Laura Gordon

Laura Gordon (Survivor Corps in Burundi): Laura worked as an English teacher in Côte d’Ivoire in 2002 and Thailand in 2003. In 2006 she graduated from the University of Oxford with a 1st Class degree in Modern History. After graduating, Laura worked in Uganda as a research intern for the Uganda Human Rights Commission. At the time of her fellowship she was pursuing her master’s degree in International Affairs at The Graduate Institute, Geneva. After her fellowship, Laura wrote: “I'm more comfortable in my skin now, and after a couple of years of wondering where I belong, I'm now sure that it's overseas in the development world. I love Burundi and I'm desperate to go back.”



Africa Time

27 Jul

One of the things that drives me, and most of the other bazungu I know, absolutely crazy, is the fact that here it is not only acceptable to be several hours late for meeting someone, with no obligation to call and let them know that you’ll be late, but also that it’s OK to just not show up. But there is, of course, a flip side, and I wanted to share an incident from my trip to Rwanda; while we were walking along trying to find our hotel, we stopped a young woman and asked for directions. Rather than just pointing us in the right direction and sending us on our way, she walked with us almost the whole way to the hotel, on the way telling us that she had just finished qualifying for a lawyer and was in the interview process with a job with Avocats Sans Frontiers, and that she hoped later in her career to study International Law in The Hague. Figuring that she was probably on her way to meet someone and will have been late because she was showing us the way makes me feel much better whenever someone is hours late to pick me up!

Posted By Laura Gordon

Posted Jul 27th, 2009

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