I conquered Meru

This past weekend I summit-ed Mt. Meru, Africa’s 5^th tallest mountain. It’s now Thursday and I finally feel normal again. The first two days were beautiful and the hikes were wonderful. I took over 300 photos of the beautiful red hot pokers, trees, giraffes, buffalos, and, of course, Meru. I “joined” Team Pole Pole (Slowly Slowly) with MS, JS, and MH. Because of the altitude difference, hikers are supposed to ascend slowly. Especially with my asthma, this was not a problem up to the first two campsites.

Summit day, on the other hand, was brutal. We woke up at midnight, had tea and biscuits and started the climb a little after one. One of the girls, MH, was really sick so Peter, our guide, asked a porter to come with us in case she had to stay behind / turn around. In the pitch black and the rain, we marched on for hours - up hills of sand, in zig-zags, and across rock faces. By 630am I was physically and mentally exhausted. My clothes (5 layers of shirts, 3 layers of pants and snow gloves) were completely drenched. Between the rain and the wind, I was sure I was going to lose some body part(s) to frostbite or die of hypothermia. I starting blaming Peter for telling me that I could do it when every peak that looked like it could/should be the summit wasn’t. I was upset at MW for not telling me how to keep dry/warm (unfair, I know. I blame it on the altitude?). I was so mad at myself for thinking it was a good idea to climb a silly mountain. Oh, and Kili. Definitely off my list of things to do.

But eventually, finally, we reached the summit. It was completely clouded over and we couldn’t see Kili, Arusha or the sunriset. This is what I paid $400 for?? Ugh. We quickly took a few (lopsided / fuzzy) pictures and ran off the mountain. MH ran ahead and JS, MS, Peter and I took a quick, but not too rushed hike back. I almost immediately started to feel better, as my clothes started to dry out and I took off some wet clothes (namely, my drenched gloves). At one point, Peter stopped and pointed out the rough outline of Ash Cone, which is the ash remnants of the volcano (used to be higher than Kili) that blew, creating a lot of the path to Meru’s summit. Peter kept commanding the clouds to move away to reveal more of such a beautiful sight and we were lucky enough to see most of the breathtaking view. In those moments, I began reconsidering Kili.

After an hour or so more, we finally reached the Saddle Hut Base Camp. I was so exhausted after 11 hours of hiking. I barely touched the cabbage, toast, chapati lunch provided and quickly crawled into my sleeping bag to try to get warm. I laid there for about an hour, shivering. Finally we had to get up, pack and head back down to the first set of camps, where there was a Rescue Car waiting for us. The nine of us piled in the back with Peter and another guide standing up. The rocking back-and-forth in the car / against everyone and the awesome animal sightings (giraffe, colubus monkey, dik dik, etc) made our bond even stronger.

Overall, I’m glad I went. I’m even happier that I was able to summit. For those looking at doing Meru/Kili, do it. Nine times out of ten you’ll have better weather than we had and as long as your group is just as great, the overall experience is fantastic.

More to come on dinner at Jose’s last night and dinner with Evans tonight later. Now, it’s time for bed. J

Deadline Met!

Today we turned in our appellate brief for The Prosecutor v. Setako! I must say, I think it's a pretty good brief and I'm happy that I was able to edit and contribute to the final draft. We won't hear anything back until after my internship is over, but this just gives me an excuse to stay current with the ICTR's happenings / stay in touch with my supervisor. Wonder what I'll be assigned to do next. Keep your fingers crossed for exciting, substantive work :-D

In other news, I went to Arusha National Park yesterday. It definitely was not as cool as Serengeti but it was beautiful and I had great company (Yellow House, BR, JD, and EF). In order, we have the colubus monkey (above); a diarama of the park (that lit up!); one of the many giraffes we saw; a babboon; and the group with two groups of flamingos in the back (yeah, sorta see that pink/white blob in the back.... that would be the flamingos).

Since we got back around 5, we stopped at Maasai market to have a look around. There was a lot of beautiful stuff there (from coasters to jewelry, statues to clothing) so I'll definitely go back. If anyone wants anything in particular, speak up now!

I also took everyone to the Blue House for their first chips maayai! Most enjoyed it but there were a few whiners - HUSH, I say. The food is great, especially at only 1800Tsh (1300Tsh for chipsi, 500 for soda or 1000 for beer). Plus, Tony walked us (all 8 of us) home. Pretty legit bodyguard service there :)

Today, after work AJ and I walked to a small veggie market near the Impala roundabout. I got 1/2 kilo of passion fruit, 2 mangos, 2 cucumbers, 1.5 kilos of onions, a papaya, a bag of little peppers, and 1/2 kilo of leeks for 8000Tsh (less than $6USD). AJ got 1 kilo of carrots, 1.5 kilo of tomatoes, 1/2 kilo of potatoes, 2 green peppers and 3 avocados for 7000Tsh. All in all, a pretty good buy. We'll see if I can do better next time. :)

Espresso Yourself!

