Toronto: Day 2

Well! Toronto is a neat city, though I was still a little tired from my flight here. Today I went downtown to see CCI at their office, which is really neat-looking inside: it's like a nicely made-over loft with all sorts of souvenirs from around the world. I spotted a calendar from Togo, a few South American crochet-type pictures, many colored cloths likely representing many different cultures, and I got to meet with Kataisee, my direct supervisor, which was very helpful.

I got my travel documents to Ghana. My flights, unlike my previous suspicions, will take me to Frankfurt! I will be passing through there, and Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, en route to Ghana. Thankfully, on the flight there I will not have to get out of the plane in Lagos, which is good because I have the suspicion I'd find a way to get lost in that airport (*not* a good idea).

I now have a better picture of what the remainder of my work in Toronto will look like. My work with METRAC in the following week looks like it is made up of the following 4 components:

1. Observing Ontario court (likely for procedure and trying to detect power dynamics, if it is court hearings concerning sexual assault or the like... the power dynamics between victim, perpetrator, and the gender composition of attendants in the room will be interesting to note, particularly if it seems like it ends up changing the outcome)
2. Meeting with legal aid groups (for further information on domestic violence in Toronto, and I suppose by extrapolation, urban Canada).
3. Meeting with various organizations for ideas on data intake, what variables to look for, and how to organize certain parameters due to priority with respect to domestic violence.
4. Conducting research in the Osgoode Hall law library (I suspect this is mostly concerning the comparative law paper I am going to be writing on Ghana's DVA).

Working with METRAC will be very interesting. METRAC was formed in the 1980s as a response to a spate of domestic violence incidences in the greater Toronto area. As a result, METRAC is a very front-line interventionist organization offering legal aid to battered women and children, policy research and critiques for government and public education seminars to encourage further discussion. However, in order to try and preserve a safe atmosphere for women to speak, METRAC limits its membership to strictly women, and so my work with them is unique. I am sure that METRAC and I will get along well, and hopefully my research skills will be of use to them. I will be very interested in seeing their reports on policy analysis, because I want to see what their criticisms are for Canadian law, and how that contrasts with the criticisms in places with established DVAs like Ghana, South Africa and Mauritius.

After that was filled with lots of sightseeing. I stumbled upon a nice cafe called Ravisoups (good wrap, though a bit bland at points in flavor; I feel the great side salad stole the show) and a great restaurant called Serra Ristorante (amazing squid ink fettucine di mare! Dessert coulda been more spectacular but was a solid good), and had a great walk around downtown. I have lots of photos from my walk but I think I'll just stick up this one:

Hmm... I wonder if it *is* up. Let's see... well, while I wrestle with that, take care! Until next time.