...and I thought grad school was tough on my brain!

Hi all out there in the world. I finally arrived to DC and began my internship 2 days ago at Brookings working on the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement. It is hard to believe that it has only been two days since they have had me jump right in and I already feel like a part of the team with deadlines looming. After presenting me with a list of about 60 ongoing initiatives, we boiled down my projects this summer to the following handful:

1/3 of my time will be devoted to Colombia. I will be helping to go over a draft report on the role of local authorities in the provision of services for the internally displaced, in preparation for an event with Colombian municipal authorities on improving their response and compliance with policies related to IDPs. I will also be helping with some of the research on a study of the role of Colombian IDPs in the peace process.

1/3 of my time will be devoted to special projects, including some research to support a guidebook for Mediators of Peace Agreements on how best to incorporate IDP needs into these formal agreements and into the process. I have already jumped right into analyzing every peace agreement since 1989 to look for references to the internally displaced and to determine which are good examples for future agreements. I will also be contributing later to an analysis of the role of local NGOs in IDP protection, the Nexus between migration and displacement, and prehaps a bit on corporate philanthropy and humanitarian response. Totally up my alley - I love this place!

1/3 whatever comes up! And this could be a million things at this point!! Next week I will be attenging a meeting with the Sudanese government and IDP groups, and another event on Afghan displacement and there are a billion other things happening since this year is the 10th anniversary of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

All I can say is that I am thrilled to be back in DC where there is so much of interest and where I am perhaps realizing that policy work can be extremely stimulating. I went to a lunch borwn bag today with the entire foreign policy staff and heard about their ongoing work on Afghanistan, Ukraine, NATO, the opening of the Arctic, Doha and other craziness.

So far what has amazed me is the amount of time I have to sit and work on one thing, to analyze one issue at length without having to constantly multi-task. Not sure which I prefer yet... seems I may have a bit of A.D.D! Gotta go focus some more - see you later!

Sue

British English?

Spurred by Asher's calling me out, I submit my first (ever) blog entry (luddites: unite!)

India is amazing and overwhelming and frustrating. The size of the place, the depth of poverty, the noise, the smells – of wonderful food and jasmine flowers, of rampant pollution and urine – everything is writ large. Very few people speak English, so it's been isolating at times. It definitely makes you think about how important having a community is. Go Woos!

While there are a lot of important policy and ethical issues that my experiences in India raise, I figured I'd add some levity to this conversation for my first blog entry. In particular, I've found some funny wording.

I love Indian food, but having it at every meal can get tough on the stomach and the psyche. So this past weekend in Hyderabad, I went to a couple places that serve other types of food. The menu at one place included (I write this exactly as it was written):

Plain D'ble cheese pizza

Topped with Just more & Cheese

Chilly Chicken Pizza

Veg. Franky

Chicken 65 Pizza

Topped with...Chicken 65 and Cheese

[65 is a common food adjective: “aloo 65” “paneer 65”, etc. Rumor is there may be 65 spices or these were developed in 1965...]

Also, at the hotel I stayed at, there was a list of Rules and Regulations. The first read:

Lodgers are requested not to disturb or cause inconvenience to other inmates of the Hotel. [emphasis added]

And the last rule read:

If any lodger is found acting in contravention of the Rules and Regulations or misbehaves or is found undesirable, the Management reserves its full rights to eject such lodger from the premises at once.

I was glad they didn't get a good look at me.

peace, -Will

Kuc Mito Dyere

In Luo, the local dialect of the Acholi people of northern Uganda, this phrase translates to "peace requires sacrifice" and is the mantra of my program. Yet, in the course of a brutal twenty-three year war against the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) that has killed tens of thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more, haven't people sacrificed enough?

I'm conducting an assessment of a conflict mitigation program based out of Pader district in northern Uganda along the border with the notorious Karamoja pastoralist warriors. Pader is extremely remote with the nearest market a two-hour drive away. There's no electricity or running water, but the organization's guesthouse is solar-powered providing light in the evenings unless my colleagues get carried away watching football matches.

