I have been horribly neglecting my blog, and my only excuse is that I've been doing fantastically interesting things. Since I last updated, I spent four days in South Africa meeting with an NGO for school, and then 10 days with my best friend exploring Kampala and the surrounding (or not-so-surrounding) areas. Since there's a lot to post about, I'm going to do it in multiple entries -- but I definitely want to capture everything that's happened in the last few weeks, so get ready to read a LOT.
My last days at my organization was pretty uneventful. I finished almost everything I was supposed to finish, and will continue to work with my supervisor on finishing up one report we were working on together. The day after I finished at work, I left for South Africa. For those who don't know, I'm on the board of a student-run pro bono group at Penn Law called International Human Rights Advocates, and we find NGOs to support with research throughout the year. I chose a really great legal organization in South Africa that focuses on HIV/AIDS, health and human rights more broadly -- but I had never met any of them (at least not officially; I worked for their sister organization in South Africa three years ago, so I had actually briefly met some of them), so we had decided it was a good idea for me to fly down to Johannesburg to meet with them and finalize the MOU.
There was actually an experts' conference on tuberculosis taking place the day I arrived, so when I got to Johannesburg, I went straight to the University of Witswatersrand campus to attend the second half of the conference... mostly just because I was interested. Most of the NGO's staff was there, so I met a bunch of new people, and the conference itself was really interesting. The contrast between refugee rights conferences (which I attended throughout the summer and found very dry and boring) and a true activists' meeting on health and human rights was stark: I felt much more in my element than I had all summer working on refugee rights, and was actually genuinely interested in all the presentations. In the end, the organization came up with a list of 25 action points -- a hallmark of activists' meetings -- to bring to the attention of the government.
After the conference, the attorney with whom I'd been in touch, Aga, dropped me off at the (very nice!) self-service apartment where I was staying, just four doors down from her house. She was swamped with work after two days of conferences, but offered to get a quick dinner with me. We ordered Chinese from a place nearby, but when we went to pick it up, they were... out of chicken. So we sat in her car and chatted while we waited for our order to get delivered from the other branch of the restaurant somewhere else in Johannesburg. It took over an hour... so much for a quick dinner. But we brought it back to her house and I ate with her and her husband, Matthew (also an attorney), who was really interested in the American legal system and grilled me on subject-matter jurisdiction for a while out of curiosity. It was a good feeling to actually know some of the answers, even though civil procedure was definitely not my best course from my first year of law school.
On Thursday, I went into the office with Aga. We had planned to meet in the afternoon with the head of research to go over the MOU, so I just sort of whiled away the morning. I had offered to be a "day intern," and Aga asked me to do some research on an issue related to foreign nurses' inability to get placed in South Africa, which I started to work on. Aga had suggested that I go to Constitution Hill in Braamfontein in the early afternoon, so I didn't get much work done. I made myself a sandwich in the office for lunch, and then she dropped me at Constitution Hill. The High Court of South Africa is there, and there was a case in hearing that day, so I went into the courtroom and sat in the gallery and listened for about an hour. It was fascinating for my little nerdly brain, even though I hardly understood what they were talking about, as it was very technical stuff. The case was about a private businessman who had forcibly evicted a number of poor black South Africans, who subsequently had nowhere to live -- I think the argument was about whether the city of the province had an obligation to find them housing. The group of evictees was at the courthouse.
At 1pm, I went on a tour of Constitution Hill. It used to be a group of jails during apartheid -- separate jails for black men and white men, but black and white women housed in the same facility. It was very interesting, although I didn't necessarily learn anything about apartheid that I didn't already know; white prisoners got shoes, black prisoners didn't. White prisoners got more and better food, black prisoners got less substantive food and more "high-energy" food so they could do manual labor all day. However, a lot of famous people were held on Constitution Hill -- Nelson Mandela was held there for a few months, Winnie Mandela, Barbara Hogan (the interim health minister after the terrible denialist minister under Mbeki was removed), and Mahatma Gandhi. Apparently, Gandhi actually lived and practiced as a lawyer in Johannesburg for about 15 years, and he really started his movement here. He was imprisoned on a number of occasions before he left for India to really get things rolling. The things you don't know. There was a whole exhibit on Gandhi in Section Four of the prisons.
After the tour, Aga told me she was in a meeting and couldn't pick me up for about half an hour. I went and sat inside the courthouse (but not in the actual courtroom) again. The courthouse is unlike any court building I've ever seen; it's like a modern art gallery. The front says "Constitutional Court" in all 11 official languages of South Africa, and the doors have the Bill of Rights carved on them in all the languages, including sign language. The inside is based on the African notion of "justice under a tree," and there are symbolic elements of a tree all through the main entry area. There actually is an art gallery in the building somewhere.
As I was waiting, the group of evictees went into the courtroom for the second part of the day's hearing. There was one woman with two young children who stayed outside, and I made friends with the older kid. He only spoke isiZulu, which I obviously don't speak, but we managed to play quite a bit anyway. We actually got yelled at by one of the guards, who said they could hear the kid laughing inside the courtroom... oops.
Anyway, we didn't end up talking about the project at the NGO on Thursday. But Aga and another staff member, who is actually Ugandan, went out for dinner together which was nice.
I went back on Friday, where Aga, the head of research and I met for about two hours in the morning.We got the project all planned out and finalized the MOU -- I think the project is going to be good. Then one of their research fellows, a young Namibian guy just out of law school at the University of Cape Town, took me to Nando's for lunch. Nando's is my favorite South Africa restaurant/chain -- all chicken, all peri-peri (African birds-eye chili), and it is amazing. After lunch, a group of people sat around the main tables and sort of chatted about goings-on for a while, and then Aga and I left the office early, because Aga had a number of presentations she had to plan. I just read for the rest of the day, and then I left the next morning to come back to Kampala.
