Wednesday, March 22, 2006

A nice article on Sarajevo

Click on the link below to read a nice story on Sarajevo, my soon-to-be home for 3 months. Enjoy!

Link to NY Times Sarajevo article, "Emerging from the Shadow of War, Sarajevo
Slowly Reclaims Its Lost Innocence


Saturday, March 04, 2006

Carnaval in Maastricht

Last weekend while people were celebrating Carnaval around the world, me and some friends traveled to the very south of Holland where Catholicism is the practiced religion (as opposed to Protestantism in most of the country) to have some fun. I only bought a wig, funny sunglasses and multi-colored boa. The Dutch carnaval music was the folky kind of music that makes you move up and down...almost like at Disney World or Busch Gardens, lol. Everyone at carnaval, young to old, are dressed in something.

The group (L-R): Brian, Mos, Daniel, Kanako, Jack, and me!






Below: Me and Jack posing in one of many bars we stopped in

Two men dressed up as prostitutes who went to the extreme and had this fake store front to sit in for the duration of carnaval. They moved locations from time to time. Lots of people had similar things--I saw a CSI crime scene as well; creative!

Cute little boy forced to wear a costume, hehe..
Mos with some people in extravagant costumes. It was really neat to see what people came up with--a lot of traditional carnaval costumes with ornate masks and dresses, royalty, etc.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Summer Internship will be in....


...Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (borders Serbia, Croatia and Hungary) with the National Democratic Institute! Check out the organization at www.ndi.org. It's based in DC and has offices around the world. Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State under Clinton, is the Chair of the Board for the organization. It's quite a prominent organization in the post-conflict democratization, reconstruction, and stabilization field. It receives most of its funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

I will be working on some of the following issues:
constitutional arrangements and points of contention, modernizing public administration, policy development and coherence, reform of specific sectors like the police, military and broadcasting, challenges to health care and education, social cohesion, identity and ethnicity,
values, urban-rural dimensions, the role of women, migrations and refugees, minorities and human rights, youth attitudes and aspirations, local and world views, etc.

As many of you know, the Balkan region experienced several years of conflict in the 90's, but of all the countries in that region, Bosnia & Herzegovina is one of the safest. One of the biggest dangers are landmines, but these are clearly marked--you just can't go hiking wherever you'd like! I have a friend living and working for an international organization not too far from Sarajevo as well, which will be helpful. For more information on Sarajevo and the country in general, go to:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2868.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarajevo

I am looking forward to the post-conflict issues I will be working on and the invaluable experience I will have as a result of this internship.