This is the year.

Originally published in the Harvard Law Record -  http://hlrecord.org/?p=19525 October 7, 2013 On Thursday morning I headed to Haymarket station to meet dozens of City Life members to protest no-fault evictions by tax-payer owned financial institutions. Part of an on-going campaign to help people stay in their homes and promote affordable housing, City Life has been organizing weekly protests in front of Boston’s housing court. The protest successfully educated hundreds of individuals walking through the busy downtown district, as well as the lawyers and court staff walking into the courthouse. Potentially more importantly, it empowered clients preparing to present eviction defenses on their own against represented landlords and banks. I stood to the side handing out information as City Life members shared their stories, spreading public awareness around the reality of no-fault evictions. One woman spoke about how she has just received an eviction notice after paying her re

Yesterday while boarding a crowded public bus from work, my friend reached out and paid for my fare. I protested, but she responded that her government has told her to be kind to visiting foreigners. This conversation mirrors other conversations I have had with Burmese during my time here. Almost unanimously, Burmese have had only positive things to say about the new international presence in the country, largely based on the belief that foreigners “will bring us development”. I am not as encouraged. It is not the international interest in Myanmar that is problematic, or surprising. After all, Myanmar is touted as one of Asia’s last untapped markets. The Southeast Asian country is located strategically between China and India, and is rich in natural resources including oil, copper, and jade. Myanmar has a large, young, and “underemployed” population, ripe for rapid industrialization and the promotion of deregulated “Special Economic Zones”. The political situation in the count

"See you later" Two months ago I landed in Yangon, knowing no one, and feeling exhausted after a stressful and often disheartening first year of law school. I was excited to work with Justice Base, but also a little nervous about being so far away from everything I knew. I’d never traveled for so long on my own and never been to South East Asia. If anything, I figured I’d do some interesting work and get to travel to a totally new and exciting place. These last two months have been so much more than that.  Sitting in the Bangkok airport waiting for my flight to DC, I wanted to write down a few of my thoughts and my “see you later” message (since everyone who came out to Karaoke knows my real-life speech didn’t go so well).   First - to everyone I hung out and worked with, I’m so glad to have met all of you :) Thanks for the fun times, the great conversations, the singing, salsa dancing, and traveling. Good luck with all your work and please stay in touch.  S

Four more days in Burma - I can’t believe it! I’ve made some really great friends the past two months, learned a lot about the politics of work related to legal institutional reform, and had an incredible opportunity to travel this incredible country. But I’m not gone yet so I’ll leave the reflection till then and instead share some adventures from the last few days.  Dalla (the region across the river from Yangon) was last weekend but Sophie took some incredible pictures from there so I wanted to share a few of them.  Bicycle taxis in Dalla Snack sellers on the Dalla ferry     Dalla Since last week was my last weekend in Yangon, Sophie and I attended every social event, and still found time to take day-trips out to Bago. We at dinner on the banks of Inya Lake at a local Burmese tea shop, went salsa dancing, and did Karaoke. I also ate barbecue on the street with Mo, Sit Maw and Ben, had a great traditional Burmese lunch with salad from Wai Wai, explored downtow

Since I only had two more weekends left, I decided to try and see many of the places I'd been wanting to explore since I got here - and it was great :) The weekend started a little crazily - on Friday afternoon it rained incredibly hard for a really long time. I was supposed to meet my friend Sophie for dinner, but with the incredible amounts of flooding on the road, it took almost 2 hours to get uptown. So instead, we met up at the tailor-shop where we'd gotten fitted for clothes 5 weeks ago. My dress was definitely worth the wait; the tailor used beautiful traditional material to make a really pretty summer dress for me. Somehow she made it a little too small (seriously this is really difficult ... even in Burma), but she was able to fix it and I wore it out that night :) The next morning, I woke up early and went to meet one of my Burmese friends, Sit Maw, at the zoo. I really liked it! Putting aside the sadness that I think exists at all zoos, it was really nice to hang

Bagan This past weekend I traveled to Bagan (in Central Myanmar) with Sophie, Andi and Sarah. Bagan is absolutely incredible and if you're ever in the area, its definitely worth the really cold bus ride. I was just excited to get out of the city and spend some time in the nature and the sun, but Bagan is so much more than that. Bagan was the capital of the Pagan kingdom from the 9th to the 13th century (the kingdom that unified the regions that now make up modern-day Burma). I read that there were over 10,000 temples at one point in the region, and there are now over 2000 scattered around a 50 square km region. It really is absolutely stunning. Pictures are really the only way of representing the beautify, so this post is less writing, and more a mini photo essay. A temple near where we stayed at sunrise Sarah, Andi, Sophie and I at the top of a temple waiting for the sunset      How we got around in Bagan So many beautiful ancient temples