Of Mice and... Me?

Of mice and... Me?

So everyone who knows me, knows I've lived in some interesting places. When I moved back to Halifax in the winter of 2010 I moved in with three girls who were very lovely and progressive. Unfortunately I also moved in with mice. One morning we awoke to discover that a mouse had chewed clear through a loaf of bread and so my room mates agreed to get mouse traps. I found the first dead mouse and disposed of it without incident. They found the second dead mouse and insisted on removing the traps.

In the autumn of 2011 in Ottawa I moved into a place, again with three girls, probably better described as young professionals then as progressive. In this instance we had an infestation of pantry moths.

When I looked at the apartment I'm in now one of my first questions was whether there had been any problems with infestations. No. Of course not.

In May, one month after moving in I started hearing scratching and running and discovered that squirrels had invaded my crawlspace. I informed my land lady who called an exterminator. I thought that was the end of it.

Last Thursday I found evidence of mice when I woke up in the morning, I optimistically thought it was a lone mouse passing through. When I returned home in the evening I discovered that they were not just passing through and that in fact they had defficated over my clean dishes. This was 5 minutes before I was expecting dinner guests. In a blind panic I then turned and watched as a tubby mouse waddled across the floor.

So I cleaned, I cooked dinner, cleaned some more and set traps. The next day there was less evidence of the mice, and less still Saturday morning. On Saturday night, returning from Swing Dance and I found what I hoped was the lone mouse dead in the trap. The next morning I awoke to discover that all of the blossoms had been eaten off my African violets by another mouse. I guess they were getting angry because I cut off their food supply. Later in the morning I saw another mouse waddle across the floor and called my landlady who informed me it was too expensive to call the exterminator a second time and had the audacity to ask me if I wanted to renew my lease.

No more mice were caught.

Last night (Monday) I got home late from karaoke, read and went to sleep only to be woken up by some motion near my hand at 1:30. I moved my hand only to realize there was a mouse at the foot of my bed. I turned on the light, waited, and went back to sleep. I was woken up again at 4:45 in the morning and this time I saw the mouse right away, again at the foot of my bed. I flipped. I couldn't go back to sleep knowing I was being stalked by a hungry mouse. So I tidied my room and watched the sun rise. Unfortunately I hadn't had enough sleep to go to work so I didn't and took things into my own hands. I bought mouse poison which I set out and promptly left the apartment. I returned two hours late to watch a mouse eating the poison from my bed. This of course made me feel sad for the mouse, but optimistic about a good night sleep.

Later this evening I was at home and discovered that at some point the mice also started to eat plastic lid to one of my food containers and the aluminum plate in my stove top, which is more than somewhat unnerving.

And now I have to go home and try to sleep somewhat comfortably while wondering whether the mice are still alive, and if so, what they will eat next.

Back to the Blog

Well hello there,

It's been a while. If you followed my blog in the past you might wonder what ever came of me. Okay, that's probably an exaggeration since you're probably my friend if you're reading this so you have an idea. After some major ups and downs I've decided to return to my blog since I still have more to say.

If you were wondering what's happened over the last year or so here's the scoop. I finished writing my thesis in October. I didn't receive any revisions from my committee until mid-November, two weeks before my scheduled defense date, which was stressful but actually completely manageable. I made the revisions and defended my M.A. thesis on November 30th 2010.

Going in to the defense a lot of people told me not to worry. To sit back and relax because my committee was going to ask me easy questions. Well, I don't know what happened at their defense but I faced some pretty grueling questions from my committee including whether I though justice should come before peace or peace before justice, which is a major question within modern peace building. My answer was of course that question had no answer and that there needed to be a balance dependent on circumstances. I was write.

Prior to my defense I had prepared myself to have at least two days worth of revisions, as is standard after a defense. So you can imagine my surprise when I was called back in the room after the defense and told that there were none. My initial response was "so what do you want me to do?" "nothing." "nothing?" "nothing". It somehow seemed anti-climatic, but I enjoyed the rest of my time in Halifax immensely.