Another fantastic day. We arrived at Njiro Cinema at 9 and left for a village near Mt. Meru (about 30 minutes away). We stopped at an orphanage for children under 5 first. Before going, we picked up 10 kg of rice and a huge bag of fruit to take (because it really is quite rude to go to an orphanage empty handed). Most of the "older" ones were out playing so we spent an hour with the babies. SO adorable. Justin (the local guide) told us that 60% of the orphans' mothers die from HIV and the other 40% are from various diseases and death during pregnancy. So sad. The orphanage is also severely understaffed. There were at least 9 babies and who knows how many toddlers with three house mothers to feed, change and look after all of them. One of the house mothers was telling us that because they're so understaffed, the babies often get no real attention or love. :(

After, we visited the local hospital, where we saw the AIDS Clinic (which gives out free meds to HIV/AIDS infected persons), a kitchen for families to make meals for their sick relatives and a funeral procession going on. Beate, wife of the couple who run Wild-Tracks (www.wild-tracks.com), told us about how the entire family (sometimes 100s) will come together to collect, clean and bury the body. They'll spend at least a week mourning the loss.

Later, we visited a private secondary school. The boys, who board there, spoke English quite well and were so friendly with all of us. They sang Tanzania's song, talked to us about their

computer labs and what they hope to become (an engineer/doctor and history professor in the mix).

Finally, we started walking towards the coffee plant nursery. Along the way, we saw banana trees, coffee plants and bean plants all along the most beautiful backdrop of Mt. Meru on one side and a view looking into the valley on the other. Along the way, Justin picked off coffee beans and taught us how they get the bean out. The picture below shows the outside covering (the big red blob) and the slimy, but sweet bean that's inside (two brown blobs). There's also another covering on the brown beans, exposing a gray-er looking bean that then gets dried for several weeks, roasted for 30-50 minutes (depending on what kind of roast - medium, french roast, dark roast) and then packaged (for whole beans) or ground (for espresso/filter drip/french press).

The nursery was also pretty cool. We met some of the members of the co-op where Beate and Frank buy their coffee. The co-op is now switching to organic coffee plants so they showed us the different stages at which the plants are growing (3 mo, 5 mo, 9 mo, 2.5 yrs). The chairman said that they switched from traditional Arabica coffee to organic because it requires less time/money to harvest them, they yield more (10 kg v 7 kg for traditional) and can be sold at a much higher price - an organic tree costing 500Tsh and a traditional tree costing 100Tsh.

Finally around 2, we started to head toward Beate/Frank's house for lunch. There was SO much food and it was SO amazing. Hands down some of the best I've had while I've been here (as I write this 5 hours later, I am still full). We started out with five plates of fruit, including pineapple, watermelon, papaya, mango, passionfruit, bananas, oranges and avocados. We all were stuffed after the fruit dishes but then came the main meal: ugali (like spongy cream of wheat), chapati, boiled bananas, rice, goat curry, spinach and a salad. Oh man, SO good! We ended lunch with some recently-roasted medium roast coffee and Norwegian waffles (Beate is from Norway and Frank is from Tanzania so we got the mixed food!). I'm not normally a black coffee drinker. In fact, I need quite a bit of milk / sugar before coffee is acceptable. This coffee though was so good with only a sprinkle of sugar.

When Beate said we could go see the coffee factory when we were already, there was no response. We were all so full that we had to sit around for another 10 minutes before getting up and walking around to another building next door (literally no more than 30 ft away). Inside, was a table with several jars, which Beate used to explain the entire coffee process and show the difference between the different roasts. Since it's such a small operation, their coffee roaster can only handle 4 kg of beans at a time. They then put the 400 degree beans in a box with wire on the bottom to cool off before sorting the bad beans out. They then package the beans / ground coffee in plastic bags, which they seal off and put in handmade bags with adorable designs (Kili, giraffe, zebra, safari, Maasai people, etc). The bags are finally tied off with banana fiber twisted into a strong string. Normally, 250 g sells for 4500Tsh but we got coffee included in our fee! Honestly, I thought the $35 for everything today was a steal. And if you're interested in ordering coffee, you can order online: http://www.wild-tracks.com/kaffe_eng.htm.

