Yellow Monday

I've had the pleasure of seeing the seasons changing both in Europe and Oz. While the cicadas are coming out in Sydney, the leaves are dropping here in Geneva. I know this because I've seen both in the last week. When I glanced out of my window on my first day back at work, I noticed how yellow the final leaves of autumn are. The autumn coloured leaves of orange and brown have already fallen, but the remaining yellow leaves shimmer and glow in the twilight.

The brief trip home was a chance to take in extra yellow rays of the sun, before I returned to winter. Pete and I found a cicada shell in his garden and some friends gave me ear-rings in the shape of cicada wings. I realised just how Australian these creatures are when I tried to explain them to a colleague - the fun of collecting live cicadas with extra prestige for the rarer "black prince" and "yellow monday", the buzzing sound on a summer evening, and the first cicada shell of the season.... but I guess you had to be there.

Can't escape my middle class fate

Very few people here in Geneva can call themselves true Genevoise. Most of us are foreigners of some description, and many work in and around the UN. I've noticed that this international community has created its own unique class system, and I have managed, yet again, to find myself in the middle class.

The upper class consists of diplomats. Their mode of transport is car or taxi. I have one friend who is a diplomat, and my jaw dropped when I visited her apartment. My humble dwellings paled in comparison to the sheer luxury of this three bedroom villa with breathtaking views of the lake. I haven't had her over to mine yet...I really must.......but I'm a bit embarrased because she will have to sit on a plastic chair and the only view I can offer is of more apartments. My mode of transport? The tram and bus.

But everything is relative. "A view of more apartments?" cry the students and interns. "Sheer luxury. We are so poor we have no view at all! Trams? Why, we have to walk everywhere!" Most interns are not paid anything for the work they do, and need to pay their way by babysitting in the evenings. They are not afforded the luxury of a room to themselves, and must keep meals out to an absolute minimum. In the building where I live, my room is one of only four with its own bathroom and a balcony. A friend of mine who is studying a PhD cannot believe how lucky I am. She has no view at all from her apartment, cycles everywhere to avoid transport costs, and we usually meet for coffee because dinners out are out of the question.

So I've started riding my bike a bit more - in solidarity with my friends, and for the sheer fun of it!

What am I doing here?

Before I left for Geneva, a friend asked me why I wanted to work with the United Nations. It’s an interesting question. The UN is criticized for being too bureaucratic, for being a talk-fest and for achieving very little. And certainly it has its problems. The system of consensus is quite different to the Quaker model, where those with a concern are genuinely listened to and a final statement is agreeable to all. Instead, countries use the power of veto as a tool of control, with the frustrating result that often no decision is made at all. In some meetings, each country will feel the need to comment on the timeliness of the meeting and congratulate the Chair on their recent election, which can leave no time for discussion of substance to take place.

So, why work with such an institution? I came to some clarity on this question when I was in Brussels. The keynote speaker at a Quaker Peace Conference pointed out that we don’t stop engaging with our national governments because they are not exactly the institution we would like them to be. Indeed, he pointed out that it is for this reason that we should engage most vigorously with them. The role of my organisation is to engage with the world's government. By advocating for international positions on human rights, disarmament and fair trade and facilitating dialogue and understanding between government representatives, we can have an impact on the current system. We can also model the kind of international diplomacy that we would want to see throughout the UN.

Not in our backyard

Quaker House, where I work, is situated in the beautiful, quiet, leafy suburb of Petit-Saconnex. Some of the houses we walk past are old fashioned and cute, others are modern and quite grand. They all have impressive gardens and well-kept hedges.

But all that is to change one day soon. The Geneva Government wants to compulsorily acquire an entire street in order to build social housing blocks. This will mean that the residents will be forced to sell to the Government in 2008. The residents are protesting, which means, according to Swiss law, that they are allowed to attach yellow ribbons to their gates. Like any important decision in Switzerland, the matter went to a vote, but, given that most of Geneva does not live on that street, they voted “oui, oui, oui” for the social housing.

This situation has brought up some interesting issues for me. Recently there was another vote. People voted "non, non, non" to a referendum asking them if they wanted to accept more refugees into their cantons. I do wonder, though, if these residents in Petit-Sacconex protested as strongly for the rights of the refugees to a safehaven as they did for their own rights to stay where they are. When I read the protest signs that say “construire mais autrement” I wonder if they mean “Go ahead and build, but not where it affects me”, or are they saying “Build, but find way to do it that suits us all”? I hope it is the latter.

Turning on the heat

It's starting to get colder here, which is good, because I get to wear all my new winter gear!! The amusing thing about the Swiss heating, though, is that there is a day that it all gets turned on in Geneva (I think it's the third week in October). Every industrial or residential building is required to fall into line with this arrangement, regardless of their individual heating needs. I suspect they have a ceremony that week, too - probably involving cows. There are good things about the approach of winter. A few of us hiked up Le Grammont the other day and it was so nice to find ourselves in a Swiss chalet at the top of a mountain and to sip a well-earned chocolat chaud, huddled next to an open fire.

Things are also hotting up work-wise. Having found my feet, I am flying to Brussels this weekend to give a little presentation about Quakers and Peacebuilding. Determined not to hide my small flame of spoken french under a bushel, I have been letting it shine in various social contexts with encouraging results. For example, when approached with the invariable "why are you a vegetarian?" question, yet again, it was a welcome change to have the conversation in french!!! I have also been responding to emails in french, with a bit of assistance from my multi-lingual colleague, DZA.

Working in the field

In our training period, it was stressed that we should maintain a healthy work/life balance. In order to meet this requirement, we decided to spend our public holiday over the border in France, exploring Mont Salève. The cows with bells were a reminder that we were in the country, while the fact that we could see the jet d'eau from almost every point along the way reminded us that we weren't far from the city.

There's always a dilemma for people who work in the areas of development or peace. Do you work on policy and advocacy, hoping to make a difference from a more distant point of view and risk criticism of being removed from the issues? Or do you work "in the field", living in countries struggling to re-build after war, and risk criticism of colonial interference? Well, this day helped us to find some perspective on this difficult issue. Our conclusions? Perhaps it is possible to find a balance!

Cirque sans frontieres

The view from my colleague's apartment is far more exciting than the view from mine, but in addition to the beautiful alps, his view also contains the "Cirque sans frontieres", which apparently is not as beautiful as the Cirque du soleil, but instead includes animals and performers from around the world coming together in a symbol of unity - just like the United Nations.

All in a day's work

My workplace is a lovely old house with a beautiful garden. It has
four stories, including the attic (used as office space) and the cellar (used for meetings) and I am on the first floor. When I have been there a bit longer I should be pretty good at guessing whose feet are clumping up or down the stairs. One of my tasks is to arrange lunchtime meetings and I am pleased to report that my first one was accident-free. I have felt quite important running about getting my Swiss bank account and UN pass, but apart from the excitement of the perks of this job, I have realized how well respected the Quakers are in the UN circles and am feeling a sense of being part of something very worthwhile. I've been to quite a few UN meetings already, including one on cluster munitions in Lebanon, which was quite informative and disappointing at the same time. I'm also getting to know some of the other diplomats and NGO people who work on disarmament and they have been very welcoming.

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.