Back in Ottawa I had continued to work 3 days a week as a student at the Center for Mitigation Excellence at Public Safety. Unfortunately when I finished my degree my contract was not bridged in to a permanent position because of a hiring freeze. Being resourceful, I set my sights on Foreign Affairs and made some phone calls and landed a casual position with the Anti-Crime Capacity Building Program which was also supposed to become permanent if things went well. That job didn't start for three months after I finished with Public Safety so I spent my time fund raising for the Red Cross and Amnesty International through Public Outreach. These were interesting and cold times as a fund raised outside in the winter. Although I had a bit of a rough start I ended up liking fundraising enough that I still work with Public Outreach one day a week. I also started volunteering for two NDP MPs on Parliament Hill.

I have a lot to say both about Public Outreach and working with DFAIT. However, I am going to leave that for future blog posts. It's suffice to say that because of an internal HR error at DFAIT, that is completely unrelated to me, that I will not become permanent there either and I'm looking for another job!

Anyway this is just a little note to let you know that I'm back to blogging and that you'll be reading from me real soon!

Rape in the Congo.

A report was recently released about rape in the DRC suggesting that over 400,000 women are raped there every year, a much higher number than was previously thought. That's 1 an hour. This high rate of rape, along with other forms of armed violence along with the exploitation of Natural Resources continues to be ignored by the international community.

I thought I might take this as an opportunity to share some of the research I did for my thesis and the results. You can find the section entitled "Rape" below. Note I've taken out the foot notes for simplicity but the intext notations are still there.


Rape was by far the most commonly reported form of armed violence reported by research participants. Annie Desilets, a humanitarian worker with Doctors Without Borders,245 indicated that there were a very high number of rape cases at the clinic where she worked in Kitchanga. She indicated that women were at a significantly higher risk of being civilian victims than men as a result of such high rates of sexual violence.246
Odéline, a graduate student from Lubumbashi, spoke about the ways in which women experienced sexual violence in her community. She said: "When we are raped, no one can help you. You can't continue to live. I saw it myself, in towns where the soldiers come and rape women, when they are done, they kill hem. Therewas one woman who was pregnant and they took out her baby and tore it up. After you experience something like this you don't want to live anymore.247
Both Sandra Oder248 and Nelson Alusala, who are senior researchers at the ISS, linked the high rates of rape in Congo with the proliferation of small arms and 79
in Northern Uganda, she has worked extensively on ISS initiatives in the DRC alongside Henri Boshoff particularly relating to gender-based violence light weapons. Oder links gender-based violence in the DRC to SALW proliferation. As she points out, "the issues of small arms proliferation has come out as something that has exasperated the situation of women. For example, look at the use of small arms to commit rape."249
A joint report by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Oxfam International indicates that "girls as you as five and women as old as were reportedly shot in the vagina or mutilated with knives or razor blades."250 This is reflected in Alusala‟s assertion indicating that "in most cases the perpetrator uses a gun to subdue the victim, and in many occasions the victim‟s private parts are mauled out or badly bruised after the incident."251 This observation is consistent with documentation from Médicins Sans Frontières between August 2004 and January 2005 which indicates that of the 807 rapes that occurred in Bunia during this period, seventy-eight percent involved armed combatants and eighty percent involved weapons.252
Kyf, from Kisangani, reported that her cousin had been a victim of the type of attack described by Alusala. She said that her cousin "was at home and one day soldiers came and raped her. T here were four of them and they all took turns and they also used their weapons to sexually assault her.253"
In a presentation given at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, Anneke van Woudenberg, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, spoke extensively on the subject of sexual violence in the DRC. She indicated that rape had increased two to three fold in recent years and that more than 200,000 women and girls had been raped. She indicated that many attacks occur at military road blocks and that the majority of victims are under the age of eighteen. Finally, she said that when men stand up for their wives, sisters or daughters, they are often killed in response and that such murders represent a disproportionate amount of civilian deaths.254
Van Woudenberg also focused on the role of government soldiers in rape. Two participants also discussed the role of soldiers during their interviews. Francis said that "there was an army that came to start war and it was they who raped. They would come with their weapons, during the time of trouble, and take women and girls by force and they would walk with them. It never took place in the home."255 Furthermore, G-6, a former government agent with the Congolese Immigration and Border Control, indicated that all parties involved in the conflict were responsible for rape. He indicated that "everyone in the East rapes. Women are the most vulnerable and children. Soldiers with the military rape, soldiers with MONUC rape,256 the rebels and foreign forces rape women, they‟ll do anything."257
Instances of MONUC being involved in sexual assault cases are particularly unsettling. Rackley observes that "Consensual or not, in their abuse of power and sexual conduct with minors, UN troops have repeated the horrible precedent of sexual violence set by local armed groups."258 This inappropriate conduct only served to worsen the already vulnerable position of Congolese civilians and has been a significant source of criticism against MONUC, complicating its relationship with the Congolese community.
There has also been a high incidence of rape outside of the context of the conflict. The most horrific report of rape was detailed by a female participant who was a victim of the Rwandan genocide. Nicole was only four years old in 1994 when her entire family was killed in the genocide, and she and her brother sought refuge in the DRC. In 1996, when the first war began in the DRC, there was a surge of violence against both Rwandan and Congolese Tutsis in which her brother was killed. The family that had taken her in told her to go back to Rwanda where it would be safer for her. Once she returned to Rwanda, with nowhere else to go, Nicole was taken in by two prostitutes who began to groom her to become a child prostitute. She said that she was left alone for the most part due to her small size but after a couple of years a man from the Congo purchased her and returned with her to the Eastern DRC, where he kept her as a sex slave until his family found out. He then fled with her, first to a different location in Congo, and then to South Africa where the abuse continued until she gave birth to a daughter in 2005. At that point, Nicole sought intervention by the police to stop the abuse of herself and her child.259
Finally, it is also worth noting that some NGOs have reported incidences of men being raped in attacks. However, none of the participants in this study specifically discussed this topic, likely due to its sensitive nature.
Twenty-six out of the thirty-one respondents to the arms demand questionnaire indicated that rape was a problem in their community. In addition, twenty-three felt that rape was being used as a weapon of war. While the proliferation and misuse of SALW does not always directly result in rape, they can have a central role in facilitating rape and as discussed are sometimes used to commit sexual assault.

