Try Not to Be Mad

This is Hammock Row, a passageway between 2 classroom buildings. The steep roof keeps out the rain, the translucent panels let in light, and the sides are open and lined with plants. Maybe the best feature of a university campus ever. It is only empty because I was on the first bus this morning and got there before anyone else. There are at least 3 more full hammocks strung between trees in addition to the chair hammocks around the buildings and courtyards.

This was an initiative from the Student/Faculty/Staff Committee and they only finished putting them in over the last year or so. Thank you SFSC. Thank you from the tips of my toes to the top of my head.

By Request

I've been asked for more pictures so, here you are. On the left is the view from the Council Room where we have our lecture in the morning. Can you see the mountain? I think it's actually a volcano. I know at least one of the mountains we can see is a volcano. Because the morning lecture is broadcast to a classroom, they've papered over a bunch of the windows so Amr won't be backlit. But this is what we were looking at all during Orientation. On the top is the view from my seminar classroom. It's a bit washed out because it's so bright.

I Love School!

First day of class today. So wonderfully, exactly what my hopeful imagination pictured.

For the first hour & 15 minutes the whole class of 2011 (all 180+ of us) are together for a lecture. Or as close to together as we can get- most of us in the Council Room where Orientation was held; those that don’t fit in Classroom #1 with a video feed. UPEACE may be small but we rock the technology. Amr Abdallah, the Vice Rector, gave the lecture this morning about the beginnings of conflict and peace studies as an academic discipline. After the lecture we had a ½ hour break, then met in smaller seminar groups of 22 (minus, of course our African contingent) for discussion. So there we were, 16 of us from all over the world sitting in a classroom with windows all over three of its walls looking out at gorgeousity everywhere talking about the nature of peace and conflict and whether there is such a thing as a ‘Western’ or ‘Eastern’ perspective. Having exactly the kind of rich, juicy discussion that I came here for. The time flew by.

Over lunch I met with some of my fellow Peace Ed students to start brainstorming plans for our program for International Day of Peace on September 21^st. I naturally took up the role of note taker and spent a ½ or or so after lunch typing up the notes and emailing them out. Then bus home to Ciudad Colón, talking with Manuel from Honduras/Montana about how our days had gone and how an influx of wealthy Californians is starting to liberalize Montana.

So yeah. I love school. I love what we’re reading about and talking about. I love the totally international group in which we are doing all of these things. I love the beauty of the location in which we are working. Love, love, love where I am right now.

Good news!

Just got word via my roommates that at least our 4 Asian classmates still awaiting visas have been approved! If all goes well they'll be arriving this Thursday or Friday. This is especially a huge relief for the rest of the students in the ALP who have been fretting over the fate of their friends. One of the students coming will be in the Peace Education program with me. His arrival will double the number of men in our group. The arrival of the Africans (fingers still crossed) will double it again. The female to male ratio at school is pretty high in general and particularly in our Department, which also includes the Gender and Peace Studies program. However the breakdown of our professors is slightly more males than females. So is our class a trend in the peace and conflict resolution field or an anomaly?

Once upon a time...

One of the things we learned in Orientation was the history of the University for Peace. Here’s what happened. Pardon me while I geek out for a moment. In December of 1980 the General Assembly of the UN gathered in Rivendell to adopt resolution 35/55, calling for the establishment of a University for Peace. Rodrigo Carazo, then the President of Costa Rica stepped forward to say, “I will carry the ring to Mordor!” A philanthropist by the name of Bennett then stepped forward to say, “You will have my wallet!” And then Costa Rica stepped up to say, “And our support!” They looked around to see if six more entities would step forward and there was an awkward moment while other countries and people with money looked at their shoes and mumbled things about needing to make a phone call. Then President Carazo and Mr. Bennett and Costa Rica all set off together while the UN waved goodbye and wished them luck and there followed many highs and lows including a dark time when it seemed all might be lost. But then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan flew in on a giant eagle to re-organize and re-structure the University so it would be a real place where real students could take real classes and get a real degree. Since then, other universities around the world have established partner relationships including the horsemen of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Korea, the tree people of Ateneo de Manilla University and the tower dwellers of American University in DC. And now we all live happily in golden light and slow motion, laughing and jumping on the bed.

Roommates

My roommates made dinner for us tonight and invited over another friend of theirs from the Asian Leaders Program, Munty. I have really lucked out. Everything was delicious though Benjamas kept apologizing that she couldn't find coconut milk so her curry was as good as it could be. We ate family style with four different dishes in the center of the table and each of us with our own plate of rice. I took a little bit of everything right from the start, like dishing up at a potluck. I noticed that they spooned one bite at a time from the center. Right now they are Skyping with another friend from ALP who is stuck in Manilla, waiting for his visa to come through.

Benjamas is from Thailand and is in the Media and Peace Studies Program. At home she's led workshops teaching various aspects of media. She says she is like many other people from her country because she is very outgoing and loves to talk. Mai is from Vietnam and is in the International Law and Settlement of Disputes Program. She's studied law in Vietnam and France. Benjamas jokes that she is a professional student. Mai seems always to be looking out for her friends and I'm glad that now I'm one of them. I wonder what will happen in March when all the ALP students return to Manilla. I think we'll all be quite sad. The whole school will get smaller and our apartment will be a lot emptier. But there's plenty of time to worry about that later. Meanwhile, I'll enjoy whatever food comes my way.

Oriented.

Just a quick post to say orientation is over! We met with our Programme (I guess we're British?) groups this afternoon so I finally got a chance to see who my Peace Education cohort is going to be- minus the 5 Africans and 1 Sri Lankan who are still awaiting travel visas. I look forward to getting to know all of them over the next 11 months.

We've already got our first group assignment too. September 21st is International Peace Day and the Peace Education class is in charge of coming up with a 45 minute program for the whole university to observe the day. Classes will stop and all eyes will be on us.

I picked up my reader for the first course, which starts on Monday. It's a foundation course in Peace and Conflict Studies that we all take together in the morning and then break down into smaller seminar groups for the afternoon for a total of 3 hours/day of classroom work. We'll spend the rest of the day on homework and organizing our group activities. The reader is enormous and I've already started tackling our first assignment.

This morning's trip into San José went very smoothly. We all got copies of our Costa Rican police records and turned in our birth certificates and home police records. Next step on Tuesday is fingerprinting. Then we wait to be processed and hope our colleagues waiting in Africa and Manilla will have a chance to catch up. Please send happy visa thoughts their way.