Ch. 7 - Turning 25 in Geneva
After finishing the Myanmar Project for Keith this past week, I got back to working on the India Defense Manual. Siddarth and I worked on writing a conclusion for my chapter on the rights of the accused. I found some case law where the Supreme Court elaborated on certain rights enumerated in the Constitution. I cleaned up my footnotes and citations so that we could be officially finished with Chapters 1-3 and started looking at the next chapter I was assigned, which revolves around the attorney-client relationship. The template defense manual created by IBJ has certain skills, interview questions, and general content that is applicable to all country programs. Thus, for the first half of the chapter surrounding the initial client interview, I focused mostly on rewording and reformatting the content that was already included. This chapter will likely be what I am working on for the remainder of my time here.
Tuesday was my birthday, and I spent the day showered with love by the other interns. I walked in to the office to find my seat reserved by my favorite candy, left there by Eoin. During lunchtime, a few of us went to Bains de Pâquis for their fresh plat-du-jour. As I waited in line to grab my favorite homemade passion fruit ice-cream, Maryam came running to stop me—she had already bought me one. I came back to the office to a gorgeous, American-style iced macchiato that Carmen had got from a nearby trendy café called Filomena. All day, I was reminded how lucky I am to be surrounded by this particular group of interns.
After work, a group of us took a mouette (taxi boat) across the lake to go to Bateau Genève to celebrate. Chris met us upon leaving the office, and we all spent the evening laughing and bouncing around the boat. When night fell, Chris biked home and the rest of us walked to Jet d’Eau, the vertical fountain on the lake that is symbolic of the city of Geneva. Once we walked out to the jetty, we twirled around in the mist that rained down on us from Jet d’Eau’s nearly 500 foot peak, communicating through screams over its roar. Kyle bought me a brioche at the concession stand on the shoreline, and the five of us (Kyle, myself, Eoin, Maryam, and Monique) decided to move toward Carouge, where the three of them live. Until 1:30, we sat alongside the Arve as the river rushed past us, talking nonsense in our sleepy delusion before calling it a night.
After work on Wednesday, I went to a cafe to work on my job search for next summer. Afterwards, my friend Ellen and I went to Mulligans, an Irish pub not far from the central train station in Geneva. Ellen was set to leave Geneva soon. For this reason, when she told me that she had never been to Perle du Lac on a weeknight, we gave up all hopes of accomplishing anything, finished our drinks, and packed up our laptops. The two prior times I have gone to Perle du Lac’s dance nights, it had been on a Monday—Tango night—and I had watched older couples flicking up their ankles and changing direction with sharp-angled limbs.
Wednesday night was different—Wednesdays are for Salsa.
How could I humbly describe my own shock at my uncovered talent. At such events, I usually sit on the sidelines, smiling and sipping on my drink while watching talented couples masterfully navigate across the dance floor. Not this night, however. I don’t know if it was the music or the looming end to my friend’s time in Geneva, but we danced. Until close, we danced, and spun, and dipped. The music finally stopped at 11. After a failed attempt at finding an open place to eat, we walked home, still toting laptops in the backpacks slung across our backs.
Maryam’s birthday was Friday, but because she was leaving us directly after work, we had a group
picnic on Thursday at Parc La Grange. IBJ interns and her friends from Harvard all gathered to celebrate this wonderful woman. Youssef and I decided to take a swim in the lake around sunset. Lake Geneva’s water is finally warming up after weeks of summer heat, it is much more pleasant (and less frigid) than it was when I first arrived in June. Once we got out, I had to leave so I could go home and pack for a weekend trip to Naples I would be taking with Kyle.
On Friday, we had a going away party for Maryam, Talia, and Kedhar. It was bittersweet, but for me, it was mostly bitter. Talia and Mariam had been the first interns I met at IBJ, and Kedhar and I have grown close from our conversations about India and commiseration over law school. As a perpetual hater of goodbyes and endings, I got teary-eyed several times during our office karaoke and had to step out. Kyle and I left the party early to catch our flight, so we gave our three friends a final hug and boarded a train to the airport.
