Drinking with Lawyers

So I attended my first fancy function thing. Yes, that's what all the people working for the very intimidating law firm were calling it. It was very interesting. I was by far the youngest person there, but that was fine. There were people in their mid-twenties there too, so it wasn't just a bunch of old people. This was the first time I've been in South Africa and white people have been in the majority. It's too bad that wealth is still segregated so much along race lines. Not to say there was only white people there, but they were in the majority. Interestingly enough however, I noticed more women than men. Most likely because the function was for the establishment of pro-bono work at this particular law firm, and it seems (in my experience here) that women are more likely to get involved in more charity-based work than men. Don't ask me why, that's just what I've noticed.

So, we get there and for awhile I just shadow my mentor (Erica) and introduce myself to all these high-powered lawyer people who's names I quickly forget. As a lowly intern I'm sure they weren't even really listening when I introduced myself. They did have quite tasty finger-food type stuff that people kept offering me. One was a little chicken potpie thing. Very yummy. And then I met some people who were apparently in close contact with my organization. They work with litigation around abused children. There are only three people in their entire organization. So small. Anyways, they're all very nice and I got to talking with one of them for most of the night. I don't remember her name unfortunately. I also met another person from probono (Sharon. Yes! Remembered a name) who I really enjoyed talking to. She's worked with the UN before she came to work at probono. They kept encouraging me to go up and get more wine, since it was being paid for by the law firm and all. I was actually trying to decide between white wine and diet coke (coke lite here) and I think the bartender person thought I wanted to mix them and he asked if I wanted to do that and I thought he was suggesting it so I was like 'sure why not.' It didn't taste bad, but I don't think I would combine the two again. Just a bartending tip, both drinks are better by themselves.

They had a couple of speakers at the function, including a new head justice for the Supreme Court of Appeal, Edwin Cameron. Apparently he has been living with HIV for the last twenty years. I didn't know that when he was giving his speech of course, my mentor told me later. He wrote a book about living with HIV that she said she would let me borrow. He didn't say anything groundbreaking, but he emphasized the need for the law to be working with the people. A speaker before him pointed out that apartheid was so horrendous not because of the deaths that were brought on by it, since there were other countries where the death counts were much higher, but because people used the law to justify their behavior. He made the point that the law should be used to aid people who may not have a strong political voice, stressing the importance of their pro bono work. Which makes sense of course seeing as the function was for the official launch of a new pro bono department (I think that's what it was at least, I may have heard incorrectly).

But anyways, I am really excited about getting to know my coworkers and helping out at the organization, though I'm sure this is the only fancy function I will attend while I'm here. It was a nice first experience of one because I wasn't very concerned about networking (seeing as it is my first day working at the organization and I don't know much about, well, anything), but I did get the chance to at least say hi to a lot of interesting people. I found out exactly why they were interesting on the car ride back to Wits when Erica (my mentor) told me about the people she was talking to. For the most part I felt too unimportant to try to truly engage anyone in conversation. I only talked a lot with the other girl because she was telling me how she often feels uncomfortable mingling. We bonded over that.

When I got back to campus around 9ish I found out that the rest of the Americans (and by the rest I mean like two or three of them) were really worried about me because I disappeared for like the entire day and they couldn't contact me because I still don't have a working cell phone. I'm getting one tomorrow though, which I am really excited about. I feel so disconnected from everyone without one. I often feel like I should be socializing or something, but can't reach anyone. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have internet.

Two posts in one day. How excessive.

Oh wait, for some reason my posts came up on separate days. How odd. I posted the one for Wednesday on Thursday around 6 or something, and this one at around 12:30ish Friday morning. Yes, you care. I know you care.