And now a nap before the big England v America game. Being in a bar here yesterday when South Africa played Mexico (Meksiko in Kiswahili) was amazing: the cheering, the clapping, the excitement was fantastic. The cigarette smoke from all the expats - not so much. Let's hope it's not as bad tonight...

Surreal

Settling into Arusha has been so surreal. We've had two incidents of muggings of interns: in the first, the girls were stupid - carrying around SLR cameras way off road; in the second, an intern was walking along Fire Rd (the road off which a ton of interns live) on a Sunday afternoon with tons of people around when two guys pushed her down, took her wallet and ran off. Today at orientation (useless!), everyone kept emphasizing that we should be safe but not to worry because Arusha was a "peaceful" city. Relative to Nairobi or Dar, sure. Otherwise, I'm not sure. The head of security (Juan Carlos) says that California is a lot worse . . . but California is also a lot bigger than Arusha. Other than this, it seems pretty damn normal. Everybody is just trying to make a good living to support their family; everyone is just trying to get by.

Work:

In any event, work has been pretty enjoyable. As part of ALAD (Appeals and Legal Advisory Division), I'm working on appellate briefs of defendants who helped orchestrate the Rwandan genocide in 1994 against the Tutsis. For about a week, I edited a draft of a brief, which was fine. On the one hand, I can't complain because I got to work really closely with the team and I'm doing substantive work, which is more than a lot of other interns can say. On the other, I kinda wish that I was doing something legitimately legal rather than editing someone else's legal drafting. Given that my super has a strong preference for American style of writing / citations, though, I may be given an opportunity to draft something on my own. Even if I don't, I think I may try to write some substantive piece this summer, particularly because it will probably come in handy in either/both my International Human Rights seminar in the fall of my Refugee seminar in the spring. Unknown to me, most of the defendants being tried here were caught through immigration proceedings (defendants use fake names and then are expelled from the country of residence, etc). In fact, there's a whole DOJ department dedicated to capturing war criminals who attempt to fraudulently gain legal status in the US. Maybe my paper might address this?

Besides the editing, I helped another attorney prepare for his first oral arguments on Tuesday. In the ICTR, we only have jurisdiction over three crimes: genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. There are several different modes of liability for each of these, including instigating, aiding and abetting and commission, among others. This Attorney, SH, is doing an appeal for a case where the defendant was not found guilty of commission because he didn't physically kill anyone himself. However, in at least three other ICTR decisions, the Appeals Chamber has held that a defendant can be held guilty of committing genocide/extermination/etc if he was an integral part of the crime by participating, encouraging, ordering or providing material items required to commit the crime.

For instance, in one case, Prosecutor v. Seromba, the defendant was a priest who was found to offer refuge to Tutsi and then expel several of them from his church, knowing that the Interhamwe were just outside and ready to kill them. Even worse, he encouraged, ordered and advised a driver to bulldoze the church with over 2000 Tutsi refugees inside, assuring the driver, who refused to bulldoze the church on the bourgmestre's orders, that trash/rubbish/demons (depending on your translation) had tainted the church, that it needed to be bulldozed and Hutu would build a new church. What was very striking (and Christians and/or those more knowledgeable, please correct me if I have my biblical history wrong) was that Seromba ordered the driver to destroy the church three times. I originally thought Judas had done something three times, but now I think that it was Peter who denied him three times? Ah... not sure. In any event, it was striking. If I can figure out exactly why, I'll edit or clarify later. In any event, he was convicted of committing a war crime (extermination) even though he didn't actually bulldoze the church or kill anyone.

Essentially, I had to read the Trial Chamber Judgements (yes, here it is spelled with an 'e') to figure out what the Trial Chamber convicted the defendant of and see if they cited the theory about commission from this other case (Gacumbitsi); review the Appeals Chamber and see what their judgement said about Gacumbitsi / what convictions they upheld; and then track the convictions and Gacumbitsi application to the Indictment. We were really looking to see what language the trial attorney used in the indictment to see if the language we used in our indictment would likewise justify a conviction for commission without raising problems of notice (ie: if you only say he instigated, then a conviction for commission would be unfair because he was not aware that you would try to convict him of commission and arguably, his defense would have been different). Make sense? If not, ask me to clarify. I know I'm including way too much info, but I find this stuff really interesting. AND SH said it was "perfect, exactly what I'm looking for." So, when I watch his oral arguments next Tuesday, I'll know I had a hand in making his argument stronger! :-D

Fun:

