I'm back!

The question is: Was I ever really here? Here is so subjective anyways. And constantly changing.

Okay, much too philosophical for this morning. It's rare that I get into a mood to write in this blog, which is too bad, because I enjoy writing. I think my problem is that when I turn this into a journal, then it feels like a burden and something I have to or should do instead of something I want to do. In any case, I have been on a whirlwind of traveling during the weekends, from Berlin to Paris to London to Dolomites to Madrid. And I'm back. It's weird. I feel so alive when I travel but also this sense of guilt when I am traveling as though I am on a vacation, when I think of being in places where even traveling cheaply around Europe on a backpacker's budget is considered an obscene luxury. I keep getting asked when am I going to settle down, and I really really dislike the words "settle down." I don't want to settle down. I want to be free. Free to make a difference, free to live the life with the purpose of achieving what I am supposed to achieve and knowing that I did everything to make that happen. Obviously, I want to establish a home base. I just don't like the words settling down, because they feel confining. Anyways, thoughts for the day. Au revoir.

Long week

Yesterday, I went to a meeting with a lawyer from ECRE-European Council on Refugee and Exiles. She offered quite some good angles into what I should be looking for regarding the chapter that I am drafting during my three months here in Brussels, such as researching more international court decisions. One particular case that I was reading about today has to do with a bilateral agreement between Australia and Malaysia about the exchange of refugees. I will have to put more about this specific case on here, because it is quite interesting-some pros, but also some negative things about this decision on the part of the Australian government. I feel a bit like a detective trying to piece everything together. I have to keep reminding myself that it's good I have access to so much information, and that this is a process, when a large part of me is wondering how the heck I am going to transform my notes into 20 pages that will eventually be published? Deep breaths...

Bon weekend

Bon weekend is what you say in French to wish someone a good weekend, which makes that aspect of my French learning experience easy at least! My weekend has been low-key but fabulous. Yesterday, we had quite a mix of countries represented on our excursion to Antwerp, or Anvers, as it is called in French, although it is a Flemish city. It was me, the American, my new roommate, Loredana (Italian), my friend Anne and her flatmate, Julia (Germans), my friend from French class Lucy (Czech) and her male flatmate, Clement (Austria). Antwerp was quite lovely, but it was so cold! Most of the diamond shops were closed, at least the ones in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood we walked through to get to the city center due to the fact that Saturday is their Sabbath. In any case, all of us but Lucy, who had already been and preferred shopping, went to the artist Ruben's house, which only cost us 1 euro entry fee. Fantastic deal, as we stayed an hour and a half, looking at art. The night before, Friday, I had met up with Anne for a couple of drinks, but by 10:30, we had already called it a night in preparation for our trip to Antwerp. It's crazy what a little bit of snow will do, but seeing as how we just got snow on Thursday, the first since I've been here, no one seems to want to go out. Today was more museum hopping, 2 euro entry at the Magritte art museum, where I went with Loredana and her coworker, Valentina (both work at the Italian Mission to the EU). We stayed for three hours, so I have reached my museum capacity for the weekend! Now, it's just finishing laundry and getting ready to go back to work. However, one last thing to comment on:

Brussels, a city of 1 million people, is ridiculously small in some way. Today, we ran into Clement, the guy from our group last night. He also was the museum, and he started peering at me on the other side of the glass exhibit I was looking at, which made me laugh. This has been the seventh or eighth time I have run into someone, or someone has seen me in Brussels. The other day, I ran into our director at work around 8:30pm-I was on the metro going home from French class, and he was trying to get on the too crowded metro (he ended up waiting for the next one, but we said hello). Ah. C'est la vie.

