Next Up Sri Lanka

Latest blog post:

Hi all its been approximately one year since I last posted on Underneath the Charging Sky.
Since then I got accepted to Columbia University's International Affairs School – SIPA and started classes in the fall. These last nine months have certainly been a challenge, albeit it a welcome one. I've met amazing people and have been pushed to my personal limit when it came to economics, papers and groupwork. The class I liked the most was Applied Peacebuilding- at SIPA there are certain classes in such high demand that you actually have to apply for entrance into the class and try to justify your being there. The professor chooses the applicants for the class. Due to some stroke of luck I was actually accepted, and the first several weeks of the class was spent picking a local partner abroad that needed an intern for summer work. The real lure for my interest in this class was the post-conflict development aspects. The professors arranged Terms of Reference for each organization available. As students we had an embarrassment of riches when it came to picking projects – places like Lebanon, East Timor, Kenya & Jordan, just to name a few. The partnering organizations also varied, from United Nations Offices to grassroots organizations.

Upon choosing a project I got in touch with my counterpart and we contacted each other weekly to plan out what the project would be. I chose the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Sri Lanka.
Wait – Sri Lanka? I thought you were Africa Girl! This is true, I had a big internal struggle in deciding where I would be this summer and I decided Sri Lanka would be best. I felt I could learn the most from the Sri Lanka conflict and apply it to my career in the future. And let's be honest, working in Sri Lanka has no negative bearing on my plans for the future. I've spent a lot of time studying and researching the conflict as an undergraduate was well as a part of my graduate work.
So here I am again. Sitting in the Dubai airport waiting for my connecting flight to Colombo. This airport actually has a live lobster tank in it.
I'm very excited and am having trouble imagining what Sri Lanka will look and feel like. I have many pictures in my head but none do justice. I've researched the academic side where everything is cut and dry, the development indicator side where everything just corresponds to numbers, and lastly the tourism side, where everything looks like a mawkish postcard sunset and there is no mention of the atrocities that occurred in the past. I can't reconcile these images. I just have to go live there and see for myself. I promise to keep you all posted on the sights sounds & experiences of Sri Lanka this summer via my blog.