How I Almost Didn't Go to Uganda

I am optimistic that no one from the Canadian Cooperative Association is reading my blog before my departure or at least they understand.

Three weeks ago I came home to Mississauga, sad to leave my Ottawa friends behind, Happy to see my Mississauga Friends and Happy and to Have my Aunt Miriam with me. Leaving for Uganda already seemed like a challenge.

On Tuesday September 6th my mom, my aunt and I went on a trip to Jack Darling Park, a lake front park in Mississauga, and one of my mom and my favorite watering holes. About halfway through the excursion I discovered that I didn't have my cell phone with me, no big deal I wasn't expecting any calls.

When I got home there was a missed call from a number with a Toronto area code and a message.

The message was from Olivia Chow's office. Imagine my shock to discover a message inquiring whether I was still interested in the legislative assistant position which I had applied for two months earlier (I think the delay in response need not be explained). I called back and indicated that I was interested and the assistant I spoke to said they would let me know in about a week whether I had been short listed and subsequently would be invited for an interview. I was invited for an interview three days later.

My thought process: going to Uganda to work as a peace and conflict officer is a once in a life time opportunity. So is being a legislative assistant in Ms. Chow's office. I had been considering trying to find employment with the NDP on return from my trip but this seemed like the perfect opportunity and offered me some of the stability I have been so badly craving. (I'm tired of leaving people behind)

My interview was on the 12th at noon. I wore my nicest dress and brought a pair of high heels with me in my purse which I put on too soon after getting off the subway and arrived at the office with terrible blisters on both of my baby toes. Sitting down for the interview I was extremely nervous. She asked some very tough questions including why she would want to hire me when I eventually planned to do a PhD (a relevant question which I answered by saying: I can do a PhD any time but I can work for you now). I have to admit that I found the first half of the interview very tense but during the second half I relaxed and things went a little better. I left the interview unsure of how it went, and tried to put it out of my head.

I remained unsure for a week and a half, trying to prepare for my upcoming trip knowing that I might not go. I didn't tell that many people because I didn't want people in Ottawa to anticipate my return when I knew it might not happen.

Yesterday I got the call. Of course the call came through while I was on the subway so then I had to spend an anxious 10 minutes listening to my messages, and playing phone tag in the office. It turns out that at the last minute they had a candidate come forward with more legislative experience, but they really liked me and it was a hard decision. That was hard to hear.

On the plus side they invited me to call the office when I am back in Canada to find out if there are any new opportunities available.

So you can imagine I'm full of mixed emotions and not quite as prepared to go as I would like to be.

I'm feeling nervous about culture shock, and about being away from home for 6 months and what I'm going to do when I come back to Canada. I'm also sad to be leaving behind some really strong friendships in Ottawa.

Yet, I'm excited about my new job and the opportunity to travel and learn again. Tomorrow night is my going away party in Mississauga and on Sunday I'm heading back to Ottawa for some training.

Wish me well.

In Memorial: Jack Layton

The first time I heard Jack Layton speak I was 16. It was a cold day in late February 2003, I was 16 and attending my first Peace Vigil. The war in Iraq was fast approaching and I was attending a student's peace vigil at Mississauga City Hall, armed with a hand made sign. I don't remember exactly what Jack said but, standing only a few feet from him, I remember being impressed that he would find time to come and speak to a couple of hundred students and that I was touched by what he said.

This experience laid the foundation for my interest in the NDP even though at the time I felt that the NDP was not a contender in National Politics I agreed with their foreign policy. This was also the start of my civic involvement. Much to my mother's shagrin I attended the much larger March 15th protest opposing the war two weeks later.

Eight years later in January of 2011 I found myself job hunting. A number of people had suggested I try my luck with a political party, and the NDP was the only party I would consider. Through my job search I was invited both to volunteer with the All Party Parliamentary Committee on the Prevention of Genocide and other Crimes Against Humanity which was run from Paul Dewar's office and working on the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Campaign in Megan Leslie's office, both opportunities which I jumped at.

Over the following four months I became intimately acquainted with the staff of both MP's offices and the Confederation building. I enjoyed working with both and so when the election was called I naturally volunteered to canvas for Paul Dewar in Ottawa Center. This was also an experience which I immensely enjoyed.

Because of my volunteer work in late April I was invited to a breakfast which Jack Layton was attending and I stood behind him as he delivered a Press Release. His determination and optimism was evident as he smiled while he walked with his cane towards the podium. The orange crush had begun.

On May 2nd, everyone cheered at Paul Dewar's victory party when it was announced that Mr. Layton had succeeded in becoming the leader of the official opposition, a first for the party.

Yesterday I was very sad to learn that Jack Layton had lost his battle with cancer. However, I am certain that he lives on through the inspiration which he created through his fight for social justice in Canada and beyond.

Here is a Link to Jack's Final Letter to the Canadian Public: http://www.ndp.ca/letter-to-canadians-from-jack-layton

Moving Forward

My last days at DFAIT were interesting. I completed a 50 page standard operating procedure for the program I was working for and said my goodbyes. My director thanked me for the "Thankless work" I had done for the group.