A sampling of my academic journal:

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to attend a meeting at the Bavarian Permanent Representation to the EU. Many countries, such as Germany, have their own regional representation to the EU. One of the benefits for these regions is to connect the EU political debates with their own national and regional political debates. Michael, the regional director of JRS Europe was kind enough to invite me to this meeting, in which there was to be a panel of speakers, including two MEPs (Members of European Parliament) discussing the topic of immigration and integration within Europe. These discussions are open to the public, and Michael also informed me about how countries often have funds set aside for political information/education in which they can host events that educate the public, with the idea that being an informed citizen is the only way one can actually fully exercise his or her citizenship.

This meting was quite interesting as the focus was on immigration and asylum issues from an economic and business perspective, with many of the politicians taking a more conservative approach than JRS. Still, I found myself amazed that even this right-centrist approach was still perhaps more open minded than view points I might hear being espoused in the United States. After the meeting was over, I found myself better able to articulate why small countries like Malta have issues with the Dublin Regulation and what some of their alternative paradigms to how the EU should work on asylum and immigration issues might be. I also learned more about some of the challenges that Eastern Europe faces, in that as migration flows traditionally have stemmed from Eastern Europe into Western Europe, and Eastern Europe itself has not necessarily been a destination for large numbers of people, politicians in places like the Slovak Republic do not want to take preventive measures to address migration. Rather, they would rather wait until after there is a particular problem. Hearing politicians actually articulate their positions and listening to the types of questions that audience members asked after the panel, I realized why, as an NGO, it is good to attend these meetings. Because the perspective is different, you can gauge not only the arguments but also how the arguments are being presented and the strategy behind them, so you can plan yours.

Setting fire to the rain

    Yes, I am listening to Adele, as the title of this entry clearly suggests. I have been seriously slacking on this blog, but the good news is that is because I have been a fully engaged participant in my life here...so much going on! In my social life, things are splendid. On Friday, I hung out with Miguel, who is from Northern Spain and doing a law related internship here until August. Apparently, my coworker(who is finishing his year with JRS as a media assistant) saw me out in the main square that night, which is kind of funny because I keep having these things happen to me, where I run into someone I know in the middle of the city or am at least at the same place as someone else at the same time without knowing it. And it's not like I know that many people! Which gives you a sense of Brussels-a city and yet still with a small town feel at times. I went to Ghent on Saturday with my friend Diana, who lives next door to me. There was a lights festival going on, in which all the old buildings and churches were lit up, with some animated light shows in the works as well. We had some drinks, including a delicious hot chocolate and really yummy chicken soup with bread for dinner. My roommate, Helen has gone back to Germany, so sadly she wasn't there to join us. I will be getting a new roommate tomorrow, from Italy. Sunday was pretty low-key, but Diana, Nina (another girl who lives in the residence center, also from Germany), and I walked to the cinema to see A Dangerous Method. Most things are closed here on Sundays, though. In other social life type news, I have booked flights to Berlin, Madrid, and now London (I still need to get my train ticket there, but I have my flight back). I am excited because Berlin will be to see my college roommate, Grace, who I haven't seen in four years, Madrid will be to see the Spanish family I au paired for a couple summers ago (and hopefully, fellow BC globie Swathi), and London when my friend Malinda and I meet up again after a very eventful summer meet up in Madrid this summer. I am also working on a trip to Paris and getting some day weekend trips to Dinant, Bruges, Antwerp, Lilles, and hopefully Luxembourg together. So, life is good..I am really enjoying meeting new people here.

     In terms of work, I am working to help draft a chapter for the DIASP (Dublin's Impact on Aslyum Seekers' Protection) project JRS Europe is working on. This is an 18 month project, where 400 aslyum seekers will be interviewed, many in detention centers around Europe, and I am only here for the beginning stage. This pretty much means lots of background reading initially and researching cases that have gone before the European Court of Human Rights in Strausbourg, France, not to be confused with the European Court of Justice. I am also familiarizing myself with all the European Union institution infrastructure.

