Working at YAI

Today was my first real day in the office. Last week, I was given the grand tour and was introduced to my new colleagues, but today was the first real day of work. I am working with Youth Action International (YAI), an NGO that works to support and empower conflict-affected women, children, and youth in postwar African countries. My good friend from college and internationally recognized child rights activist, Kimmie Weeks, founded YAI a few years ago and has tried to get me to come work with him for years. Thanks to the Fellowship, I finally have that opportunity.

More than simply working here, I am actually in charge. Kimmie is finishing up his Masters degree in the States and he has made me YAI’s Acting Director for the duration of my placement here. While I have experience running student organizations in college, I have never been in charge of an actual non-profit organization. I am excited and terrified at the same time; excited by the opportunity to really challenge myself and develop my leadership and management skills and terrified that I will somehow mess it all up. In some dark moments of paranoia, I have visions of myself really blundering in my every undertaking and basically capsizing the efforts of this NGO. Those visions usually pass quickly though, as I realize that while I’m certainly not the most experienced person for this job, thanks to the skills and personal development emphasized by the Fellowship, I am actually pretty well equipped to manage this responsibility.
The responsibility is the following: my project is to develop new partnerships and programs for YAI, which means networking and building relationships with many of the other NGOs in Monrovia. I'm particularly focusing on raising youth awareness of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) while also developing a series of workshops for youth groups on peace-building and conflict transformation. Plus I'm going to review and develop all current programs, streamline office efficiency, and conduct trainings for the local staff. So really not all that much to do for the next couple of months…

The Hardship Placement

Two days ago, I finally got a flight out of Côte d’Ivoire and, despite the Liberian Immigration Dept's best efforts to keep me out (yay for showing up without a visa and nearly getting arrested & deported!) I managed to get into Liberia. I have now been here a few days and am gradually settling in…

I live about 2 buildings down from the office so my commute to work will take about 54 seconds—a refreshing change from my long commute in Thailand. My apartment building feels quite secure: not only do we have a 24h security guard, but we're also on one of the few streets that has functioning street lights and we're right across the street from the Ministry of Defense which has a division of the Nigerian Battalion (NIBATT) of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) constantly guarding the building and patrolling the street.


However this placement in Liberia definitely wins the “hardship” award for the Fellowship year in terms of my living situation. Firstly, there are a lot of problems with the power supply to the apartment. Due to the destruction of infrastructure during the years of civil war, there is no way to provide a blanket electricity supply for the whole city. Some local businesses and landlords purchase large commercial generators and charge people in the neighborhood to hook up to it. Others rely on gasoline-fueled personal generators. However the rapidly rising cost of fuel is forcing people to cut back on their generator usage. We have a generator, but due to the expense, we're trying to only use it when the power is really cut, not when it just pops off for 15min.
In addition, there is no running water in the apartment (or the office for that matter). Again due to infrastructure destruction during the war, there are few functional sewage and sanitation facilities. UNMIL has built a couple, but most buildings don’t even have any pipes because the lead and copper were stolen by looters during the war. In order to have water for bathing, cooking etc, our houseboy Bishop takes care of keeping several large water containers filled.

I live with between 5 and 9 Liberians, depending on the day of the week. My full-time roommates include my colleague Isaac and his wife Kula. They have a 5 yr old daughter called Fate who usually stays with her grandparents because Isaac's house burned down last year and they are starting from scratch. My other roommate is Charlotte. She is getting a degree in sociology and has a cute 7-year-old son, Gus, who lives with us. The other roommates are a motley crew of friends, colleagues and extended family members. The apartment is usually bustling, busy with lots of people hanging out, talking and eating in the big living room. When the power is on, they watch bootleg Chinese DVDs of mediocre American movies or listen to live broadcasts of Premier League football matches on the radio. When the power goes off and the apartment gets unbearably hot and stuffy since the fans are off, everyone sits outside, either on our wide balcony or downstairs on the street, chatting with neighbors, friends, and passersby. I usually join them in the evenings, though I struggle to participate in the conversations since the English spoken in Liberia is about as comprehensible as Icelandic to me. No one really knows what to make of this random white woman who is all of a sudden living with them. However, as in every other African country I’ve been to, everyone is incredibly warm and friendly-- and they usually take pity on my confusion and translate their discussions and patiently try to teach me how to understand Liberian English.