The program aims to prepare the internally displaced communities for the reintegration of former LRA combatants through the formation of local peace committees equipped with training on conflict resolution, transitional justice and reconciliation methods. Complementary radio broadcasts on gender-based violence, land disputes and other issues of concern identified by the communities seek to reach a broader audience.

The program, like many nongovernmental initiatives, is fraught by common problems of dependency. My supervisor, who is from Sierra Leone and was himself abducted by the rebels in his own country's devastating war, attests firsthand to enduring truth of the program's mantra. He extols the virtues of voluntarism and reminds the communities that this is ultimately their peace to forge and to keep.

At present, however, the peace that exists is tenuous at best. The LRA's elusive leader Joseph Kony has repeatedly failed to appear at the Juba talks to sign a final peace accord with the Ugandan government and there have been recent massacres along the southern Sudanese border. Rumors of child abduction and rearmament abound. The Ugandan government, in a recent joint announcement with the DRC and MONUC forces, the Central African Republic and Sudan, vowed to wage regional war to eliminate the LRA dissidents.

Last week, I interviewed a local peace trainer with our program whose husband had been killed by the LRA and who had been subsequently abducted while she was pregnant and beaten so badly that she went into early labor. Her premature infant son died several days later from severe brain damage. Nearly a decade later, she was at the local hospital to visit a relative and encountered the rebel who had beaten her so many years before. She recalled that he was alone and starving in the hospital. Without recognition of their previous connection, he implored her to help him. She visited him to bring him food and keep him company everyday for a month until he recovered. Only then did she remind him of their fateful shared history and he asked for forgiveness. They remained friends until he perished of complications from AIDS last year. 

Her story reminded me that ordinary Ugandans are creating peace even in the absence of a formal peace agreement. The capacity for forgiveness is astounding. I'm not sure what a lasting peace requires, but at a minimum it does seem to require sacrifice.

My Top Seven

I am in Kansas City, Missouri to intern at the Kauffman Foundation.  It is in the middle of America.  Need I say more?

7. BBQ ribs, BBQ chicken, BBQ burgers, BBQ ice cream...

6. Improving my sprinting skills to dodge drive-by shootings in East Side Kansas City.  Its code name is "Beirut."

5. My fabulous apartment overlooking the flood-lighted parking lot of Section 8 housing.

4. Playing golf on the rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling green hills of Kansas City.  It never ends.

3. Doing micro-enterprise consulting and documentary film "in the cuts" of Jackson County.  Carrying a sharp object just in case.

2. Free hearty breakfasts, two-dollar meals, trips to DC and New Orleans, getting paid!

1. Learning to attach the "h" sound hwith hwords that start hwith "w" to attempt to fit in hwith locals.  Trying not to feel hweird about it.

Paint pants and timberlands.

I got to Boston and they sent me to Rhode Island. I got to Rhode Island and they sent me to Miami. Who knew that a policy internship would necessitate Timberland boots and paint pants? I am loving this job.

Thankfully, I’m working with superfabulous alum Rob Gordon, who understands what an MPA is (more than just MBA- light). So I get hauled into his office every couple of days for a drill about “policy implications,” “strategic partnerships,” and “deployed knowledge from 501 and other great works.”

He set me up to work with a superfabulous MPA… from Harvard. Despite my initial misgivings, turns out they learn things there, too. And, I’m not just painting murals with the kids! I’m also working with her to develop a handbook of Best Practices for New Site Development. After launching its 19th site, City Year has decided to take a moment and reflect. Good thing I took program & policy evaluation! Oh wait. I didn’t. I took 505.

Best of both worlds

Conversation with a real estate agent (John) while on the back of his motorcycle:

John: Where you are from?
Bilal: Pakistan.
J: You flew in from Pakistan?
B: No, from Sri Lanka.
J: You live in Sri Lanka?
B: No, in the US.
J: Where is that?
B: America.
J: Aaaaaah, now I see.
B: See what?
J: It confuse me earlier, when I see it, I think, your face... it half east, and half west...

