July 5

July 5, 2013

I’ve been pretty busy since our arrival in The Hague on Sunday so I haven’t had much time to write or blog.  We’ve been visiting various international courts this week: the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and finally the International Criminal Court.

We sat in on two cases at the ICTY, which was very interesting. In both cases, issues came up with translation. For some reason, I didn’t think this would be an issue but some of the staff at the ITCY said it was a very common problem and was something they had to address daily.

Coming from Rwanda to the Netherlands has been a drastic change and I’ve noticed some things about Western culture that I hadn’t necessarily paid much attention to before.  In Rwanda, the culture is very conservative and women don’t wear skirts above their knee.  PDA is also something you never see and actually I think it’s against the law in some places for couples to even hold hands.  This is a stark contrast from the Red Light District in Amsterdam and even the woman rubbing her boyfriend’s back on our tour at the ICC.

I’ve had a great time this week and really enjoyed the Netherlands but I honestly wish we had just spent another week in Rwanda. While visiting the various tribunals was very interesting, it doesn’t compare to the first-hand experiences we had in Rwanda – not to mention that I wasn’t as familiar with situations the other tribunals were prosecuting as I am the ICTR.

One other thing I’ve noticed this week is that even though Dutch is the national language of the country, literally every person I’ve spoken to speaks perfect English as well.  At home, most of my friends don’t speak a second language and foreign language classes are not as prevalent during primary school.  I think that’s something that needs to be addressed in schools earlier because knowing multiple languages is such great skill to have.

Right now I’m on a train to the airport in Brussels and I can’t believe that our trip is over. I’ve learned so much and made so many great friends and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to be a part of this program. In 20 hours I will be home and am excited to see how I can take the knowledge I’ve gained about Rwanda and about myself over the past six weeks and apply it to my life.