Lay Down Your Heart

Fair warning: this post will probably be fairly disjointed.

Let’s start with the coolest thing I did this week. One of our professors mentioned sort of off-hand on Monday that he was going to be having a dinner with the grad students and a judge from the African Union Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights and if any of us wanted to join we were welcome. Well, needless to say all eight of us told him we would like to come. The judge, Fatsah Ouguergouz, is from Algeria and is one of eleven justices on the Court and is the former Secretary of the International Court of Justice. I cannot remember a time in my life when my attention was so fully captivated for two straight hours. I do not think I looked away from him once during his two-hour long, very casual discussion about the court. He gave us a background of human rights history internationally, the history of the court and the challenges it faces. He was very willing to take questions from us and I don’t want to brag, but I think more well articulated and pointed questions came from the eight of us than from the grad students in attendance.

You may be thinking to yourself that you’ve never heard of the ACHPR. This is entirely possible, considering it has never actually heard a case. He explained the reason for this as being the issue of jurisdiction. Countries have to opt-in to allow individuals and NGOs to bring cases to court. To date, only Malawi and Burkina Faso have done this. Without this opt-in clause ratified, the most common way for a case to be brought it by another state. Very rarely will a state bring a human rights case against another, especially when that state could easily turn around and hurl accusations back. Thus, the Court, which has been functioning in this capacity since 2006, has not yet heard a case. Interestingly, it’s possible that this particular court may never hear a case because it is in the process of being merged with the African Court of Justice to create the African Court of Justice and Human Rights. Also, the ACHPR is conveniently located right here in Arusha, which makes things like this seem pretty normal. You know, sitting around with a judge from the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights while he sips some whiskey at our local hang-out is normal here.

Sidenote: we returned from this dinner and there was a hedgehog in our hotel lobby. Cutest little bundle of sharpness I’ve ever seen. We wondered why they didn’t pick it up (somehow) and bring it outside, but later learned that a hedgehog in your house is a sign of good luck. Makes sense not to kick it to the curb, then.

I’m still in an ongoing inner battle about my place here. I am a student. I am not a volunteer and I am not a tourist. I am not living at a colonial hotel totally removed from reality, nor am I living in a place where the average Tanzanian could afford to stay. Although it is hardly ‘gaudy’ I cannot help but think of the lyrics to a song by The Postal Service: You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex.

I feel like I’m being pulled in a hundred different directions. I am here to study, to learn everything that I possibly can so that hopefully I can somehow apply it to my studies and eventually my career. I am here to get the most out of the ridiculous tuition that GW demands from its students that are abroad. What exactly does that mean? Getting the most out of the experience? Does it mean going to class, studying, talking with locals to gain perspective and just generally enjoying life? Or does it mean doing things that leave my soul satisfied, like volunteering at the orphanage and desperately trying to figure out what everything I’m learning here will add up to me doing with me life?

And as much as I want to deny that side of my experience, I go to the market and buy souvenirs for people that I love. There is nothing wrong with this, but somehow it feels like a betrayal of the image I am trying to project.

I’ll let you know if I ever resolve this.

I don’t know if I can say that I am homesick. I long for the people that I love, some familiarity, and fall. Fall is my favorite time of year for a hundred different reasons, and I essentially just skipped fall and headed right back to spring. It’s not even really the weather, though, because the weather we are experiencing right now is pretty comparable to autumn in DC or Minnesota. What I miss is the atmosphere. I miss leaves that change colors with time and then crunch under your feet, I miss watching football (although the Packers/Bears game was on TV here, go figure!), I miss picking apples (or at least eating them), and I miss the emotions that I associate with fall. Do not get me wrong, I miss home and I miss so many people, but I just cannot get over my longing for fall.

We have now been in Tanzania for a little over six weeks. That means midterms are next week, which either hasn’t sunk in or I’m just officially not stressed out about. I’m hoping for the latter, although the unnatural feeling of a stress-free exam week might stress me out in itself.

The week after midterms (Sunday the 27^th) we are going to be traveling to Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo. Arcadia organized the whole trip and everything from accommodations to meals was included in our program fee, which is so great. I think we will be staying in Dar for two days/one night and while we’re there we’re going to be exploring and “sailing in Dar”, which doesn’t sound geographically possible to me, but we’ll see how that works out. Then we go to Bagamoyo for three nights. Bagamoyo is a small city (30,000 people) about an hour and a half north of Dar. The history is intriguing: there are ruins here dating back to the 13^th century, but beginning in the early 19^th century it became a slave trading port and it also where David Livingstone’s body was briefly laid before it was shipped out of Africa. A note on the name: Bagamoyo (or “Bwaga moyo”), means, “lay down your heart” in Kiswahili. It is suspected that this is in reference to the slaves who were shipped out of Bagamoyo and were forced to give up all hope and ‘lay down their hearts’ in Bagamoyo.

I think it will prove to be a fascinating trip. I am really looking forward to a change in scenery and can’t wait to see a part of Tanzania that I have never seen before.