24 Random Acts of Kindness (Updated)

Yes I know, I know I have become deliquent about updating my blog.
Sorry, I've been a bit bogged down with finishing the first draft of my thesis which is now done so I feel like I can write again.

Anyhoo. In honour of my 24th Birthday I have decided to undertake twenty-four random acts of kindness.

As of 8:30 this morning I am already well on my way here's what I've done so far.

1. Last night I shared a cupcake with my friend Stephanie who, for extenuating circumstances, will be unable to attend my party.

2. This morning I left a note for my room mates on the front door wishing them a beautiful day.

3-8. I handed out 6 flowers to people on the way to work. This was quite the experience, the first person who got one was a man who I came upon standing outside a vetrinary clinic with his cat and I simply handed him the flower without saying anything, he thanked me. The next two people who I shared flowers with needed to be reassured that I didn't want anything in return for the flowers. The fourth accepted and wished me well and the fifth and sixth seemed genuinely touched by the flower they received. I also had two people decline the flowers. I didn't know anyone who I gave the flowers to and I didn't tell them why I was giving them out. I found this to be a humbling experience.

9. I dropped a thank you note off at the Starbucks which I frequent while I'm at work.

10. I gave the commissionaires in the lobby of my building a box of timbits.

11. I shared a box of timbits with my colleagues.

12. I circulated a card for a colleague who was adopting a baby

13. I posted a picture in a bus stop wishing passers by a beautiful day.

14-15: I wrote thank you cards to my swing dance instructors

16-23: I made Stars saying something nice about all of my swing dance class mates and handed them out at the end of class.

24: I shared things I liked about two people who attended the class that I didn't have stars for with the entire class.

