le bureau

I've refrained from writing much about my life at the office lately, not so much because I've been spending any less time here, but because my expereinces and observations are mostly about how poorly run this organization is, which I'm not sure are necessarily things I should write in detail about on a public blog. But, suffice it to say that I'm learning about a lot more than just gender, peace and security here at this internship. Luckily, despite some serious managerial and administrative shortcomings, there are also a few really great people working here and I've really been enjoying talking with and working with them. Unfortunately, if the other problems aren't dealt with I think FAS risks losing them.

Rosalie is the program director, and is such an awesome woman. She has a lot of experience in the international development world and has a great understanding of how things should be run. Unfortunately, she hasn't been given the leeway to implement a lot of the things she knows need to be done to move the organization forward. But she and I have become good friends and last night I went to her 7 yr old son's birthday party with her and met her family.

But, back to the work update...we're currently preparing for a seminar on GEnder and Peacebuilding that is being jointly run by FAS and the University for Peace. It's taking place next week in Mbodiène, which is a littel resort town about an hour and a half outside of Dakar. I'm going to be going to it and I'm hoping to attend the workshops rather than spend all of my time dealing with logistics, but we'll see how that pans out. On Thursday we're going on a site visit to a tactical trainig center where they train UN and AU peacekeepers and other military folks. I'm pretty excited about that and I'll be sure to take pitcures and update you all when I return. I leave for Mbodieène on Sunday and am hoping to have a bit of time before I go to get out and about a bit in Dakar, but something tells me I may just be seeing more of the office, as there is much still to be done to prepare for the workshop. I keep telling people that if I come home as white as I left, no one is going to believe I spent the summer in Africa...but as it is, I haven't gotten a whole lot of sun in the past few weeks.