought about them extensively. I’m not too bothered by the first one (and if you want extra reading I suggest you google the term ‘social business’–I find it fascinating!) but the second question has certainly caused me distress.

Last year when I was thinking about studying Global Service, the biggest thing that was holding me back from switching majors was that I didn’t know if an engineering minor would prepare me enough for what I want to do. Would people accept my input if I didn’t have an engineering degree? Would I be handicapped by not having taken some upper level engineering courses like Thermodynamics? Would I still be able to complete technical tasks without having a full major?

Eventually, and after much praying, I heard God calling me to study humanitarian work, even if it meant my future wouldn’t be as secure as it would be in the engineering field. But being able to surrender your future to him– that is what faith is about, is it not? So I became a Global Service major. All the same, a few weeks later I was thoroughly demoralized  by something a professor in the engineering department told me, ( a non-major), as I signed up for his 400 level course. Trying to be comforting, he told me not to worry, I would do just fine because the course would be mostly theoretical and I wouldn’t have to worry about doing any calculations. I knew for myself that I could handle doing calculations, I mean, I had completed almost all the same classes that any mechanical engineering major in my year would have, but what really got me down was that this professor was expecting me to be incapable of engineering work.

Through the CAPS fellowship, I was places with aqUV, a new company that manufactures water bottles that purify water from bacteria and viruses using UV-C light. Its philanthropic focus is to implement the technology in Haiti where clean water is a scarcity. Coming into my internship this summer, I was worried that people here would have lower expectations of me as well. I worried that either all the difficult technical work would be given to my partner Jacob, a senior mechanical engineering major who seemed more qualified to deal with it, or I worried that I would be given technical work, but that I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

My worry could not have been more misplaced.

The first day I came in, I was assigned a complicated, technical task. you can imagine my happiness when the first fear was demolished! The task was to design and create a machine that would stress test the bases of the water bottles to find out how many times they could run before some part, the UV bulb or the circuitry, failed. I was given a few tools– an arduino chip, a breadboard, and some wires– and I was told to go. For this project, I taught myself to code arduino, to use mosfets, displays, and micro-controllers; I drew circuit diagrams, made code flowcharts, designed parts and modeled them on a computer; I learned to solder electrical components, and to 3-D print parts. And finally, after it all, I felt like I had learned more in the first few days of my internship than I had the entire last semester of school!

Task 1: step by step

Stage 1: Planning         Stage 2: Testing           Stage 3: Building          Stage 4: Test the finished product!

Task 3 involves pumping water in and out of bottles.

Since then, I have not had a boring moment. My supervisor, Dr. Blood, is a fountain of information and ideas, and I have taken to fumbling for a pen and paper almost every time he speaks so as not to miss something important. I have even created a list entitled ‘Dr. Blood’s Idea List’ that I continue to add on to almost daily. My partner Jacob is a blast to work with and always willing to lend a hand, as long as he can make a few jokes along the way (in fact, the title was his idea). I have worked on about 5 tasks since I finished the stress test system, and I continue to learn about all kinds of things! One day I’ll learn about how electricity works within building, the next I’ll be discovering how to use solar panels to deliver energy, and then later I’ll be using water pumps, or making circuit boards. I find myself not only able to do my own work, but occasionally able to help with other people’s projects.

I have grown so much during my internship, not only in hands on abilities and knowledge, but most notably I think in my confidence in my ability to learn and to solve problems. I have been able to prove to myself that I can bring some engineering abilities to the humanitarian field, and I have been affirmed in the place that I felt God calling to me last year when I was debating a switch in majors. Of it all, I am most excited to travel to Haiti in a few weeks to implement some of the work we have been doing!

So if you’ve been reading this the whole time wondering the answer to the title question is, here you go: No, my feet do not smell, but my head is certainly running (shoutout to ebrown15), as I’m sure all the heads of interns are this summer! And all I can say is thank you to all who made this possible, learning all these things has certainly been priceless to me.

— Kortney Cena