I have had baklava at least once for the past three days. This week we officially began our case study of the Cyprus Conflict, with readings, lectures, and guest speakers. On Friday, our guest speaker was a former PCR student (from this point forward when referring to my seminar class I will refer to it as PCR [Peace and Conflict Resolution]) named Ruya of Turkish origin who grew up in Germany. She had taken the class one year ago and went on the Cyprus/Greece/Turkey trip so she shared with us her research project, some pictures from the trip and told us about her current job-working at the Permanent German Mission to the UN. Her pictures were absolutely gorgeous and it was interesting to hear about the trip from a perspective other than our Professor's.
In the afternoon on Friday, Ruya taught us a few words in Turkish (which I already forget) and our Professor gave us homemade baklava.
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| Homemade Baklava and Turkish Language Lessons |
On Friday night, lots of people from my class hung out outside of class. We have a really great group of classmates and its nice to step out of the classroom/group project/ stressful environments and just relax together. Its also great that for the most part we're all getting along really well so far seeing as we'll be spending 3 intense weeks traveling together.
On Saturday I went on a book chase around the city, to 2 libraries and 2 bookstores. I got my DC public library card and then found out that the libraries we went to didn't have the book (don't believe everything you read on the internet!). Then the bookstores we went to only had 1 copy each. The book that we were in search of is We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, a book of stories from the Rwandan Genocide. After the search, I had my second helping of baklava in 2 days at Zorba's Cafe in Dupont Circle. I cannot wait for the immense amounts of fresh seafood, falafel and baklava that await me in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey.
Today has been spent in AU's School of International Service building "doing work" on my research project. (The third serving of baklava was left-overs that my classmate brought with us to help with our studying).
The Post-Conflict Education part of the title of this blog post is about my research project. By the end of the semester, I will have a very large research paper on the current state of Post-Conflict Education around the world and in Cyprus specifically with recommendations for how the development of the education system in post-conflict areas (particularly history curriculum building and teaching methodologies) can contribute to peacebuilding measures). Yay! If you know of someone who happens to be an expert in the field of Post-Conflict Education or a specific conflict or you come across books/articles about the topic, please share!
Love to all!
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