When I started at foreign affairs I was really excited to be working with a programming unit. I thought that working for a program would expose me to fewer of the elements I disliked about working as an assistant policy analyst, which I had (incorrectly) identified as relating to policy analysis. I felt that by working with a program I would be able to see the tangible impact of my work. And to an extent I did, I saw the photocopies I made and sat in on the meetings I arranged, but as it turned out, it was the administrative components both part of my positions at Foreign Affairs and Public Safety that I found most uninteresting.

Also, being exposed to the programming environment also regularly caused me to return to questions raised in my course work at Dalhousie. Is it adequate to use standard formatting for tasks such as monitoring and evaluation? Was the work that was being done actually meeting the needs of the program beneficiaries, or was Canada the real beneficiary? and what role is any should the political branch of the public service play in programming (in my opinion this should be close to none but it doesn't always work that way). However, I can definitely see value to these questions being raised in an employment setting and so it was an interesting experience.

I'm also glad to have had that experience because it made me realize I would prefer to work in a policy setting rather than a program setting (at least while I am still working at the assistant or officer level). Further, I feel like working at Foreign Affairs was possibly the first time where I successfully developed strong (and perhaps lasting) professional relationships.

So in the end I suppose the experience was not time wasted.

For the last two weeks of August I am back to canvassing for Amnesty International with Public Outreach. This may surprise you to read but I actually quite enjoy working for Public Outreach. I am happy to have an opportunity to talk to the general public about issues relating to Human Rights. I also love the people who I work with, many of whom are students. My colleagues are from many different educational and professional backgrounds, all of whom have at least a passing interest in the issues we talk about on a daily basis.

There are some things about working with Public Outreach that discourage me as well. I feel that there is a startling amount of disengagement in issues which people view as third world problems and I have met more than a few people who seem to feel no obligation to support human rights and dignity for people outside of their immediate circles. I also am a bit discouraged about the way some people treat canvasser, particularly those canvassing on the street rather than door to door. Street canvassers put a lot of themselves out there to try to get people's attention and engage in meaningful conversations but many people react abrasively. Perhaps they feel guilty that they cannot help, they are disinterested or just really busy, but it would seem to me that the decent thing to do would be to politely acknowledge someone rather than ignoring them or being rude.

Also you should know that you may think that you don't have $10 a month to give to charity, but neither do the people who live in houses with 3 car garages.

Meanwhile, I'm also packing up and getting ready to go to Mississauga before I come back to Ottawa and move on to Uganda. Should be easy right?

Not a chance.

To give you an idea I have had 2 dentist appointments 3 optometrist appointments, a travel doctor appointments, multiple goodbyes, packing, attempts to give away and sell my things and even trying to secure Christmas presents for my family.

All that on top of my normal activities (swing dance, running, friending etc.)

So it's been interesting and continues to be.

But as always, I'm moving forward.

So one day you're walking along, and then you're headed to Uganda

So there have been some interesting developments in my life recently. As I think I mentioned in an earlier post I found out that my contract was not going to be renewed at DFAIT and I was in a bit of a funk. I had come to Ottawa one year earlier for an FSWEP position with Public Safety Canada in the Emergency Management Policy Division which ended up being a job that frustrated me but I loved. It gave me the opportunity to expand my writing ability to the field of policy, produce papers which were read by a wide audience and develop new skills like drafting correspondence.

Naturally I was very upset when I concluded my FSWEP position without being bridged into a position with the group I was working with. Nevertheless I continued to look for work within the government, this time with Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, a department which I was always interested in working for.

Through a series of information interviews I eventually was introduced electronically to a deputy director with the Anti-Crime Capacity Building Program who expressed interest in my CV and would eventually hire me as a program Assistant. The position was initially set out as a casual position which had the opportunity for me to be bridged in within DFAIT if everything went well.

There was a 3 month period between Public Safety and Foreign Affairs where I canvassed for the Red Cross and Amnesty International. This was a trying time for me as I tried to reconcile my expectation of work which matched my education with my desire for work that was meaningful, which working for Public Outreach (the organization I canvassed through) and continues to be.

You can imagine I was over the moon when I started to work with the ACCBP but I soon discovered that my position was filling much more of an administrative role than I had originally thought.

Before being told that my contract would not be extended I had wondered whether if it were to be extended if I would take the job. I was increasingly feeling discouraged about working for the government in general but my job prospects didn't look good.

When I heard the news I was very angry and had trouble continuing at work. The reason I was not being bridged in was because the person who had to be promoted in order for me to take their place had not yet been promoted and so there was no job for me to be given.

I immediately started looking for a new position outside of the government ranging from settlement work positions, to CIDA internships to positions within Canadian charities. By mid July I was extremely frustrated as I had not yet heard anything back from the positions I applied to and was forced to give notice for my apartment because my land lady wanted me to sign a new lease.

It was at that point that I received a phone call inviting me to an interview for a Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment Officer internship with the Canadian Cooperative Association in Uganda.

I spent a very nervous two weeks following the interview waiting for news and yesterday I was offered the position. Talk about a change of direction.

So I guess that means that this will soon return to being my travel blog. Funny how life turns out sometimes.

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.