From Bangkok to Monrovia... -ish

Last week, I packed up my apartment in Bangkok and left Thailand as discreetly as possible—so as to avoid getting soaked with water and chalk powder by the revelers celebrating Songkran, the wet & wild Thai New Year that coincided with my departure date. There aren't as many direct flights between Bangkok and Monrovia as you would imagine, so my itinerary was somewhat circuitous: I first took a long flight from Thailand to Qatar, and then from Qatar to Morocco. I stopped over in my fellow Fellow’s first placement country for a few days and took in a little sightseeing:

In front of the Hassan II Mosque, the second largest mosque in the world, in Casablanca

I then flew to Senegal and finally on to Liberia. Well that last transition is actually still in progress: I was meant to transit through Côte d’Ivoire but my onward flight was canceled without warning and I’m now kind of stranded in Abidjan. My French fluency and US citizenship got me out of what could have been a really miserable situation and personally I’m enjoying this little unexpected adventure. This stopover in a crime-ridden postwar city is the perfect introduction to my third and final placement in Liberia. Clearly my family is not as thrilled, but the airline is taking care of me and I should be getting on a flight to Liberia within a few days at most... Fingers crossed!

Day at the Beach

I was surprised when I arrived at the office this morning to find it empty. When I got back home, my roommate/colleague Isaac explained that today was a Liberian national holiday known as Unification Day. Soon afterwards, I got a phone call from friend whose Liberian colleagues also neglected to warn her about the holiday. Unlike me, she has the flexibility and independence of her own car and when she suggested going to the beach for the day, I jumped on the opportunity. We rounded up some other friends and drove out the Thinkers Beach (pronounced “tinkas beesh”) for the day. I’ve heard rumors about how nice Liberian beaches are, but have so far been unimpressed by the ones in the city that are unfortunately used as trash dumps. Thinkers is about 20km down the coast from Monrovia and the stretch of beach is rather pristine. While the surf is rough and actually rather dangerous, the beach itself is lovely. It’s a popular Sunday getaway for both expats and Liberians, though the former are baking in the sun and braving the water for swimming and surfing while the latter tend to sit in the shade and sip cold bottle of the local Club beer (rumored to contain formaldehyde), knowingly shaking their heads at the silly foreigners jumping in the water.

Sawadee Ka Thailand

The past few months living in Thailand have been interesting and challenging in unexpected ways. It has been a great opportunity for me to further expand my cultural and geographical horizons and explore more of South East Asia's diversity. Plus my work was fascinating, the food is amazing, Thai massages are cheap, and I could buy movies on DVD before they were even released in theaters in the US.

While the quality of life here in Thailand is great, I was never really happy here because part of me never really understood Thai culture or felt accepted by Thai people. Indeed, I met expats who speak fluent Thai and have lived here for decades, but still do not have any real Thai friends and are not accepted by this extremely closed culture.
In addition, while Thailand is a beautiful country, endowed with gorgeous beaches and landscapes and rich in history and tradition, I feel that it has been corrupted by tourism and recklessly rapid development. Thai people are entrepreneurs who have cleverly commodified their culture, but in the process, they have themselves lost touch with it. In my mind, there’s an unresolved tension between tradition and modernity here. One of the most obvious manifestations to me is the seeming conflict between traditional Buddhist values and beliefs and the way that modern Thailand has so fervently espoused capitalist consumerism. While there are spirit houses in every home and business, the offerings are cigarettes and fast food or drinks from American chains.

Another aspect of Thailand that frustrated me to no end was this sham democracy. While I was here, there were two rounds of elections. On the weekends preceding the Sunday voting, a ban on alcohol sales was imposed for no apparent reason. What exactly were they trying to prevent, citizens emboldened by liquor going to the polls and actually voting against the regime? Or perhaps drunken Thais forgetting who they had been paid to vote for? Most Thai people I asked about the elections did not even know what the elections are for or about! These embarrassing elections stood in stark contrast to the interesting exercise in democracy currently taking place in the US. The fact that few Thai people were speaking out for more genuine democracy made me particularly angry since their Burmese neighbors are fighting and dying for it.

The fact is that there is no democracy in Thailand and Thai people do not even seem to want it because they are happy to simply follow the king. All that Thais really believe in is the monarchy, headed by the longest reigning king in the world--also, coincidentally, the dorkiest. Beyond respect and admiration, Thai people revere their king like a deity. His every utterance and act is sacred and anyone believed to be slandering his majesty can be imprisoned—you can imagine what this does to the “free press.” It’s to the point that the film ‘The King & I’ was banned because it was inaccurate and unflattering of the Thai monarchy.


Like I said, the past few months living in Thailand has been an interesting professional experience and a challenging personal experience in unexpected ways… and I could not be more ready to get out of here and head back to Africa.

