Human Rights Monitoring Training

Dear Friends,

I have just returned from a 8 day trip to a hill station in Tamil Nadu - called Coonoor, where attended a Human Rights Monitoring training for the National Campaign Against Torture which is an EU sponsored project I am working on. We were working with 4 South Indian States, and I observed as the local activists were trained in the definiton of human rights (by Indian Law), definiton of torture, and how to go do fact-finding missions for victims of torture, interview and write reports. I am helping to edit and finalize a training manual for these monitors with 5 Indian law students, who are all around 20 years old, North Indian Hindi spekaers. The whole week was "me and the boys" who goofed around the gorgeous scenic hills, teasing, joking, discussing indian pop culture, and lots and lots of laughing! They couldn't believe how much I laughed and smiled ( I remember in Tanzania, they nicknamed me Nashiva which in Masai means woman who laughs and smiles a lot). One also told me, "wow, Reena you are really like an Indian" which was later explained to me as they were impressed at how in-tune I was with the culture for being an American.

It was so nice to hang out and really enjoy life and people's company, and "take it easy" (as my mom would say) while still being able to do meaningful human rights work. Its a balance I wish to strive for in my career and future, one I am not sure I can find in the high-paced international human rights legal work that occurs on the US side of the equation. I will get a taste of it in the years to come, my director wants to pick the most compelling of reports from Human Rights monitors to send to NYU Law for clincal students to prepare advocacy (appealing to int'l HR mechanisms & Indian ones), so I anticipate working with this project for its entire life of three years. I realized that my internships is also preparing me to be an ambassador to this project.

When I came back to the office I felt the other end of the cultural confusion, as much as I like the laid-back nature, there are times where the American creeps out and I get frusturated with the lack of efficiency with the local NGO work. But I just have to take a deep breath, and all my Indian friends remind me not to get caught up in the small stuff and take life as it comes to you. Its the philosophy I have fought to keep with me throughout my first year of law school, and its good to have the people kick me back into the mode. (And anyhow, there are crazy frusturations in any working experience, especially work that steals your soul!)
And even though it is exhausting to be around a bunch of young Indian boys 24hrs/day, for 9 straight days, I have not laughed so much in a long time and my fun-loving spirit feels refreshed. It reminds me of all the lovely days I spent in the village, just playing with the kids.

The interns of all sorts are all departing, so I will be forced to get more serious with my work, though I will be travelling again for the Lawyer's training for launching cases on behalf of victims of torture (the manual i am working on) and then for North Indian Human Rights Monitoring training, where I hopefully will increase my Hindi vocab skills from words necessary just to live in a village, to a human rights framework.

Okay I should get back to work - but somebody please comment on my blog! i get no comments! its so sad! Lol. Hope to hear from all of you.

Lots of love,
Reena