My last days at my organization was pretty uneventful. I finished almost everything I was supposed to finish, and will continue to work with my supervisor on finishing up one report we were working on together. The day after I finished at work, I left for South Africa. For those who don't know, I'm on the board of a student-run pro bono group at Penn Law called International Human Rights Advocates, and we find NGOs to support with research throughout the year. I chose a really great legal organization in South Africa that focuses on HIV/AIDS, health and human rights more broadly -- but I had never met any of them (at least not officially; I worked for their sister organization in South Africa three years ago, so I had actually briefly met some of them), so we had decided it was a good idea for me to fly down to Johannesburg to meet with them and finalize the MOU.
There was actually an experts' conference on tuberculosis taking place the day I arrived, so when I got to Johannesburg, I went straight to the University of Witswatersrand campus to attend the second half of the conference... mostly just because I was interested. Most of the NGO's staff was there, so I met a bunch of new people, and the conference itself was really interesting. The contrast between refugee rights conferences (which I attended throughout the summer and found very dry and boring) and a true activists' meeting on health and human rights was stark: I felt much more in my element than I had all summer working on refugee rights, and was actually genuinely interested in all the presentations. In the end, the organization came up with a list of 25 action points -- a hallmark of activists' meetings -- to bring to the attention of the government.
After the conference, the attorney with whom I'd been in touch, Aga, dropped me off at the (very nice!) self-service apartment where I was staying, just four doors down from her house. She was swamped with work after two days of conferences, but offered to get a quick dinner with me. We ordered Chinese from a place nearby, but when we went to pick it up, they were... out of chicken. So we sat in her car and chatted while we waited for our order to get delivered from the other branch of the restaurant somewhere else in Johannesburg. It took over an hour... so much for a quick dinner. But we brought it back to her house and I ate with her and her husband, Matthew (also an attorney), who was really interested in the American legal system and grilled me on subject-matter jurisdiction for a while out of curiosity. It was a good feeling to actually know some of the answers, even though civil procedure was definitely not my best course from my first year of law school.
On Thursday, I went into the office with Aga. We had planned to meet in the afternoon with the head of research to go over the MOU, so I just sort of whiled away the morning. I had offered to be a "day intern," and Aga asked me to do some research on an issue related to foreign nurses' inability to get placed in South Africa, which I started to work on. Aga had suggested that I go to Constitution Hill in Braamfontein in the early afternoon, so I didn't get much work done. I made myself a sandwich in the office for lunch, and then she dropped me at Constitution Hill. The High Court of South Africa is there, and there was a case in hearing that day, so I went into the courtroom and sat in the gallery and listened for about an hour. It was fascinating for my little nerdly brain, even though I hardly understood what they were talking about, as it was very technical stuff. The case was about a private businessman who had forcibly evicted a number of poor black South Africans, who subsequently had nowhere to live -- I think the argument was about whether the city of the province had an obligation to find them housing. The group of evictees was at the courthouse.
At 1pm, I went on a tour of Constitution Hill. It used to be a group of jails during apartheid -- separate jails for black men and white men, but black and white women housed in the same facility. It was very interesting, although I didn't necessarily learn anything about apartheid that I didn't already know; white prisoners got shoes, black prisoners didn't. White prisoners got more and better food, black prisoners got less substantive food and more "high-energy" food so they could do manual labor all day. However, a lot of famous people were held on Constitution Hill -- Nelson Mandela was held there for a few months, Winnie Mandela, Barbara Hogan (the interim health minister after the terrible denialist minister under Mbeki was removed), and Mahatma Gandhi. Apparently, Gandhi actually lived and practiced as a lawyer in Johannesburg for about 15 years, and he really started his movement here. He was imprisoned on a number of occasions before he left for India to really get things rolling. The things you don't know. There was a whole exhibit on Gandhi in Section Four of the prisons.
After the tour, Aga told me she was in a meeting and couldn't pick me up for about half an hour. I went and sat inside the courthouse (but not in the actual courtroom) again. The courthouse is unlike any court building I've ever seen; it's like a modern art gallery. The front says "Constitutional Court" in all 11 official languages of South Africa, and the doors have the Bill of Rights carved on them in all the languages, including sign language. The inside is based on the African notion of "justice under a tree," and there are symbolic elements of a tree all through the main entry area. There actually is an art gallery in the building somewhere.
As I was waiting, the group of evictees went into the courtroom for the second part of the day's hearing. There was one woman with two young children who stayed outside, and I made friends with the older kid. He only spoke isiZulu, which I obviously don't speak, but we managed to play quite a bit anyway. We actually got yelled at by one of the guards, who said they could hear the kid laughing inside the courtroom... oops.Anyway, we didn't end up talking about the project at the NGO on Thursday. But Aga and another staff member, who is actually Ugandan, went out for dinner together which was nice.
I went back on Friday, where Aga, the head of research and I met for about two hours in the morning.We got the project all planned out and finalized the MOU -- I think the project is going to be good. Then one of their research fellows, a young Namibian guy just out of law school at the University of Cape Town, took me to Nando's for lunch. Nando's is my favorite South Africa restaurant/chain -- all chicken, all peri-peri (African birds-eye chili), and it is amazing. After lunch, a group of people sat around the main tables and sort of chatted about goings-on for a while, and then Aga and I left the office early, because Aga had a number of presentations she had to plan. I just read for the rest of the day, and then I left the next morning to come back to Kampala.
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