Feeling hot hot hot

It’s almost indescribably hot these days. A few years ago, I spent a day in the Sahara desert in Tunisia. It was nearly 45 degrees Celsius and I was covered from head to toe in Bedouin gear as protection from the blistering sun and sudden whips of sand, but the heat there was tolerable. It was dry and stinging, crisp on the skin and hot in the mouth.
The heat in Thailand is different. It is a misty heat that blurs the distinctions between objects and the air around them. I feel like I am melting on the edges and losing the clean distinction between where I end and the haze begins. I am evaporating. The humid fog invades your brain, slows your thinking, muffles smells and sounds… The heat is choking; it sucks the oxygen out and leaves you a little breathless. You can’t even walk or move quickly and I fear that I am quickly approaching melting point. Mercifully, I am wrapping up my time in Thailand in a few days and am heading to the relative cool of tropical West Africa.

Shiny Happy People’s Super Democratic Union of Myanmar (Burma)

I realized when I returned from Cambodia last month that I would actually need to leave Thailand one more time so as not to overstay my visa and incur a hefty fine upon my departure. I was already up in Chiang Mai for a final round of meetings and interviews and some fellow Burmese NGO expats were planning a visa run so I decided to join them. Of course this time, the visa run was to Burma.
I’ve been thinking about going to Burma ever since arriving in South East Asia in January. However it’s not a straightforward issue. Firstly there’s a serious ethical dilemma. The likes of Aung Sun Su Ki have instructed foreigners not to travel to Burma as tourism helps support the military regime. Others however articulate the opposite argument, saying that tourist dollars actually end up in the hands of local Burmese people and can actually do much more good. I did a lot of research on both sides of the ethical issue and was still on the fence until my Burmese students told me that they thought I should go.
Secondly, in my case there was a potential security risk as well. Since Burmese intelligence monitors people they suspect of aiding and abetting the “subversive” pro-democracy activists, it’s possible that they have identified me and will arrest me if I go to Burma. However, in speaking to friends in Chiang Mai who also work with these groups and have been back and forth to Burma several times, I was assured that the security threat to expatriates was infinitesimal as the Burmese junta is just not as interested in creating an international scandal as simply destroying the pro-democracy movement itself.
And so I spent the day today traveling to Burma and back. We left Chiang Mai at the crack of dawn and landed at the border in Mae Sot at midday. We got our passports stamped on the Thai side and we walked the 500 meters across the Thailand-Myanmar Friendship Bridge to the “Union of Myanmar.” As we walked across the bridge, I noticed people crossing the border river below in inner tubes. I thought back to my semi-illegal Rwanda-Burundi border crossing last year and to how porous and artificial most of these borders actually are…


Anxiety kicked in when we arrived at the Burmese border post, but the immigration police were actually very friendly—and not nearly as corrupt as their Cambodian counterparts! But they held on to our passports as we were only allowed to spend the afternoon in Burma and had to return to Thailand before the border closed at 5pm. We were barely in the country for 10 minutes and we already felt the regime’s iron grip.


The afternoon was excruciatingly hot and the entire town seemed quietly suppressed under the heat—or was it something else? We decided to hire a few cyclos to take us around the small Burmese border town for the afternoon. We toured several gilded temples around town and enjoyed a delicious lunch of traditional Burmese dishes. Our final stop was a surprise, the Crocodile Temple, which is exactly what it sounds like: a giant temple shaped like a crocodile.


After a long, hot, and slightly surreal afternoon of sightseeing in what I named the “Shiny Happy People’s Super Democratic Union of Myanmar,” we rushed back to the border just in time to grab our passports and cross back over into Thailand for an overnight in the sketchy border town of Mae Sot.

Teaching Transitional Justice

A couple of days ago I got a call from another organization in Bangkok that works to support and empower Burmese activists. Similar to the school up north, this program selects a small group of young minority women to be interns on a yearlong educational program. They spend several months receiving training at the facility in Bangkok and then they work together to create their own pro-democracy advocacy campaign.

When they asked if I could run a workshop on the topic of transitional justice in just 2 days time, I thought it was an April fool’s joke but then remembered about the so-called last minute “Asian time.” Despite the limited amount of time I had to prepare, I am always keen to teach and I agreed to facilitate the workshop.

