Using French!

This week at work is exciting because I'm getting to use French skills! I've been able to practice at various stores and with people I meet and whatnot, but it feels good to use it in a professional setting. Granted, what I'm doing isn't all that sophisticated, but you have to start somewhere, right?

I got back to work on Tuesday and didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing since it'd been a full week since I'd been in the office. The other intern was editing our paper on Safe Motherhood and the programme news for June is already done so I couldn't think of anything there was for me to do. I asked my boss if she had any work for me and she said she'd have something for me after lunch. So after eating my sandwich in the park she asked me how good my French is. I kind of jumped at the chance and didn't know if it would be better or worse for me to exaggerate my French. Like, she must know I'm not fluent since I don't really speak French in the office, but I don't want her to think I don't know anything! She asked me if I thought I could handle translating French to English to clarify what she meant. I'm comfortable with that, especially because it turned out I needed to summarize as well so I could take some liberty with words as well.

Soroptimist International of Europe has a partnership with Soroptimist International of America, which conducts its business mostly in English, not French or German like we do. So I got to translate a Soroptimist Club in Benin's funding request for disaster relief. One of the schools near this club has been closed due to funding, lacks toilets and a lot of students end up skipping lunch while school's in term since they either can't get or can't afford lunch. I've never read so much justification for toilets before--I just thought the statement "There are 700 students and no running water" would suffice, but this document was about 5 pages long.

The club was also proposing to sponsor 4 girls whose family's main income comes from begging. These girls either have to miss school or "board" with tutors where they're more often than not abused or molested. For about $8600 this club is going to 1) install toilets and running water 2) build a cafeteria and provide meals for 11 cents each 3) sponsor the 4 needy girls and 4) help make development in Benin sustainable. Seems pretty efficient to me.

Something I noticed while reading through the project reports is that American Soroptimist Clubs spend a lot more per woman benefited but African clubs provide services to more women. I guess this makes sense since usually the African clubs are undertaking community projects and American clubs usually sponsor specific women. I just thought that was interesting to see and wonder if it affects how the clubs and headquarters themselves run.

So that's what's going on at work. Tuesday and Wednesday I didn't do much, but that's okay since I had a pretty busy long weekend. Today I went and visited an apartment that would be nice to stay in, but it's still unclear if my mom could stay with me. If she can, then this is a great deal. If she can't, that means I'd be paying $1200 for two weeks of lodging. Tomorrow I'm visiting a "pavillion" that Mommy and I could rent while she's here. I kind of irritated the renter with my incredibly useless cellphone so hopefully that doesn't affect its availability. Next time I travel abroad, I'm going to figure out a different set up for this cellphone deal. Having a UK number in Switzerland is pretty useless and it's even more useless that it doesn't ever accept incoming calls.

Other than that not much else to report. I got over-charged for bananas today at the grocery store but didn't really get why so I just let it go. It was during a busy time at the grocery store and I don't think I could've explained myself. I sort of made up for it by buying 4lbs of pasta for about $2. I'm set for the month. Also, other mundane news: my feet were absolutely destroyed by all the walking I did this weekend. It's hard to wear anything other than my flip flops and bandaids won't stay on for very long--not even moleskins!! Ugh. I wish I had better feet. Thanks Dad.

CRC

When I woke up this morning it was pouring rain outside. I also didn't feel very well. So I didn't think anything of not really putting on makeup or doing my hair. I just threw on a skirt and a long sleeve black shirt and made my way to work.

The second I opened the door, Claire, Soroptimist International's financial directory asked me "Did you talk to Suba?" Suba's my boss and since it was only 8:55 in the morning, I hadn't talked to her. I was immediately worried that I'd crashed the computer, deleted something on the website yesterday when I was editing it, or something equally disastrous. When I told Claire no she said "You're going to the UN today! Call Suba!" I was relieved and a little excited and a lot nervous. I mean, the UN is exciting, but also a little intimidating and I didn't really feel like I was dressed to be there. I called Suba and all she asked me was if I had my passport, which I did since I always carry it on me, and then told me to meet her at the train station in 25 minutes.

I ran out and caught the first bus to the train station--there was a little jay walking involved, but I really didn't want to wait in the rain! When I got there Suba and I went straight to the UN. Getting my pass wasn't all that hard but it was nice to have Suba there to walk me through it. It'd be even better if it had my picture on it, but I have to say, I like my badge a lot. If only I had a scrapbook or something to put it in!

