My how time has flown by here in Rwanda! I feel as if
I have barely blinked and now I’m nearing the halfway point in my internship.
But at the same time, it is remarkable how engrained Brittany and I have become
in this place in such a short time. We absolutely love it here and we are both
thrilled with the work that God has given us to do.
Since
my updates have been terribly lacking thus far, I feel as if it is most
appropriate for me to provide an over-arching post on what work has been like
for me at IJM. I cannot thank everyone who has supported me to get here enough,
so suffice it to say that I am incredibly and forever grateful for this amazing
opportunity!
My
job with IJM has turned out to be almost entirely special project based. Of
course I am only here for about seven weeks, so it is difficult to get too much
into the everyday workings of the organization. And yet, I have been amazed at
how much I have done already!
The
first several days were filled with on-the-fly training and education on how to
fit in with the team and what it is like to work/live in Rwanda. I wish I had
this sort of cultural sensitivity training every time I visited a new country…
it was so good to hear all about Rwanda from two folks that have lived here all
their lives! I was warmly welcomed, and had really no trouble at all finding my
way to fit in. My office is a reasonably small room that I share with two other
team members. It was awfully nice of them to fit me in though, because one of them
even had to give up half his desk for me, and I mean that quite literally. As
in, they sawed his desk in half and gave it to me. Both of these Rwandan guys
are great though and it’s a pleasure to work near them on a daily basis.
The
most notable things that I have accomplished thus far are internal research and
memos. This means that I’ve been given several random legal issues that have
been problematic for our office recently and told to find a solution. These are
things that I’m well prepared for as an American law student, and I’ve been
consistently amazed at how the legal research process is basically the same no
matter what you are doing. Whether it’s a 4th amendment issue for class or an
East African Community tariff law question for an international NGO, the whole idea is basically
the same. You know absolutely nothing about the subject at the beginning, and
by the end you have produced a memo that actually sounds like you know what you
are talking about. I love that!
I
have also started to get more involved with the real substantive work that IJM
does here. Our mandate is Child Sexual Abuse cases, and so a big part of my
time has been spent becoming familiar with Rwandan law on that subject, as well
as a lot of our case history. One of the most difficult things that I have ever
had to do is reading through the scores of stories that we have in our files.
It is impossible to describe how painfully sad and discouraging so many of
those stories are. And at the same time, they are a vibrant reminder of why we
are here, and the good that can be done by organizations like IJM.
To
wrap that all up in one moment, we got a conviction today! A perp was sentenced
to 20 years in prison and a relatively large payment of over $1,000 to be made
to the family. This was the trial that I had sat in on several weeks ago, and
so it was an awesome experience to celebrate the win with the rest of the
staff. It was also a little bit of a surprise that it came out so well, so
there was a lot of excitement to go around.
There
is no doubt that this is where God has for me to be this summer. I am learning
a lot both academically and otherwise. Thanks again to everyone for your
thoughts and prayers!
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