While the subject is not explicitly related to my work as an Insight Fellow, transitional justice is one of my predominant areas of interest within the field of conflict resolution and I do have experience in transitional justice. I am conversant with truth commissions because I studied the Truth and Reconciliation Commission during my semester abroad in South Africa. While in the Great Lakes region of Africa, I researched and visited gacaca hearings in Rwanda and studied other traditional methods of justice in Northern Uganda. Thanks to my experience at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and at the ICC, I am also very familiar with the processes of international criminal law.

Drawing on this academic knowledge and professional experience, I was able to pull together a full presentation and workshop on transitional justice despite the Asian timing of the invitation. The group of six young women were captivated by the subject and extremely eager to learn—so eager in fact that they refused to take a break! (For my own sake as a solo facilitator, I insisted.) This bright group was a lot of fun and just as inspirational as my other Burmese students. They had tons of questions and our discussion went way over the allotted time. It was tough when we eventually wrapped up at the end of the day, knowing that I am leaving soon and this was likely my last opportunity to teach and to work so intimately with Burmese activists.

Mediation in Thailand

This afternoon I had a meeting with Supanat of the Office for Peace and Governance at the King Prajihidok Institute (KPI). KPI is an independent organization and government consultancy and was originally one of my potential placements in Thailand. While it did not work out, I still wanted to meet with someone from the institute to get a better sense of their work and understand their role in peace-building and mediation.
Supanat and I chatted for several hours, on topics ranging from his role as an advisor on reconciliation to the government after the 2006 military coup, to the development of peer mediation programs in Thai high schools. Supanat also gave several examples of the various types of multi-party disputes he has mediated. For instance, a dispute emerged when a mining company established itself uphill from a large temple. As the mining concession developed, many local people got jobs working at the mine. However, dust clouded the area, which disturbed the monks’ activities and meditation, and there were several instances of rocks falling and damaging the temple roof. KPI came in set up a community mediation process, in which all stakeholders were invited to participate, and after many months, a solution was finally reached.

Thinking back to November to my time in Croatia, where I assisted on a 2-week USAID-sponsored mediation training program for judges, it was interesting to compare how mediation practices have been adapted to different countries cultures and legal systems. Supanat also mentioned that they use the same basic texts of the trade, such as Getting to Yes (a sacred text at Insight). I was momentarily impressed at how these concepts and practices have seemingly transcended national and cultural boundaries. However, as my appreciation for the differences between Western and Asian culture have grown during my time here, I pushed back at bit and asked Supanat if he really thought that the approaches outlined in those books were actually relevant and appropriate in Thailand. He answered that the basic principles certainly crossed over, but clarified that many practices had in fact been modified to be more culturally appropriate. For instance, he mentioned that emotions are rarely discussed overtly and that mediators are usually middle-aged or older and serve almost as arbitrators who have the authority to decide the outcome of a case. He also explained that mediation was increasingly popular not only at a community level, but also in the criminal court system as a process of restorative justice. Considering how counter-productive the penal system often is in the United States, I thought this was a particularly innovative and valuable application of mediation.

Chiang Mai magic

My brief Cambodian escapade is over and I am back working in Northern Thailand. Last week and over the weekend, I was once again up at the school where last month I taught the conflict transformation workshop to the group of Burmese student activists. This time around, I was working with the students individually. I interviewed them on their backgrounds and their perspectives on the overall training program. The purpose of these interviews was to compare what the students are taking from the program against what the stated goals of the program are, and ultimately incorporating these views into a report to help improve and develop the existing program and curriculum.
My previous experience at the school was so special; it was great to be there again. When the interviews were over, I got the chance to connect with the students on a more personal level, just hanging out, listening to music, and playing badminton and ping-pong… I also met with the school administrators and other staff from the organization, who provided extremely helpful information on the situation in Burma and the role of these young activists.This week, I have several other meetings scheduled with other Burmese organizations and individual activists, who I hope can further enrich my perspective and insight into these issues. In between meetings, I am also getting a chance to explore Chiang Mai, which I didn’t get much of a chance to do during my first trip up here since I was at the school for nearly 10 hours a day. Chiang Mai is an interesting city, laid-back and quaint but also bustling with cultural activities. There always seems to be something to see and do. Since my work is so focused on Burmese issues, it’s nice to get a taste of some Thai culture… For instance, last night I went to a Shan festival at a temple in town. There was food, music and dancing in the compound around the temple. There were even game stands where you could win giant stuffed animal prizes, just like at an American carnival. The comparison with America ended there though, as the vendors around the market area were selling Thai food, tapes of Shan music, protective amulets, and traditional Shan clothing. As my friends and I walked around, we intersected with groups of singers and costumed dancers who were parading around the compound, hoisting blessed children around on their shoulders.