Spring time in the Balkans with Syrian and Afghan Refugees

So in April, I quit my job as the Regional GBV Advisor for the global GBV Working Group in Bangkok. I wanted to work on the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe and I had a great opportunity to do so by working with the International Rescue Committee as the "Initiatives Director for Women and Children's Protection" - sadly, by the time I had resigned and got here, the EU-Turkey deal was in place and the large migration had halted so there are far fewer migrants moving through Europe. But the job is still great and super interesting.

I'm living in Belgrade, Serbia (a place I never thought I would ever go) and I'm working with a small nice team of people here. They just found me an apartment that overlooks the big park here and I can walk down to the Danube. The beer is good, the meat is heavy and tasty, and I had better find a gym immediately or I will become as wide as I am tall. My job involves going to the different countries in the Balkans and looking at the needs of women and children migrants and seeing if IRC should open up programming and how to do it to support them. So it reminds me a bit of my Refugees International life where I go someplace for a short period of time and do intensive interviews with refugees, NGOs, and government officials and taken in vast amounts of information trying to understand the situation. But I then get to help design programs to address the needs which is wonderful. 

First up: I went to Berlin for 2 weeks and met with local volunteers, the government, German NGOs, and toured many of the shelters where Syrian and Afghan refugees are living. It was both super heartening to meet the German volunteers who were devoting time and resources to helping the refugees understand the really intense bureaucracy of German life but also really depressing to see that all the same problems we see in camps in Liberia, Jordan, Sri Lanka, and Haiti are happening in a rich Western country - no segregation of vulnerable young women from the men, rape of children by "volunteers" and attacks in toilets because of lack of lighting or locks on doors. People who are interested in volunteering are also naive and soon become angry or depressed at the "ingratitude" of Syrians who are often middle class educated people who would like to just have a job, thank you, so they can buy what they need and get on with their lives rather than throwing off their veils, putting on ripped jeans, and becoming Germans. I interviewed young adolescent girls, lesbians, single mothers, and women with three children. Every single one of them discussed some aspect of groping, sexual exploitation, assault, and harassment on the journey - from the sex-starved young men of Syria and Afghanistan but also from the authorities along the route but mostly by the smugglers. The men who they had entrusted their lives with to make the dangerous journey.

For my next assessment, I went to Albania - a country that I really had very little knowledge about. I hadn't seen "Taken" in which Albanian mobsters apparently play a huge role. I had vaguely read some information about their terrible communism. But mostly I knew them from a Simpson cartoon.  I was blown away by the kindness, the beauty of their country, and the cultural heritage they have. i read a fantastic book called A Chronicle in Stone by Ismael Kadare and fell in love with his hometown of Ghirokastra. However, I did not meet nor see a single refugee. I did spend 2 hours stuck on the Greek-Albanian border and driving through some seriously high mountains and eating some good food. 

Now, I've just visited the third country for my assignment - It's been very interesting in Bulgaria - we were inside all the camps. Apparently the Afghan men (and its thousands of them) have been instructed by the smugglers to destroy the lodgings for them and take photos so they can show how discriminatory everyone is against Afghans and it will "help them in their asylum cases." It won't. All it is doing is making everyone think they are animals. I keep hearing all these terrible things about them. It makes me sad. I fight back and say I've been to Afghanistan and the people there are kind, have lovely homes, and show amazing hospitality. I remind them that its not safe there and the war still rages on despite the lack of interest from Western media. 

There are SO MANY OF THESE YOUNG MEN. Young men - ages 15-17 (some younger but lying about their ages) with no future in Afghanistan, climbing through forests, swimming in rivers, and sleeping in these old Bulgarian army barracks. they only stay for one or two days and then they are off - looking for the promised land of Germany. Where Afghanistan is considered "post-conflict" and safe so they will be denied asylum status and  will probably disappear into the "illegal" sectors living in the shadows. The same "smugglers" who lie to them and bring them across the continent also move the illegal drugs and traffic people into sex work. The young men are bored and restless, there is nothing for them to do in the asylum centers so they smoke and loiter around. Still, they are children - when you talk to them about sports or games or their favorite food - you see the young boy inside. there are still girls here too - and because they are fearful of all these young men, they are trapped inside the centers - not allowed to really go outside and enjoy the spring, kept inside for their safety. I will be pushing for women's centers where we can bring them together to chat, meet each other, possibly form some friendships or alliances where they can open up and find support for the troubles they have. And trying to think of ways to reach these young men. Because we know they are also vulnerable and there is a trade in sex trafficking for young men too. Behind their bravado and their male posturing, they are also vulnerable children. Some of the nights, after spending all day in the asylum centers and processing all the information, we were so tired.  But as I drove through the countryside and saw the poppies and waving fields of grain and mountains, and elderflowers and breathed in the fresh air, I also felt pretty happy. 