AJ and I had a pretty uneventful weekend. Friday, I went to lunch with my super at a pretty Americanized place. Near the end of our lunch, MS and EB showed up and joined us. We talked about the Peace Corps, the Balkans, and my super's legal experiences there and here (given MS and EB's interests, respectively). My super eventually left and AJ met us at the cafe. We were waiting for JP, who had traveled to Rwanda and was supposed to give MS/EB tips on their next trip. After waiting almost an hour for him, we decided to head back to the UN to grab some alcohol for a potluck we discovered one of our roommates was planning for that evening. We then walked to a bar on the opposite side of the Tribunal, where we had a few drinks, played some pool and chatted with EA and Stanley, a new friend. I asked EA about what I'm doing to keep getting guys after me, and he explained that I "look like an African woman" and because so many older white women come to TZ to have sexual relations with the men here, the guys get the wrong idea about my intentions. Even if I say that I am engaged or married, if my fiance/husband is not with me, it doesn't matter and they won't leave me alone. So... I pretty much can't be friends with any locals who are somehow attracted to me. Boo.

Around 7, we went back to the house and discovered that none of the interns had brought food with them to the potluck. Uhm.... right. So, AJ and MS bought chips from Blue House (and had our guard, Seff, guarded by another guard haha) while I made some pasta + veggies. AJ and I weren't really in the mood for a party, so we went upstairs, chatted, read and eventually fell asleep lol. I woke up later to MS coming in the room, so I got up, grabbed my stuff and went downstairs to sleep on the couch for a final night (before I finally got my own room)! :-D

We originally planned to do a waterfall hike on Saturday, but after JP said he was planning a different hike (that his landlord knew about/would drive him to maybe but if not, people would hitchhike) and other people wanted to join him so we decided to do that. Once we knew MS and EB were still in town though, AJ and I ditched the hiking plan and decided to go with MS/EB to some school and then to the tourism fair. After everyone woke up on Saturday though, we discovered EB's plan was uber complicated and it was probably best that we not try to traipse all over TZ. Honestly, I was irritated that I had given up the hike for cancelled plans . . . until I found out how the hike went. AK told us how JP's landlord hadn't told him about this hill to hike - he just saw it on the bus back to Arusha from Nairobi and decided he wanted to climb it. Long story short, it turned out to be military land and the four interns were discovered by 2 TZ soldiers who accused them of trespassing. The soldiers eventually got 2 Masai men to guard them as well. While JP was very nonchalant about the whole situation, the other interns, all female, were not pleased that they were suddenly outnumbered 4:3 to men with weapons and power. Even worse, two of them did not have any ID and the UN IDs the other two had were laughed at by police (one because it was Korean and the other because one of her surnames was Masai). After several hours of interrogation and finally getting JP to agree to delete the photos of the land off his camera, AK made it home alive and safe.

Later, EB texted AJ about getting MS to the bus station by 430, which definitely did not happen because we were at ShopRite and MS didn't have a phone. MS left soon after and AJ and I had a pretty low-key night, playing Monopoly Deal (for those who haven't played - don't judge; play first, you'll love it. Promise.).

We tried to go to Blue Heron (an expat restaurant) because internet was being so finnicky but discovered we actually didn't know where it was. Oops. We grabbed some food from the store (dried mango - 2000Tsh!) and returned home. MS came back over for a little bit but then said his final "final goodbye" (this kid has said "goodbye" at least 4 times). I think AJ was a little sad to see him go, but hopefully she'll see him soon. Maybe in Kigali?? We applied for seats on the UN plane this weekend since MS/EB will be in Rwanda (hopefully). How awesome would it be to spend a weekend with them in another country? Very. We find out tomorrow whether we got seats. If that falls through, AJ is thinking about going to Arusha National Park with some friends from Chambers and I may go to Zanzibar with some friends. We'll see how all works out...

Conflicted

Being here makes me realize two things: 1) how much I'm in love with MW and 2) how I honestly don't know what to do with my life because the more I learn, the more I don't know what I want or what I should try to achieve with my life. I could easily stay in the states, make a decent living, send my children off to good schools and travel a bit. I'm sure I'll do some good by helping someone on a regular basis (legal services, etc). I could also (w/ a little more difficulty) be here or somewhere with the UN/other NGO, contributing to an inefficient organization who cannot prevent the evils we all swore we could never let happen again, sending my children to school and maybe traveling. Honestly, I don't see *many* substantive differences. So what's the point? How do I choose? Or maybe this means I simply haven't found what I'm looking for.

More on actual work I've been doing later.