Tonight, as I was out walking around, I saw a few kids dressed up as ghosts for Halloween. It was rather adorable. Apparently, Berlin is one place where Halloween is celebrated more than in other German cities, but if that's true, it's no where near what it's like in the U.S.
Of the few trick-or-treaters I saw, some were pretty obnoxious. I was at my buddy Brandon's new apartment tonight, and some kids rang the doorbell. We weren't really sure if we wanted to open the door, since we had no treats prepped to give away (barely anyone even celebrates it anyway). They kept buzzing, so Brandon pulled out some candy bars he had in his backpack.
Before he could open the door though, we heard them running down the stairs (in the apartment building) and leaving. But not before leaving the doorbell ringing. Let me explain: the doorbells in Brandon's building look like door knockers. You lift them to ring and lower them to stop the ringing. These kids decided that anyone who didn't open their door deserved to have their doorbells left up, so you could hear doorbells buzzing throughout the whole building. Obnoxious, no? Slightly funny though...
Anyway, I went to my first Catholic mass tonight. I haven't really gone to church since arriving in Europe, so I figured I'd tag along to the new church Brandon found. Rather interesting, although difficult to understand—both because it was in German, and because it was German with echos in a grand church. I did feel more inspired to find my own church though. Still haven't found a Presbyterian church in my neighborhood.
Though I don't yet have the pictures to show it, last week was a busy week. I attended an "advanced training seminar" on human rights and (forced) migration in European citizenship education. It was hosted by Network Migration in Europe, a non-profit funded by several rather large foundations. Besides me, there were about 23 other participants, many of whom had PhDs or Masters degrees. I was the youngest one, though there a few German university students as well.
It reminded me of HIA back in 2008: intense seminars, discussions, site visits all day. Everyone commented that their brains were hurting after thinking so hard from morning till evening. I do think that I approached this seminar a bit differently from HIA though. Then, I was so focused on educational access issues, I sometimes felt like I might've tuned out a few of the other human rights discussions. I will admit I did that in more than a few of my college classes as well. But in this seminar, I was zeroed in the whole time. Even at the end of long days, when normally I'd be thinking "just stop talking and end this thing already," I was intrigued and listening intently, even though I was exhausted and partly running on fumes.
I was reminded of my very first college class actually—aptly called "Culture and Human Rights." Many of the discussions we'd had in that class gave me a foundation for understanding the international conventions and treaties that established human rights and fundamental freedoms around the world. At least as a moral obligation with a few enforcement mechanisms here and there. The other human rights and migration classes I took as part of my International Studies degree—as well as my HIA Fellowship and prior study abroad programs—also gave me more background knowledge coming into this seminar.
In this seminar though, I really soaked in everything we talked about—from understanding the European Convention on Human Rights to learning about how it's actually enforced, from Switzerland's not so clean past during the Nazi era to the effects of the economic crisis on Spain's migration policies. I came away with a greater appreciation of understanding the definitions of terms and concepts, and I realized just how important that is in understanding the complexity of the immigration debate in Europe. The institutions and structures set up to address these issues seem to be missing the mark in understanding just how important it is to distinguish between the various types of migration, etc. You can't simply lump asylum seekers into the same categories as, say, undocumented workers (or irregular migrants, as we learned in this seminar). To give them the same treatment legally is to ignore the contextual factors of their personal situations and ignores the needs of the individual to follow pre-existing laws and policies.
I could write a lot more on what I've learned, but it might be rather boring (plus the title of my blog post would make very little sense). So I'll just leave it at that. I will try to post some pictures later this week. I didn't actually take any, but a number of my fellow participants did. They will be sending them to me, so I'll share some of them to show you what the seminar looked like.
Well, I'm going to bed now. Daylight Savings Time officially ended in Germany yesterday, so I'm now 8 hours ahead of Seattle. At least for one week. It was rather funny to wake up at 1 PM today—that's what my laptop, iPod Touch, and cell phone all said. I figured I needed to change the time...until I saw the kitchen clock still showing 2 PM. Apparently, my electronic devices adjusted for the time change in Germany automatically. How wonderful.
Toodles,
Sam
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