Maybe I should make shorter posts, more often.

Hola,

I am just sitting at work with not much to do and figured I could write a blog. I haven't said much at all about my job. I am really enjoying it! I was more or less transferred from the Legal instruments team the first day when I could not understand the española Sonia too well. Funny after being in Spain this summer for 5 weeks, but wow, Peruvians are much easier to understand. I was really flustered as I had really just arrived in Lima and suddenly all the staff were introducing themselves to me and explaining what they do, and I was just getting lost. I guess it's for the better, because I don't know really know anything about international law. So the deputy director Mèlanie put me in sort of a hybrid position between Legal instruments and Public security team. Hopefully if my work is appreciated enough, they will give me some work with more legal issues, though it's really all interconnected.

As the UN's organizations are caught in a horrible mess of bureaucracy, it's easy to say that yes, UN-LiREC struggles for funding, especially when state or IGO or other donors consider disarmament, they think of nuclear non-proliferation and North Korea. In Latin America, this has been more or less a non-issue for some time. To cap it off, 13% of funding has to go back to the Office for Disarmament Affairs headquarters in New York, and UN-LiREC never sees any of it again. What is in fact a big issue in Latin America is the fact that of 14% of the world's population and 4% of the world's civilian firearms, 40% of all firearms homicides occur here. In 2001, there was a major politically-binding instrument in the UN General Assembly called the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. This is what most of UN-LiREC's work is focused around in recent years. Working to eradicate the excessive availability of small arms as they only reinforce the structures of the drug trade, gangs, and a general culture of violence that varies in intensity in different urban and rural environments, and causes the biggest barrier to economic improvement for certain communities. They do this in combination with working alongside the UN Development Programme and other groups to provide alternatives for marginalized populations.

Anyway, I don't know how much detail anyone wants to hear about this, but it is definitely interesting work, and I'll try not to ramble too much. As my supervisor Amanda told me, it's not exactly the best job to integrate into your nightlife conversation, but it's work that she enjoys. My first task was helping out with a proposal we sent yesterday to Canada for a 5 million dollar project centered around the crisis area in the Northern Border Zone of Ecuador and taking a multi-sectoral approach to combat the illicit firearms trade in the Andean Community. I had to prepare a background report on the illicit arms trade and the proliferation of weapons and the effects of armed violence in this sub-region. It's crazy because I'm researching and learning that global problems are a lot more complicated than I ever imagined in the real world. With my limited understanding of the issues in light of new thoughts and revelations, it sometimes seems there is no right answer. Sure, the subjectivity of Intro to International Studies was a new challenge, but this takes it to a new level. It's certainly my biggest challenge but also probably the best thing about the job, because it's going to make me redefine more accurately my ideas about these issues. At the same time, there's not the biggest place for idealism when you're working for a system as both UN-LiREC's ideals and the donor's ideals (both of which have their own responsibilities and systems in which they work, making it ever more complicated) trump individual thought to some degree. I suppose this is why people end up reconciling their beliefs with whatever life path they end up choosing. And only those in academia or leadership positions can really try to influence any system and it's thought process.

Nonetheless, despite my confusion, my initial response is that I approve of the activities of UN-LiREC, but I suppose this isn't really the forum for details! Okay, I'm rambling, and anyway, just some initial thoughts that I hope will be a little more clear in a few months. It's hard to get in the rhythm of independent study and research for 8 hours a day in front of a computer too, but I'll get into it and learn a lot I think.

Elsewhere, things are going super chévere. I'm living with a few really awesome people, including a crazy Spaniard from Asturias, an Irish guy more recently from Boston, a Floridian, a French dude, many Peruvians, and an older Australian guy. It's an eclectic bunch, but overall it flows well, and Hugo the Spaniard will certainly be the reason my Spanish betters the most, besides reading academic texts for work spending half the time on wordreference.com. We went to a party at a big student house on Saturday which is part of this network of Peruvian and international student houses and gatherings. It was a lot of fun, as parties in Lima tend to be on people's roof terraces. Surprisingly, I met the first two Americans who were not at a backpackers' hostel on the way to Cusco. They were from Colorado of course. Then it's mostly a lot of French and a few other Europeans. There is certainly the impression here that most native English-speakers don't care about learning another language. At least it I live with and will hopefully meet a lot of people without that attitude. Though it's certainly an arduous process getting used to casual conversation in Spanish, and you find yourself stuck a lot. Certain nights I'm just not up for it, and it definitely is a cause for some loneliness, but fortunately I have some English speakers around the house. Anyway, it will get there, and I think I'm already improving way quicker than I was in Madrid because of the lack of the BC companions to fall back on.

Unfortunately, my office is separated from the main house in a conference room out in the yard, so interactions seem to be brief with most of the people I work with, and it's hard to break the language barrier and get to know many of them. But my fellow intern Carlos is a 30 year old Peruvian lawyer who is contemplating switching to international law. We have been getting along really well and having more or less fast paced bilingual conversations, which is kind of fun. He mostly gets a really big kick out of learning practical English slang and dirty words. Hopefully I'm ready for an interview I have this afternoon to teach for an English language school near my house. The director e-mailed me saying I should call in, but he meant come in to the office, so I think they could use a native speaker around. Okay, I should find some work to do now.

Chao,
Brandon