This past week has brought all the emotions: from excitement to anxiety; from feeling confident to feeling underqualified. Our first week seemed very relaxing and calm, so all of us were feeling antsy to get started at our jobs. Now after making it through a week of work, I am eternally grateful for the slow pace of orientation week. I’m exhausted from meeting more people, figuring out transportation on my own, and being immersed in my work organization. But we made it!
Overall, my work at Watershed Management Group will consist of a variety of tasks, including attending working group meetings, helping at the welcome center, attending and organizing River Run Network events, and hopefully experimenting with some GIS mapping data in the weeks to come. This first week I was going through various orientation and introduction readings, so it was nice that I wasn’t completely overwhelmed with tasks to do…although that will be coming soon. I was trying to understand the dynamics of how WMG works while also understanding my role and where my position will fit in. Although that doesn’t seem like much, that required a lot of mental energy from me.
MVS has the philosophy that transportation is a justice issue. In wanting to be in solidarity with those affected by oppression, it is essential that we face the discrepancy of access to transportation and the larger impact that operating a personal vehicle has on our world.
On my first day, I rode public transit from my house to work. Since the start of the pandemic, Tucson followed many cities and eliminated transit fares. While it’s about a 15-minute drive, it took around 40 minutes to get there on the bus. It reminded me of the Guatemalan buses I used to take to get to school when I studied abroad, and I was reminded that I can’t control how fast the bus goes…patience is key.
On the way back was another story. Because the buses don’t run consistently in the evenings and I was still trying to figure out the system...it ended up taking 1 hour and 40 minutes to get back home. After 8 hours of sitting in my office and staring at my screen reading, I wanted to get back and eat (for those who might not know me, I often get “hangry” which is the combination of angry, hungry, and tired). I tried telling myself to be patient and be grateful I was sitting on the bus for the most part, and not waiting at a bus stop in the sun while it is 100 degrees. Overall, like most first days of ANYTHING, I was emotionally exhausted.
It was extremely comforting to arrive at the MVS house and see my other housemates and know that they just experienced their first days as well. That evening around the supper table, we shared our first-day stories, and it was humbling to know that we were all having similar feelings of exhaustion. We knew that this feeling was normal and would get better as days went by. We've been making it a habit to plop on the couch and watch a show because we are tired.
As expected, my second day went a lot better than the first. Although I tried to tell myself to be patient with the bus, I decided that biking was going to be so much faster, even if it was going to be hot on the way back. I brought lots of snacks with electrolytes, and I knew even if I took breaks on the way back from WMG, I would be quicker than my bus commute the day before. Little did I know that biking after a long work day, in the heat, and during rush hour on a busy road was going to be stressful, but I made it home!
And...I then learned the next morning that my tire was flat. As someone who isn’t an expert biker, this has been a huge learning curve to be confident with my bike and all the problems that come with it, especially flat tires. So the next day, I went back to the bus. But the bus went a lot smoother this time!
Working at a nonprofit organization like Watershed Management Group is something I’ve never done before, and that’s taking some time to get used to. I realized that the reason I felt overwhelmed initially was that I’ve never had a full-time job with my own office and I just did a lot of sitting and looking at my computer. Although I had just graduated from college, this felt very different. I am used to working on a farm where I was outdoors and doing something different throughout the day, so that was a major adjustment. I’ve been grateful for the conversations with my coworkers at lunch and meeting people throughout the day to feel more like I belong and that what I was experiencing was normal. They reminded me that what I was doing this first week was not what every week would look like, and I was relieved hearing that.
By the end of the week, I was trained at WMG’s Welcome Center. On Saturday morning, I attended a River Run Network (connected with WMG) event to remove Arundo, which is an invasive species that drinks up a lot of the river’s water compared to other desert native plants. There were about 16 volunteers that morning, and it was exciting to be active and participate in an event that I will be helping to organize in the future.
Another fun thing that happened this week was that we experienced our first rain! I’ve always had a fascination with weather events, so I was definitely running from the couch to the driveway to see if it started sprinkling as the grey thunderclouds rolled in. Although we missed the central part of the monsoon storm, I was delighted when it started sprinkling and we could smell the creosote tree, which is what a lot of locals say is the true smell of a desert thunderstorm because of the oils that are released from the leaves.
Some other fun things we did this weekend were going to a local Mexican restaurant, meeting our awesome neighbor Leslie, and attending 2nd Saturdays, which is a downtown event with live music, food trucks, and local businesses open along the streets. I’ve been enjoying these moments of exploring the city and hearing people share their love and appreciation for this city. I also got to see my sister Elisa since she lives about two hours away, and it was refreshing to catch up with her.
Now, as I enter into another full week, I hope for setting a better routine and be immersed more into the work at WMG. I've been grateful for my housemates and their support and others who have sent me messages and letters.
Thank you all, till next time!
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