More than just a drinking game...

On my lunch break during the QE1 (years ago, it seems), I ran into our dear classmate Marianne El-Khoury in the grad lounge. “Have you heard the news?” she asked. We had been talking frequently about my upcoming visit to her homeland of Lebanon, and I could tell from the look in her eyes that it was serious. “It's war.”

Nearly one month later to the day, I sat in a dark, air-conditioned sedan on the way from Rafiq Hariri International Airport to my flat in West Beirut, imagining what the “war” Marianne had spoken of had looked like. The highway we were driving on would have been barricaded by masked men burning tires and brandishing kalashnikovs, putting a stranglehold on Lebanon’s main artery to the outside world. My neighborhood of Hamra, which had remained an oasis of calm throughout the country’s long civil war, would have been overrun by rival militias battling in the streets, as frightened families huddled together in their back rooms. The stores and cafes would have had their shutters drawn tight, and the tent city of protesters suffocating the newly-renovated downtown would have been bustling with activity in support of one faction or another...


...The view from my balcony, facing east toward downtown and the Mt. Lebanon range beyond. The nice building in the foreground is the Hariri palace, home of the late prime minister Rafiq Hariri (whose assassination in 2005 was a watershed event in Lebanese politics) and his son Sa’ad (who serves as the current parliamentary majority leader). Secretary Rice visited the palace yesterday to "express support for Lebanese democracy," sending the neighborhood into a state of lockdown...

I write all of this not to glamorize the situation here, for in a land where the violent days have outnumbered the peaceful ones for nearly 40 years, there is nothing glamorous about their recurrence. Instead, I write it to draw a sharp contrast with the Lebanon I found when I finally arrived here last Wednesday, ten days behind schedule and three weeks after the country’s rainmakers reached an accord in Doha which brought an end to the political stalemate that had paralyzed the government for the past 18 months.

I wish I could have been here when the deal was struck. Over dinner the other night, my boss at IFES told me of how he had rushed downtown as soon as the news broke. Within minutes, the tent city had been dismantled with remarkable efficiency to make way for restaurant patrons and excited pedestrians. Stores that had been closed for over a year reopened their doors, and the streets and sidewalk cafes were filled with people again. By the time I arrived, life had returned to normal, or at least as normal as it gets these days in Beirut. It was almost as if nothing had happened...


...The view from my office. Despite the renewed calm, the LAF retain a heavy presence in West Beirut and other areas affected by the recent civil strife. Somewhat ironically, the army is the only state institution viewed as independent and objective, which explains why the new Lebanese president was drawn from its ranks...

Almost. There are constant reminders, of course. My five-minute walk to work takes me through no less than three military checkpoints and a parking lot full of armored personnel carriers. Last weekend, at the home of a young professor at AUB I have befriended, we drank Turkish coffee and smoked nargileh (hookah) beneath the fresh shrapnel holes in his living room wall. And the Doha agreement did little to resolve the fundamental political and religious rifts underlying the episodic violence that continues to consume this tiny Mediterranean nation (whether or not a reform of the country’s electoral system would accomplish this will be the subject of another entry)...

...A Greek Orthodox church in Anfeh, home of the El-Khoury family. There are 18 official religious sects in Lebanon, from the Alawites to the Evangelicals, and every Lebanese citizen must belong to one (at least on paper) so that political power can be shared proportionally. At times this complex confessional arrangement has been a remarkable story of human coexistence; at other times, a tragic example of its failure...

Such is Lebanon, from what little this humble, wide-eyed Westerner has gathered so far. There’s a certain tragic beauty to it: life is lived to its fullest, for it is all too precious to live otherwise. The swank nightclubs are packed with well-dressed partygoers of all faiths an fashions; the country is obsessed with European soccer, with each fan claiming a cousin or uncle or daughter in Germany or Turkey or Italy; food and hospitality are exalted above all else. And why not? Lebanon has its own unique history and circumstances to deal with, but if we all approached life with the same appreciation for its finer side, perhaps the world would be a better place. Or at least a whole lot more fun.