I Wanna Rock

It finally happened...i finally got "the rock"...if you are late to a meeting or say something really boneheaded you get "the rock" and i made it almost 2 months before i was graced with its presence in front of me. Luckily i was just late and not moronic. And not even that late :)

So I've planned my first vacation...I have to fly military to Amman, Jordan then from there to London to see Alice (my roommate from South Africa..soooo long ago!) then to Croatia to meet mom, then to Amsterdam to see Larissa (my co-worker in Cambodia and post law school roommate in Ann Arbor) then back to Jordan. I think I'll need a vacation from my vacation when I'm done with this! I'm planning on flying back to the states for Labor Day weekend for Krista and Ryan's wedding but will probably stop in Egypt or somewhere if anyone wants to meet me...then I might do my third vacation around Christmas.

I've been keeping myself busy with meetings...I've been here for almost two months and I'm still making initial meetings with lots of people. This past week was the minister of interior's human rights representative, lawyers from the ngo civil law society, law professors from one of karbala's two law schools and a few other folks. I spent a lot of time working to getting a group of 20 legal professionals a spot at an upcoming conference on forensic science in baghdad...got a grant to pay for their transport and lodging, encouraged participation because reliance on forensics is something I think needs to happen (and not just a confession based system) to advance the legal system here...spent lots of time doing that and then found out yesterday the conference has been "postponed" indefinitely. Lovely.

I went to a private law school twice this week...once I met with the law faculty and talked to the students of the English department (which was fun...reminded me of Japan) and today i went to a legal conference. The conference focused on a few different legal issues...the difficulty of enforcing a tax law here, the problems that can occur when high ranking govt. officials have dual citizenship and the coordination of civil law and sharia law. Interesting. When I went the first time I was wearing a shirt that I felt very uncomfortable in (meaning, my collarbone was showing...nothing risque at all by U.S. standards) and one of the students noticed and offered me a head scarf so i put in on not so much to cover my hair but to be able to drape it over my neck. The response i got was incredible. Students, both male and female, immediately started approaching me and telling me how much they appreciated me wearing the scarf and respecting their tradition. So I wore it again today when I went. Clearly I'm not going to be mistaken for being Iraqi (or even Muslim) and I had not thought of wearing a head scarf earlier because I thought it wasn't important since I am a foreigner, but after the positive reaction I have no problem wearing it when I feel it is appropriate.

Tomorrow off to do another courthouse inspection - dilapidated courthouse buildings and i'm trying to figure out how to make them safer..how about making sure the roof and walls don't collapse in for starters! :)