The vegetarian eats a snail

One of my first discoveries upon arrival in Geneva was that my
command of the French language falls into the category of “not good enough to understand anything said by a group of school children, but sufficient to conduct simple conversations at a relaxed pace with long-suffering shop assistants”. I ended up in an interesting conversation this morning about snails when I ordered a pastry entitled "escargot avec raisins" (snail with raisins). The good news, for me and for the Genevoise, is that free French lessons are part of our “training”, so I look forward to slightly more intellectual discussions, about a variety of animals, in the future.

Taking a turn in the garden

When one is engaged in serious and important activities such as training and "preparation", it is necessary to ensure that one keeps up one's fitness. I am finding that a brief turn in the gardens morning, noon and night will generally do the trick. Tucked away on the outskirts of Birmingham, Woodbrook provides an environment of tranquility and Jane Austin-esque beauty. The most impressive point to make about the gardens here at Woodbrook is that they are indeed practical as well as beautiful. The delicious stuffed squash that I ate for supper last evening was grown in this very garden.

Also, it is interesting to note that Gandhi stayed in this very building when he came to England in 1931. The Quakers are rather proud to announce that he burnt the carpet in Room 12 when attempting to cook his dinner in his room.

Traveller in my home city

I think it's important, when you're about to be a traveller somewhere else, to practice in your home town. So Pete and I have been doing a bit of travelling of our own. I spent a relaxing afternoon having a massage in easy Eastwood, followed by a day getting lost in busy Bondi Junction's multitude of malls. We also spent the weekend in magic Manly. We caught the ferry there, and spent a warm afternoon on the beach. In fact, the weather was so warm that we were able to take our shoes off and wiggle our feet in the sand. It was great to be able to relax and put the worries of Swiss visas out of my mind. But now that my visa is secured everything seems in place for travel outside of Sydney...

Last weeks in Sydney

A friend recently commented that preparing for living or travelling overseas in your late twenties is very different to doing the same thing in your early twenties. I definately agree. When I was planning a year's working holiday in Britain and travel in Europe at the age of 21, it was the end of an era, and I was out to find myself. I had nothing to lose. Now, as I approach the age of 30, I know what I want from this experience, I am a bit clearer about who I am, and I am leaving much more behind. Quite a few friends have babies that will grow up while I'm gone, my grandfathers are not as young as they once were, and my partner, Pete, has kindly agreed to revolve the next year of his life around Europe and my dream of working for the UN. Being away from him is definately going to be tough.

The past few weeks have been filled with scanning the second hand shops and markets for cheap woollies, driving my flatmates crazy by umming and ahhring about the right size for my new pair of walking boots, booking flights and train trips, packing my life into boxes (again) and taking the opportunity to dispose of even more clothes, books and kitchen utensils! Charlie the visiting cat is sadly missed - he ran under a car a few weeks ago. My tomato plants have also died, signalling the onslaught of winter and coinciding sadly with my departure. I will miss my flatmates and our vegetarian household (see photo). The free yoga classes I get as a volunteer are definately a welcome relief as I begin to stress about those silly little details....including the thesis that won't go away!!

I promised myself that I wouldn't travel overseas again without a purpose. With air travel costing the earth (literally), I wanted to only go overseas if I thought I was contributing something worthwhile, and if I was experiencing a city as a resident or at least a visitor in somebody's home rather than a tourist simply hanging out with other foreigners in hostels or hotels that don't reflect the true "vibe" of the place. So a job at the United Nations working on issues of disarmament fits the bill, I think. I will try to be a bit Swiss for a year. I'm looking forward to swiss chocolate, fondu, cycling to work (can you believe that I have already been offered a bike?), French alps, catching up with old friends in Europe and hopefully even a trip to Morocco, staying with local people and learning a bit about the culture there.

Next stop, the United Nations!

Yes, that's right. I've actually managed to land a job at the United Nations in Geneva, working for an NGO called the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO). I will be working on the Peace and Disarmament program, so will be able to put my degree to the test in a real life setting. As part of my job, I will have to write a journal, so this blog is good practice.

It turned out, for various reasons, that the Nonviolent Peaceforce wasn't the right thing for me just now. I was a bit apprehensive about the commitment, the (hot) climate and ... to be honest, the conflict there. I really believe in the notion of pacifists putting their lives at risk, if necessary, in the pursuit of peace, and I still hope that one day I can do that sort of work. But the reality of eighteen months seclusion with an organisation that is still finding its feet, was too much for somebody like myself with limited field experience. I also realised that I was more interested in conflict resolution / peace building work than peacekeeping.

QUNO is hoping to expand its disarmament and peace work to include peacebuilding, which will be particularly interesting for me. I hope that the UN will give me the grounding and international experience in disarmament issues as well as to allow me to make a contribution to its peacebuilding program. Who knows what my next step will be at the end of the one year placement in Geneva.

PS: I'm also apprehensive about the (cold) climate in Switzerland
PPS: No, I don't get to wear the cute cap!!

Garden of Peace

I am staying at the Gandhi-King-Mandela Farm (also known as the Garden of Peace) which is an intentional community in rural India. The founder is also one of the founding members of the Nonviolent Peaceforce, so there is a nice link there. Conditions are .... basic. They are in the process of putting the roof on the toilet block and we are in negotiations about getting some toilet paper for us westerners. I share a tent made of banana leaves with a lovely girl from Sweden called Lotta and as I write this I am recovering from a common complaint here - the collapse of my stretcher. Internet access is non-existant, (except via a half hour jeep ride into the nearest town, Vellore) and telephone communication requires a half hour stroll in to the village. This "log" will be contributed to the blogsite when I return to civilisation!! The picture attached is of the "Buddha Smiles School" on the farm we are staying. This is the building where we are conducting the assessment and training, and behind it are our tents. Some of the poor village children visit the farm and eat with us. It's their holidays at the moment, but they are here to practise for an upcoming concert. We have decided to plant trees here as part of our gift back to the community that is looking after us.

The people are lovely here and it's really great to meet likeminded people struggling with a similar urge to make a difference - one guy, Jose, probably articulated the feelings of many of us here: "Finally I am not the black sheep".

Theory into Practice: Preparations for India

Here's a photo of me, at my desk at home. My flatmate instructed me to look interesting :-) This is pretty much where I'm sitting right now, trying not to get too distracted from the task at hand - writing something about Nonviolence in Iraq before I leave for India.

The purpose of the trip to India is to find out if I'm the right person, or I should say one of many suitable people, to put the theories of Nonviolence into action. Eighteen of us from around the world are getting to know one another by email as we prepare for the first stage of the Nonviolent Peaceforce recruitment process. It's comforting to find out that most of the group are not dissimilar to me - the differences being where they studied Peace & Conflict and what sort of NGO they have worked for.

Already we have been given numerous papers on the application of nonviolence to Sri Lanka, updates on the current conflict, immunisation/insurance type information and a personality test! For the next week, and possibly month, we will be tested with role plays about situations of real conflict, challenged by our own cultural insensitivities and will hopefully begin to build a supportive community.

I'm very nervous, of course.

Blogging On

There are many advantages to having a nerd for a boyfriend - one is that you get your own blog sight organised in approximately 2 minutes. It feels kindof self-important to have pages of the internet devoted to silly old me, but I once read that blogs are as much about a form of therapy for the blogger as they are about communicating with others. Anyhow, I thought I'd try it out as a way of documenting the next phase of my life, and showing pictures of what I'm up to, without overloading people's inboxes.