Back to Belgrade tomorrow after a weekend in Sofia, Bulgaria and next up - Macedonia? Greece? Hungary? Stay tuned. 

My contract is only til July 1 but I have the opportunity to do this for a year, I'm still mulling it over but it looks like a move away from Asia may be in the books. I hope Simon Le Bon likes beef and loud Serbian music! 

xoxox

From Snowstorms to Military Coup, 2014 was quite a year

As per usual, 2014 has been a year filled with travel and adventure. I am a consultant specializing in gender-based violence in humanitarian crises currently and based in Thailand but on a short term visa so I have to come and go from my apartment in Bangkok every 30 days. Normally, that corresponds with travel for work but sometimes I have to make a “visa run” – which is usually quite nice as Thailand has inexpensive flights, lots of great neighbors, and there are interesting places to go! But the travel is exhausting. If my 25 year old self who dreamed of traveling the world could hear me now, she would probably faint-  what do you MEAN that you are tired of traveling?

Here’s a little snapshot of my travels in 2014:

20 trips * 193 days * 131,541 miles * 42 cities *16 countries

I have one more trip left for the new year – I’m off to Japan for my visa run and I will spend a couple of days in a lovely looking zen Buddhism retreat to try to gain strength for next year. I hope it will be restorative!

So last year, I started out the New Year in the USA with my sister, Alyson. We took a road trip to Florida but sadly that coincided with the polar vortex so no beach for us. That was fine with me since I live in the tropics but Alyson was a bit sad. She was also very tolerant as I took over the social media and liveblogged, tweeted, and instagrammed our road trip. Although it was cold, we stopped by Amelia Island and Savannah as well as meeting Winter the dolphin and seeing some manatees at a power plant.

In February, I went to Bali, Indonesia for an extended trip trying to sit down and really start writing (something that I’ve been wanting to do ever since I was a little girl and wrote my first story about the Princess Sarah and her nemesis, the man in the pickle suit). I found out that writer’s block is a more powerful nemesis than the man in the pickle suit[1]. Ubud is so lovely and beautiful! I consulted an astro-cartographer, as one does while in Bali, to find out where in the world I should move to find love… sadly the answer was Antarctica. Meh. My friend Kaya, the mathmetician, has disputed that analysis and believes my love line is actually the line that runs through Addis –Kiev- Beirut. Maybe in 2015!

I made it back to Washington DC in March to see my dear friend Diana Prieto marry and I danced so enthusiastically at her wedding that I managed to rip out my hem of my dress with my high heel during a polka. I also managed to get trapped on a Qatar Airline flight in a snowstorm sitting at the gate in Dulles for 12 hours. That was fairly miserable and was compounded by flying directly from DC to Rakhine state (via Doha and Yangon) which is a place on the Burma-Bangladesh border that is caught up in discrimination and displacement of Muslim Rohingya by chauvinist Buddhists lead by some extremely radical monks.  I ended up caught up in the riots against aid workers in Rakhine State. It was all very tense but in the end, I was fine and was evacuated back to Yangon where I joined a bunch of other aid workers in a sparkling wine filled brunch-debrief-argument that helped us all decompress. From a polka party to a snowstorm to attacks by Buddhist monks! What a trip!

I took a little break by going to one of the most beautiful beaches in Thailand – Koh Phangan – and managed to avoid the infamous Full Moon party. I’m really getting old now, I guess. I preferred hanging out under the actual full moon and taking a swim alone rather than drinking buckets of beer and watching people vomit in the sea. YOUTHS!

I then returned to Myanmar where I worked up on the border with China in a fascinating place called Kachin State where I got to hang out with my friend Marise from MSF, ride bicycles around the town, get a massage by a blind man, and visit the “confluence” of the N’mai and Mali rivers where the Irrawaddy river is born. It’s a very important place for the Kachin people – a place that may soon disappear due to the construction of the 7 dam Irrawaddy project. Local people have been forcibly relocated from around the area and large scale mechanized gold mining and logging projects have destroyed large areas as well as polluting the Irrawaddy river. At one point, I was told, the river was so pristine that it was crystal clear. Not so much anymore but it was a nice day out to a remote spot- luckily we were not kidnapped like the three government workers who also went to the confluence that day for a picnic.

