Well here I am at the end of another week, thoroughly enjoying the fact that it is 9:30 AM and I am still in my pjs :)
To recap two weeks ago- Monday and Thursday we had our official training at work; I definitely feel more comfortable and knowledgeable about the UN system, though I know there is still a lot to learn. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday I went to the HRCAC (Human Rights Council Advisory Committee) meetings that I mentioned in my last post, which was really cool. I got to put on the little earpiece to hear the interpretations, and took my laptop in to take notes. I was so excited to be there, and I can type fairly fast, so instead of summarizing my notes as I went (which is what I should have done, I realize), I was almost literally typing word for word what was being said. By the end of the first meeting, I had about 10 pages of notes I had to go back through and edit and fill in articles like 'the, and, etc.' that I had cut out to save on time when I was typing. Those notes took me quite a while to edit and condense. :) It was really interesting though, they talked about subjects such as the right to food, women's rights and gender equality, discrimination against persons affected with leprosy, education, and other topics. It was also interesting not only to hear the discussion of these topics, but also because the Committee had not quite figured out the logistics of their Committee, so there was quite a bit of debate about different technicalities.
This week at work, we've been listening to some meetings that are taking place upstairs through our phone system in the office. They're called the Universal Periodic Review, a fairly new system of review where each country every four years is required to submit a report of their human rights activities and how well they've adhered to the treaties they have signed and agreed to, and then every other member state of the UN submits either an oral or written response in front of that country and all other members, complementing them on what they've succeeded at and critisizing what they still need to work on. This week up for review were interesting countries such as Azerbaijan, China, Russia, Bangladesh, Canada, Saudia Arabia, and yesterday was Senegal.
So while we were listening to this, I was finishing up the final edits of my notes from the previous week. My boss also wanted a summary of all the meetings to place on our website and in our montly newsletter. It was Thursday afternoon. I was already having a rough day with a not so great test in the morning and just having one of those days where I wondered what in the world I was doing there; surely a mistake must have been made because I have no idea what I'm doing etc etc. But I continued working, I was almost finished with the corrections to my summary that my boss had requested after she had looked over my first draft. It was beautiful. Four pages of extensive research, carefully crafted sentences, and pure literary harmony. I exagerate a bit, but not by much. I was quite proud. I went to email it to my boss, opened it once more to check it over a final time, and what did I find? Not my beautiful summary, but rather my initial draft from about three days ago. I was shocked and panic-struck. We searched EVERYWHERE in the computer, but to no avail. It was the most bizarre thing; I would accept responsibility for this if I could, but saving it every five minutes just to prevent something like this, there was nothing I could have done. It was devestating and frustrating and I just wanted to cry. So this was not such a good day.
But on the upside, I have a very sweet friend at work, Maria. I didn't really want to go to the library and study like usual, and I didn't really want to go back to the campus, I just wanted to get my mind off of this. So we were on the tram and Maria invited me to go grocery shopping with her. Exciting, I know, but I was up for anything. After that, it lead to an invitation to dinner, which I gladly accepted. It was fun, we had pasta and salad and I met her roommates, one of which is originally from Morocco, so he brought out all his pictures and we had a great conversation about Morocco. After dinner, we talked quite a while, and then it got to be quite late so she invited me to spend the night. I didn't have class till 10:00 the next day, so I of course accepted. When I returned to campus the next morning, I told some friends I spent the night in town and the look on their faces was priceless. Their eyes got really big and they all said "You spent the night... in the street?!?" Lol, no.
Friday was an obvious improvement from Thursday, namely because I managed to get the report done for the second time. I think it was better the first time, but I'm trying not to think about that and just be glad it's over. I don't think it's been oficially linked to the website yet, I'll let you know when it has, then you can go read it. Not that it's amazing or anything, but if you're interested. (Oh, I learned how to create pages on the website and manipulate text using HTML language and modify pages and features of the website, very cool!) Right now it still needs a lot of work done; it's quite basic and needs information and more exciting features added, but if you'd like to see a progression of the site, here it is. www.humanrightsnexus.org
Oh, I almost forgot! There was a rather exciting event the other night. There are frequently demonstrations in Geneva and often the UN specifically for various things. For instance, last Saturday there was a massive "manifestation" (demonstration) in the streets of Geneva near the train station against the World Economic Forum. Sometimes these demonstrations are legal, sometimes not, as in the case of the one on Saturday. After they refused to follow the police orders and dispand, demonstrators got faced with the batons and tear gas of the police. Luckily, I was not there, but one of my co-workers accidentally got caught in the middle of it. She went to a police man for help to get out of the middle of it. She had been shopping downtown when the demonstration headed her way and she got tear-gassed. Not cool.
Anyways, the last few days there had been several demonstrators under the big chair right outside the UN due to the crisis in Sri Lanka. ( I really need to find out what the story is regarding this big chair; it's quite random. This massive wooden chair right outside the flags of the UN... Ok, cool. It was bugging me so I just looked up the story behind the chair and here it is. It was built to as art protesting landmines back in 1997, originally intended to be there only 3 months, but because of its success has stayed ever since, and will stay until at least 40 countries sign and bring into force the Ottawa Convention banning landmines that kill thousands of innocent civilians every year.)
Back to Sri Lanka. For those of you who don't know, there is a terrorist group in Sri Lanka called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, that have been trying to seccede from Sri Lanka and create their own Tamil state, resulting in civil war. The protest is due to the fact that many civilians are trapped in Tiger controlled land and are being being caught in the cross-fire. The government had said that they could not help the civilians who were in this area, even though the civilians did not chose to be there and often could not escape. So for the last few days, Sri Lankans from the area had been gathering under the chair with signs shouting "Don't kill Tamils" and other such phrases, urging the UN and the Sri Lankan government to protect the civilians. The protestors were increasing in number every day, until Wednesday when I came to work it had grown massive. My tram stop for the UN is right next to the chair, so when I got to work I already saw the crowds, and then a couple hours later someone came in to work and said that four or five buses had pulled up and people had just poured out. Apparently it was quite well organized and people had come from all over Switzerland and the surrounding area. This was the biggest manifestation my boss had every seen in her time at the office; she told us to be careful going out and not to wear our UN badges. Then, towards the end of the day, there's a huge annoucement over the intercom of the UN building stating that there's this big protest, and that the main gate we usually go out is locked down because it's right in front of the chair, and they have security out but be careful. My boss offered to drive us out, but Maria and I said we'd be fine, so off we went. It actually wasn't that bad; they weren't violent or anything. Just A LOT of people, and it's always a bit more intimidating when that size of crowd is gathered protesting something, you know? Sorry my pictures don't include the massive crowds; they were taken before they began congregating under the chair and I wasn't about to pause on my way out of work that night to snap a picture of the protest :)
So, sorry this has been ridiculously long, and mainly about work (that seems to be all I write about anymore, sorry), but there you have the exciting and mundane events of my past couple of weeks. Tonight we're going ice-skating, and hopefully snowboarding tomorrow. Somewhere in that space of time I should probably think of studying ... Bon weekend a tous! (Have a good weekend everyone!)
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