Then we went to try and find the Convention on Rights of the Child,

which I'd be sitting in on and taking notes. Turns out it wasn't in the Palais de Nations where I got my pass, but a different building a few tram stops away and actually really close to the first hostel I stayed in! So we went to Palais Wilson (named after Woodrow Wilson) and had to stand out in the rain while we waited to get through security. At this point we were a little bit late so I was really nervous to walk into my first UN conference in front of everyone! But it turned out alright and I realized over the rest of the day that a lot of people come and go while delegates are speaking.

Today they were discussing Cuba's country report on children's rights. It was very interesting and now I know a lot more about Cuba. Since they have such an expansive social system, education and health-wise children are pretty well taken care of. The Cuban delegation brought up the US embargo on Cuba a few times and seemed to use it as an explanation for a few of its shortcomings. I won't pretend to know too much about that and the truth behind it. Things got pretty tense when the subject of child prostitution was brought up. Apparently, everyone outside of Cuba thinks its a problem, but Cuba maintains that child prostitution is minimal. I was just surprised at how long it was! I guess it was a regular working day (10:00 am to 6:00 pm) but it just felt so long and I wasn't even the one being grilled!

After I got out of there I went to a "language exchange" that I found on a website for expats in Geneva. Since I kind of have a phobia of speaking, I figured it'd be good practice to speak more. It would've been...if I'd been part of the group. All of these people were good friends and really just wanted to talk to each other, not hear about my internship and how expensive Geneva is if you aren't getting paid. I did meet one man from Farmington Hills and we talked about that for a little. Once I started speaking, it was a lot easier than I thought. Maybe I'll just have to get out there and speak more.

But what I've noticed is: the only people who speak ONLY French to me are Muslim men hitting on me. Everyone else will switch to English or put in words and phrases in English to make it easier. Today one man gave me a chocolate (I didn't eat it, don't worry) and told me I was "too pretty." But what was more surprising was that when I told him he couldn't walk with me, he stopped walking with me! He didn't try and convince me to walk for a few more blocks or get my phone number! It really caught me off guard, which I guess means I've changed a little since I've been in Geneva. Regardless, much better than the Algerian cop I ran into two weeks ago.

So I'll be at the UN for the rest of this week taking copious amounts of notes and being exhausted at the end of the day. At least coffee's free there.

Slow Week at Work

As I mentioned before, everyone is at a conference in Palarmo. Monday almost everyone was there. Tuesday, there were three of us in the morning and two in the afternoon. Same with Wednesday. Today there were only two of us all day long. Sylvain, the other woman who's been here with me the whole week, has brought her dog, Felia, in the last two days. She's a golden retriever and really adorable. And a really good distraction. Also she's played music while we work. It's nice to have some background music but I think I've heard Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah about 100 times in the last 2 days. Sylvain has also been adamant that I don't stay until 5. She says it's too long and I'm only in Geneva for a little while and I should be gone by 3:30. She shooed me out the door yesterday when I wasn't gone by 3:45. At least for this week and next week when there's isn't too much to do, that's fine by me!

This week the other intern and I are writing a white paper on safe motherhood. Since these are about 20 pages long, we broke it into pieces. So far the section I've been writing is about obstetric fistula. I would link to it, but it's a pretty depressing topic. Basically, after prolonged labor and pressure on the pelvis, tissue between a woman's uterus and bladder dies, causing a hole. After labor women suffering from obstetric fistula pretty much perpetually leak urine and get bladder and uterine infections a lot more frequently. As if that doesn't sound terrible enough, usually their husbands leave them for another wife, one who will hopefully give birth successfully. The good news is is that this is really easy to fix...with enough money. That explains why it's usually not a problem in developed countries.

I'll link to the paper once we're done writing. So far it's been very interesting to write, but a pretty big downer. But at least it feels like real work, not just like busy work they give to interns.

I moved into my apartment today! It really nice to be out of a hostel and have a space to finally unpack my clothes and get settled in somewhere. Plus the bed's way better than the one at the hostel and the one at the hotel. Also, I won't have to deal with creepy guys lurking in the lobby now. The trip from France to my apartment to work before 9:00 am was kind of difficult. I got lost for a few minutes. But I made it and was only 10 minutes late to work...that's on time if you use Michigan Time!