Follow Up:

Some interesting things started to happen after I started this endeavour. First when later speaking to one of the commissionaires who I shared timbits with earlier in the day, she told me that after I brought her timbits that someone else brought her coffee. She told me that no one ever shared things with them and asked rhetorically whether it was her Birthday, then I told her it was mine.

Sadly my colleague who was adopting was not able to adopt the baby he and his wife had been promised as the mother of the child changed her mind.

The picture I put in the bus shelter was gone within 12 hours, I'm optimistic someone took it home.

When I went out to dinner after Dance class everyone shared something that they liked about me.

A week later the girls who regularly serve me at starbucks thanked me for the card and gave me a free drink.

In terms of what I actually did, in most cases I didn't tell the people I was sharing with that I was doing these things in honour of my Birthday, I felt that it was better left unsaid, the exception of course being at swing.

I can't wait to do it again next year.

Terry Fox Run 2010

This year marks the 30th Anniversary of Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope, which I will proudly be running in.

It's not something that I often talk about but I had an older brother named Alan. He was born in March 1982, less than a year after Terry Fox died. Before his first Birthday my parents took him to the doctor when he seemed to be having trouble recovering from the flu. It was at that point that they discovered he had Leukemia. After receiving treatment including chemotherapy and blood transfusions, he went into remission from the cancer. Sadly the cancer returned when he was three and my brother passed away at home in August 1985, a year and 2 months before I was born.

Growing up my parents often talked about my brother and by the time I started school I not only knew about him and his fight but also about cancer. When I was very young even watching the video that they showed every year before the Terry Fox Run was enough to move me to tears.

In addition to losing my brother both of my mom's parents with whom I had a close relationship, died of cancer and complications due to cancer. I also lost an uncle, my dad's older brother to cancer in 2008.

Although I have participated in the run in the past through school, this will be my first run as an individual. I am running 4 times a week to increase my running distance from 5 to 10km (I'm currently at 8).

If you would be interested in donating to the Terry Fox Society to support me in my run please visit my fundrasing page at: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=931962&LangPref=en-CA

If you would prefer to support me in other ways, if you're in Ottawa I will be participating in the run at Carleton University on September 19th at 9 a.m. and would love to see you there.

Having the opportunity to participate in the Terry Fox Run means a lot to me.

Racism

Over the past year I have witnessed a trouble amount of racism and prejudice both in South Africa and in Canada.

While I was in South Africa I was troubled to hear that the local people, both black and white, were not accepting of refugees and felt that they did not have the resources to support them. There seemed to be an overarching ignorance of what would prompt someone to be a refugee and the significance that refugees could play within society.

What was equally troubling was the implicit racism which continues to prevail there. White people fear "black" violence, some black people vow revenge for white oppression in the political spotlight. On a more troubling level people continue to segregate themselves. There are dance clubs where black people go, and those where white people go, but they aren't the same clubs and it has nothing to do with the style of music. I heard stories of black people being refused entry to business and white people being spat at on the street.

Having had the opportunity to interact with white South Africans, black South Africans and refugees, listening to their hopes and dreams for their own lives as well as their country's, really reaffirmed for me that race is simply a social construction through which we identify other but doesn't really exist. I had already felt this way before, but now I was certain of it.

I had never noticed in Canada prior to my trip to South Africa that there was a significant amount of racism here. I heard my friends and family make they occasional comment which I often shrugged off or objected to, but I attributed this to a few people who were behind the times. I mean, I grew up in one of the most multicultural cities in Canada, I was one of the only blonde hair blue eyed students in my grade 8 class and I loved it. I loved learning about other peoples cultures and traditions and never once considered someone to be any less important than me because of the colour of my skin. I also never felt resentful when my friends got opportunities that I didn't in the name of diversity.

