Human Rights and Customary Law

For convenience and to keep you updated on all details of my life, I'm linking to another post I wrote for the Leitner Interns blog. This goes into a little more detail about my actual work this summer and the issues/approaches I am taking to human rights.

In other news, it appears the rains have officially started. Every evening there have been heavy rains and/or thunderstorms, most often continuing into the morning, but stopping around the time I leave for work. It's been starting up again around 2 or 3 in the afternoon for several more hours. When I first arrived, I brushed off the comments about "the rains". After all, I've spent time in Oregon, I can deal with days of rain on end. Here's the thing about the rains here-- imagine a monsoon. Now imagine it lasting for 4 days straight. Now throw in a city built on various hills and winding roads, no drainage, and an inordinate amount of red dirt everywhere. On the one hand, it's pretty cool when walls turn into waterfalls and roads into rivers. On the other, when you're driving home and realize that the bridge you have to drive across (on an okada) is about 4 inches deep with dirty water rushing past? Maybe not as cool.

Also, as a World Cup update: USA advances to the knockout round (magic!) only to face Ghana on Saturday. As I may have mentioned, I think Africa deserves this one, so I'm torn between my country and my heart on this game.

Finally, watch this space for pictures, hopefully uploaded tonight.