Here's some pictures of the apartment from google earth. I know they don't mean too much to anyone who hasn't been to Geneva, but just to get a sense of where I live...

This is the route I take from work to the apartment. It's about a 20 minute walk. Or ten minutes by tram/bus. I like to walk though...it's nice and shaded and pretty.

Richard is a really nice guy. He's actually playing the violin right now and offered to loan me some of his books if I run out of things to read while I'm here. I probably will so that'll be nice. There's a lot about the evils of capitalism and economics, so that'd be interesting to pick up. He seems very interesting and I'm sure I'll get to know him more as I stay here longer.

I didn't get a chance to go grocery shopping today but I'm looking forward to that tomorrow. I've never really been in charge of making and doing a meal plan so I wonder how this will go. Good practice for the apartment next year though. Also, tomorrow I get to do laundry so that'll be nice! Clean clothes!! It's been a week and a half...I'm starting to run low on the basics like undies.

Well that's all for now. I'm about to enjoy my first night in a real house since the May 12th! Wooooo.

Oh I forgot to mention. We walked back from the train station to our hotel last night. We save 10 euro each by doing it. In my head I was like "It's only 3.6 miles. I do that all the time. No problem!" It was such a problem! When I walk at home I have tennis shoes on. When I walk at home, I'm not carrying a sizable purse that has my life in it because I refuse to set it down anyway. When I walk at home, I'm not in Switzerland where the sun shines as bright as possible until 8:00 pm! I was so happy to see this sign:

End of the First Week!

My next two days at work were pretty uneventful. I get the feeling they don't have too much for me to do and since there's a big conference of Soroptimist leaders next week in Palarmo, no one has that much time for me, which is fine for me this week since I just used the time to get to know the organization better. I further proofread the website for little English mistakes and then began looking for topics for the newsletter. It was a pretty vague assignment but pretty interesting so far. Like did you know that in Libya's new government so far only two women have been incorporated, despite the fact that women were a driving force in the revolution? Even more interesting is that one of the women offered a position was an Arabic professor at Michigan!

We have coffee breaks around 10:30 and eat lunch together in the park--it's perfect. It feels so cozy! The only thing is, I didn't know Swiss keyboards were different than ones in the States! So far I haven't been able to find the ! key and the y and z key are switched so I end up with a lot of typos.

Anyway, Thursday night I went out to dinner with Emily and a bunch of her friends that also work at the UN. It was really fun--worth waiting until 8:30 for dinner. We went to a pseudo Mexican place called Ole Ole near the train station. I say pseudo because it wasn't quite right. Like the fajitas were definitely more curry intensive than spicy. I had goat cheese salad, tapas and chardonnay. It was very good, but of course expensive. It was worth it to hang out and feel like I had friends though. I had a lot of fun talking to Emily and her coworkers about what the UN is really like. In my head it was too big and too contentious of an organization for less than perfect people to be there. From their stories, it didn't seem like I was completely off, but I had definitely underestimated the number of unsavory people in the UN system. I guess racism and gender discrimination are pretty common in the UN. I guess it's made me think that I would much rather work at an NGO than in the UN. But there's a lot of time before that gets decided.

Friday me and a friend from the hostel went out for Vietnamese food. It was really good! My pork buns were just perfect and we split egg rolls and noodles too. It was a good start to the weekend. Geneva has a lot of kebab places but also a lot of Lebanese and Thai too. Tons of ethnic food, which is just what I like!

I had to change hostels this morning until Thursday. L'Auberge de Jeunesse only allows people to stay for 6 nights--kind of a bummer but that's probably the longest you can stay there and still be sane. I opted for one kind of a lot farther away, but much cheaper. It's actually in France, which sounds insane, but Geneva is close to France--less than an hour. It's gorgeous here so I'm definitely happy with this choice. There are no good pictures on google but if there were, I'd post them. Also, food is way cheaper. I can eat good food without wincing at every bite I take! It should be fun for 5 days to just see somewhere so close to Geneva, but so different. Plus I get to practice my French more. A lot of people in Geneva speak English and are really quick to switch to English the second I falter in French. It's nice when I'm doing something important like buying an all access train pass, but I could do things like order coffee in French if they'd only let me!

Jokes. Found a picture:

Gorgeous.

I'm off to have a lazy weekend and work on my tan before I start my first full week of work on Monday! I'm excited to catch up on some reading! Hopefully I live through the "rapture."