However, since I have been back and working in the refugee community and with the broader public outside the academic sphere I have been noticing an increasingly worrying trend. Several white men have approached me complaining of the disadvantage that they experience as a result of their status as white men. They complain about employment equity, suggest that immigrants and aboriginals cause the majority of the crime in this country, and that we should close our doors to refugees (although many of them seem to use the words refugee and immigrant interchangably). The problems with these positions are clear. We as a country have systematically discriminated against minority groups for generations, which continues to influence capacities within current society. We still think its appropriate to throw around words like nigger and claim that we can't support refugees and immigrant here in our country (which is the farthest thing from the truth, we aren't reproducing at a rate fast enough to support ourselves and need the extra bodies) and then we force immigrants and refugees into jobs that nobody wants. I have a hard time sympathizing with people who think they should get an easy ride because their grandfathers colonized a country by killing off our aboriginal people and denying those who survived of a cultural identity. Its like people are using the race card to legitimize their own mediocrity. Even worse is the fact that they use their supposed "disadvantaged state" as a cover for their own racism by for example suggesting that people of a certain ethnic background (or gender) are less capable of doing the same job as them or have a lower IQ, or are responsible for crime or are all drug adicts.

To be honest I am tired of listening to white men complain about how disadvantaged they are, I am tired of my friends being called niggers and I don't think for a minute that there is any argument that could legitmize saying that anyone does not have the same capacity to achieve their goals solely on the basis of their cultural backgrounds.

I'm tired of sitting quietly and nodding or faking a smile when someone makes a racist joke or a flat out racist comment. I'm not going to do it anymore. I am going to start standing up and saying something when someone says inappropriate and I am not going to feel bad about it. Racist remarks make me lose a lot of respect for people.

I think its time that we all learned or accepted that we are all created equally and that we can live much better lives by working together rather than working against each other.

"Asheville is the Shit, Y'All!"

Well Howdy,

Fancy meeting you here. Well maybe not. But thanks for checking in anyway.
So as most of you know On the weekend of July 16th I traveled to Asheville North Carolina for my cousins wedding. And so here's the story.On the morning of July 16th I rose from bed at 3 a.m. having not slept a minute during the night, to go to the airport for my flight at 6:00 a.m., I arrived at the airport at approximately 4, to discover that none of the line ups had opened to go through security. Anyway, after a bit of a wait I was able to go through since I opted not to pay an extra $25 each direction to have a piece of checked luggage.

While I waited in line at the passport desk, which again hadn't opened yet, I met my first interesting group of people. One was a professor from a University in Kentucky who I believe studied agent history in the Middle East (Turkey and Syria) and a fellow who worked for the Dept of National Defense who knows my friend Josh's room mate Cale. Small World.

I was a bit nervous getting on the plane in Ottawa as the plane which had 13 rows of four seats was the smallest plane I had ever been on (it was a rapidair jet). To my surprise the flight went quite well. There was no one sitting directly next to me but the couple across the aisle were friendly and going on their honeymoon.
My stop over was in Detroit, which contrary to popular belief is not a ghetto airport. In fact it has this amazing tunnel that plays relaxing music and fills with light which move in time with the music.
While I was in Detroit I decided to get Breakfast and, not recognizing any of the chains I decided to go the restaurant with the longest line up which happened to be called "Einstein's Bagel Brothers" or something to the effect. I got a breakfast bagel which was potentially the most disgusting thing I have ever had in my mouth. And I've eaten cow intestine! (Okay it may not have been as bad as the cow intestine, but it was close!
On my flight from Detroit the Ahseville I wondered whether the pilot had perhaps stood in the above tunnel to long as he proclaimed at the beginning of the flight that it was going to be a smooth flight, and then we encountered significant turbulence, and then told us we were going to land in 5 minutes and then we circled the airport three times and landed 30 minutes later. In any case my seat mate on that particular flight was very interesting. A lawyer who represented municipalities, including Asheville. He told me all about Asheville which was really nice.

When I landed I waited for my aunt and cousin who were landing on a different plane 20 minutes later and then we got a cab to the hotel. I have to say the Hotel Indigo is the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. I couldn't really afford it, but it was at a reduced cost and only for two nights so I put up with the amazing service and King sized bed :P.
Later that afternoon my aunt, cousin (Laura) and I explored something called the arcade that was full of little niche craft and other such thing shops. It turns out that Asheville has a law prohibiting major chains from operating in the downtown area (except for some reason Urban outfitters) and so its primarily full of independent, fair trade, organic coffee shops, craft and clothing stores. So as you can imagine I was in heaven.