      Hopefully, by the time I am back in the States, I will be an expert on the Dublin Regulation, which is an EU regulation that determines how a member state in the EU processes a  person's claim for aslyum (which essentially makes the country in which a person first entered the EU the country responsible for processing aslyum requests). Unfortunately, this is a broken system. Even though regulations, unlike directives which give more freedom as to how the end results are achieved, mandate how state actors in the EU must do things, the way this regulation has been interpreted has often been to the detriment of the aslyum seeker, particularly those who have been sent back to Greece where reception conditions have been found to be in violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which forbids torture and other degrading forms of punishment. So, my research continues, and I will later delve more into what has been happening with this regulation.

A typical rainy day

     Well, I survived my first week! In all seriousness, I am really loving Brussels minus the constant rainy weather. My roommate is great, and although she is leaving in a few days, she has graciously introduced me to some other Germans doing internships here, so in addition to the French classes I am taking, I may also be learning some German as well! I had beer with some of them last night and expect to meet up with them tonight. In addition, a friend living in Paris was in town Thursday, so I was able to go out then as well and network. The Belgian beer is legendary here, and well worth the hype.

But enough about the beer! I'm really excited to be at JRS Europe and am already learning so much about legal issues and the entire European Union structure, which is completely different than the United Nations structure. So much to learn and so many courts to keep track of! I will officially explain my project soon! I have a great supervisor, and it helps that we went to Boston College as well and did the same program, even interning here, the way that I am doing. Although, I did have an embarassing moment the other day as we were crossing the street and I was talking to him, not noticing the traffic so that he had to kind of put his arm out to deter me. Oh, well. Live and learn, I suppose. Also, he has put me through security clearance to be able to go to a meeting at the European Parliament, which I am very excited about. Anyways, more later....

The Beginning

So, this is it. The waiting, the anticipation for this moment, has been enormous. I think back to when I first applied to Boston College's Graduate School of Social Work, hoping to enter the Global Practice program, and wondering just where I would be placed once I found out that I had been accepted. And now, I am here. In high school, I remember very distinctly writing in a scrapbook we had to make for a theology class about how, in ten years, I saw myself working for some sort of humanitarian agency abroad. Okay, so this might be only an internship, but hey, I'm getting there! I will be the first to admit that I'm not a patient person, so it's kind of ironic that one of my goals in life is to make change slowly, to paraphrase a similar expression uttered by Professor Lombe, which is exactly what the Loretto Community in New York (where I spent nine months after college) and others like it did every day when they advocate at the United Nations and what Jesuit Refugee Services Europe does by pressing the European Union to reevaluate policies and positions that may be adversely effecting an already marginalized population: aslyum seekers and refugees. Before I clarify the difference in aslyum seekers, refugees, and internally displaced persons for those of you reading this who may not be as familiar with these terms, I want to first paint the scene.

Brussels, Belgium is not exactly where one interested in international development might first think of moving.If you are a fan of great beer, well, then perhaps it is one of the first places to come to mind. Belgium is a highly developed country, and the city of Brussels is filled with exactly what you would hope to find in Europe: 1 euro waffles, frites drenched in sauce oozing out of a giant sub sandwhich type bun, cobblestone streets, towering elegant buildings, and grandiose steeples with melodius church bells echoing as a soundtrack. On my first afternoon out with my roommate, a 22-year old law student from Germany and our suitemate, a 25-year old German/Italian working as a trainee at the European Commission (which oversees the implementation of EU policies), I was impressed by the clean streets and fresh air and the sound of lilting French accents beautifully spilling out around me.

However, if you are as interested as I am in how policies can and do affect people too often not given a platform to speak, then Brussels, the epicenter for European Union interactions and a perfect example of a place divided between its EU/politician area versus the rest of the city, is the perfect place to be to advocate for social justice and for all voices to be considered and heard. The EU is one of the largest donors to developing countries, but there are also issues within EU borders that need to be addressed as well. I am very excited and eager to spend the next three months learning about and identifying some of these barriers to social change as well as hoping to gain a better understanding and perspective on the work that Jesuit Refugee Service does to accompany refugees and aslyum seekers on their journeys.