I returned back to Thailand just in time to experience martial law and the Military coup in May!  The Thai military coup was so “Thai” and so not as dramatic as the news made it out to be. I was getting a pedicure in the afternoon and preparing to go meet someone to interview them for my consultancy when we entered into a fashionable coffee shop/chocolate shop. We ordered and the waiter seemed very agitated and told us we would have to eat fast and then said MARTIAL LAW MARTIAL LAW! We broke out our smart phones, found out that martial law had been declared and there was a 10pm curfew so we finished our lattes and headed home. The Sky Train was completely crowded and people were swarming the ubiquitous 7-11s to just to stock up on alcohol. My friend Jordan came up to hang out that night and told me he had been headbutted by a desperate expat man in the 7-11 trying to get a case of beer. So my neighbors Rebecca, Jordan and I sat around listening to the cheery nationalistic Siamese martial music being broadcast on every single tv station and played Cards Against Humanity while sipping gin and tonics. What a very expat experience. My first coup (well actualy there was an attempted coup in Darfur when I was there in 2004 but they didn’t succeed and the only way we knew it had happened is they took all the sat phones and mobile phones off line).  

Life under the military regime has not been very different. We all panicked when they threatened to tighten immigration and we became very sad when they closed up all the VW Bus/bars that lined Soi 11 near my house at night. Apparently you can’t eat a sandwich in public or read George Orwell as it’s a protest now and in very Thai style, the three finger salute from the Hunger Games is now used in protest. But other than that – the non-stop unbridled capitalism, hedonism, and eating continues apace.

After I finished my work in Myanmar, I managed to win an 8 month contract with the UN that was home-based so I hoped it would help me stay home a bit more. Wrong! I was immediately brought to NYC for a meeting, which was nice as New York in May is wonderful! I also flew from NYC via Abu Dhabi to London for a big summit to end sexual violence in conflict in London where I got to finally meet Angelina Jolie! The best part of the whole conference was that I was quoted in US Weekly about Brad Pitt! From there I flew to Qatar where I waited for a visa for my next crazy adventure – teaching about gender and disasters to the Saudi Red Crescent! 

Well, now you can guess where my Xmas photo was taken. Luckily, my college roommate, Ann-Michelle lives in Doha and I got to hang out with her and her fantastic husband and kids for 10 days and she loaned me an abaya – the mandatory long black coat that all women in Saudi Arabia wear with a headscarf. What you can’t really tell in the photo is how beautifully it is embroidered with black sequins and thread. Every single woman wears a very different abaya and I found myself checking them out to see their fashion sense. Saudi Arabia was a very interesting experience. The people that I met were both incredibly hospitable and sweet to me but I also faced some of the worst sexism I’ve had to experience in my life (which thankfully has not been very much). The highlight of the trip was the flight out of Riyadh back to Doha. It was the last day before Ramadan and all of the domestic workers were all rushing home for holiday. It was like boarding the last flight out of Saigon as hundreds of Filipino, Pakistan, Bangladeshi, Indian, and African workers pushed and shoved their way onto the fully booked Dreamliner in desperation. I got caught up in the hysteria as several waist-high women used me as a battering ram to push us onto the plane. I have never been so happy to land in Doha. It looked like a desert oasis after the run down, dusty Riyadh. I felt like I might have overdone it that night for Ann-Michelle’s birthday as I chowed down on pork, drank champagne, and danced in a minidress until sunrise. That’s what Saudi does to you though…

I returned to Europe for my summer vacation – finally facing the dreaded task of clearing out my storage unit in Amsterdam (which true to form, I procrastinated on until the very last day before I had to fly back) and celebrated a spectacular birthday in Berlin and Poland with my bestie Mike Dumiak before heading to the gorgeous chateau in the Loire Valley with a group of friends for non stop wine tasting (a repeat from 2011)…

I finished up the year by returning to the US in October to visit my cousin Catherine who is ill in Topeka, Kansas and it was nice to spend even a few days with her and Emil in America’s heartland. I returned to NYC to run a workshop and then Alyson and I met up in Toronto, Canada where we visited Niagara Falls – a place both of us have always wanted to see! I was thrilled to be able to ride on the “Horatio Hornblower” and get completely soaking wet by the power of the falls.

The end of the year was a blur of travel to Malaysia, Philippines, Myanmar, and work work work. I made a couple of short trips to the gorgeous Thai beaches of Koh Samet and Railay beach and cooked and consumed some amazing meals. I’ve been privileged to see so much of the world this year – and to have the love of family and friends. 2014 gave us the war in Gaza, the massacres in Pakistan, the ebola epidemic, the crashes of the Malaysia airline flights, the kidnapping of young women by Boko Haram in Nigeria, the sinking of the ferry in Korea, the horrible beheadings by ISIL, and the horrific murders of children in Pakistan. But I hope my silly stories of my adventures around the world can give a little laugh at the end of the year. I still believe in universal human rights, speaking truth to power, fighting for justice and gender equality and the power of a good bottle of red wine and an Ottolenghi cookbook to change the world.

I wish you and your loved ones an adventuresome, peaceful, tasty, and loving 2015!

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[1] my father, incidentally