Adventure, Found (Fellowship Reflection Series #9)

8:37 am Saturday (August 27, 2022)

The lush green trees of Dupont Circle are just in front of me. The park is beautiful. It reminds me of a clean and small version of the UN park of Kathmandu. Two complete days in Washington DC have passed and I feel that I have started to know this place a little further. This place didn’t feel new, apart from the well-managed traffic lights, clean roads, and architecturally iconic buildings, nothing extra has caught my attention so far. I was nervous about the long flights I had to undertake post covid but I was also looking forward to exploring life here in DC, especially the professional life and I feel that I have already quite settled in. All thanks to the pre-residency calls, workshops, and orientations that we had, things didn’t feel unique. Google maps are always there to help. Oh! Yeah, the roads that the maps showed were more accurate than in Nepal. Thanks to the open access to some free wifi on the road as well, navigating the location was easy.

From the left: My apartment, the park in front of my apartment, second-hand book store that provides cheap books just some walks down the apartment

I have especially loved the personal space that people provide here. Maybe I have always desired this personal space, not being known and people letting me be me doing my own thing even in the middle of the night or early morning if I am not disturbing them has been the highlight of these two days of stay. I need to explore further but I am not feeling judged for the way I look or the dress I wear as I sit on the common balcony outside of my apartment and work even among other strangers Nobody has come and stared uncomfortably. And that has been the best so far. Hopefully, this continues.

As I was reflecting what helped me settle quickly into DC life are:

1. Basic life etiquette like cooking (knowing the right ingredient for your helps you feel at home wherever you are), cleaning (managing an apartment alone definitely needs skills), and researching skills (researching and packing the most needed food or even accessories for me that helps me be me and that are not found in DC).
2. Social media helped when I wanted a few things and even google wasn’t of much help, friends from social media came to the rescue.

3. Anticipating what might make me anxious or disconnected and pre-planning the strategies is coming in handy. I was most anxious about the long-distance relationship as I had never been in one. With being around my husband 24/7 for the last seven years, I was worried about how would this affect our relationship. So one strategy that I planned was to wear a watch showing Nepal time. Coincidently husband gifted me a watch on my birthday and as I wear this now, it feels like he is always around and a quick glance at it just lets me know what he must be doing. It is easy in my case because the husband is a routine person. Jokingly I call him ‘budo manchey’ (old man) who loves doing the same thing at the same time every day. I am not sure how it is going to change once he leaves Nepal in the few upcoming weeks. Hopefully, we will manage.

From the left: Me and my slippers marking our presence in DC, the balcony from where I work (mostly), the corner from where I work at the office

This is not the first time I am traveling solo nor this is the first time I am managing to live myself solo but this time, I felt calmer than before even among the adversities, more expressive than before, and more prepared than before. The experiences of all these years helped.

Leaving the talks of DC, let me share my takeaways from the last two virtual sessions are:

1. The idea of coding it and using it in the right way to make the best use of data was helpful.
2. As we discussed the impact of the policy that we will be writing, it helped us go deeper into our own hopes, anticipation, preparedness, and challenges associated with it.
3. A major takeaway was something that Jenn shared, “you don’t want to argue something that you don't have the data to support” and keeping the audience in mind always is the key.

The city has amazing buildings, this is just one of them

It’s already time to come up with an annotated outline. I will be reflecting more on that this week. Also, not everything was rosy during this week. So here’s how difficult the journey became, which has been shared on my social media. So didn’t want to go back to that. To provide an update regarding the concern for my luggage, thankfully, I could receive both of them. However, my colleague who was traveling from Kenya lost his luggage and we spent the last two days trying to figure out how could he find it again. He still hasn’t received it. We are hopeful that he will hear from the airlines or the airport soon. For now, I am trying to understand the context, culture, and myself in this new place further. Hopefully, this adventure will help bring the best version of me.