That night we attended the rehearsal dinner which was expertly catered and a good opportunity to catch up with my dad's fam. (Mom wasn't invited, I don't want to get into it), I went to bed around midnight and slept for 8 hours. I had gotten through the day on around 6 cups of coffee since I hadn't slept, so when I finally did sleep it was gooood.

The next day I went for breakfast with my aunt and Laura at a cool little place called Early Janes, that served local food and was really amazing. Laura then went off to a mall (she had specific orders to bring back something from Abercrombie for her husband) and my aunt and I went into what was called "the river arts district" at first the area was somewhat disappointing as a lot of the studios were closed but we eventually found this wonderful little group of studios, with a garden and everything. While in one of the studios I found a hand painted ceramic plate which I couldn't resist and also couldn't afford but there were also mugs done by the same artist. After some contemplation I went back and went to consult the vendor on my purchase. Well he (Greg Vineyard) and I got into the lovely conversation about his aspiration to be a children s author and illustrator, and we talked about the ways in which people often dumb down information for kids or won't tell the full truth of the world to kids for fear of negatively effecting them in some way. In any case I ended up talking about how I had been really proud of my mom's cousin when he explained to his daughter about the Rwandan Genocide. Considering I vowed that I would not have any political conversations while I was in NC that was a really great one.
I also ended up having a very politically charged conversation with one of my cousin Chantal's readers at her wedding (Sal). We started talking about the global market and fair trade and how capitalism wasn't working but communism also wasn't working and we talked about whether there was enough will for anything to change. I of course said there was and talked about South Africa because that's what I do.

Anyway going back to the actual wedding. The wedding was supposed to be outside at a place called Homewood which was in a suburb of Asheville. Unfortunately it had just started raining when we arrived on location and the wedding was moved inside. It was a good thing to since the rain became a thunderstorm which boomed while my cousin was reading her vows (she has more of a Type A personality than I do so this was very appropriate).
Afterward there was a light meal and dancing. I mingled and talked to the family a bit. We then went back to the Hotel Indigo where the younger crowd drank at the bar. Two odd things happened there, first my cousin handed me a redbull and vodka, which I drank despite protesting and later in the evening, someone through an egg at us from a car, which fortunately didn't hit Chantal. That night I only slept 5 hours (that's right between Thursday morning and Sunday night I slept a grand total of 13 hours, this was a mighty poor decision indeed).

The next day I had hoped to go on a hike. Unfortunately I had injured my ankle a bit at the beginning of the trip and decided I better hold off so I wandered around town. Upon returning to the hotel I found my Aunt Karen and cousins Chantal and Roshan. Chantal and her new husband Greg were just packing up to hit the road. After everyone dispersed I spent about 2 hours with my aunt which was nice. I think that was the first time she and I had ever spent any time together.On the way home there was major turbulence during both flights. The seatbelt sign stayed on the entire time for both. The first we flew around thunderstorms but the flight attendant was still able to get up and do drink service. The second we flew right through a thunderstorm so you can imagine the flight attendant didn't get up.

During my 3 hour stop over at Detroit this time I bought some poor quality, over priced sushi. I ended up sitting next to an author and motivational speaker who works on issues relating to demographics. It was quite nice to speak with him until he shared that he was a born again christian and started bible thumping. Not my cup of tea. Later I came upon a young man sitting in the middle of the floor video taping the tunnel so, after saying good bye to the born again christian, I returned and sat down with this fellow. It was really interesting to sit with him in the middle of the floor while people bustled around us. Frankly I was surprised airport security didn't come and hastle us.

Anyway, it was a great trip. I really feel inclined to go back to Asheville someday. The people are very warm and the mountainsides are beautiful. Plus there are fairtrade organic coffee shops everywhere!

Cheers