Dear diary,
Our last interaction was about two months ago, when I was sharing how I was longing for some fresh challenge, for a break, and dreams about my baby fever. While at work this past week, I zoned out for a while and dreamt about walking a dog, and how much my life has changed!
This is how much Atlas Corps, and DC have influenced my life since I got here a month ago. For almost the entirety of my first week in DC to begin my one year Fellowship, I was in an almost zombie-like state trying to adapt to the new environment around me. I have had to keep note of the international time difference so that I can talk to my family back home at most appropriate hours. I have had to ensure that I wake up on the first shrill of my alarm in the morning and fore go the ‘just five more minutes’ habit I had gotten used to back home. Here, the time is money idiom is literal to the core. Oh! And did I tell you that I cannot run across the road from anywhere even when I can see my destination right across the road?
Over the last month, the interactions I have had with different people from all over the world have reinforced the fact that even though we are all placed in different environments with unique situations, we are share commonalities of both positives and negatives. How then we deal with these area specific aspects of societal norms and cultures is what sets us apart.
The dictionary definition of oppression is the same for all of us. The definition of discrimination evokes similar feeling for all of us. Positive prospects, just as that of all oppressions is all connected. When we drop the superficial inculcation of superiority versus inferiority, basic humanity is similar among all of us.
It is thus with this attitude that I wish for my work to be of impact, not just to my immediate target beneficiaries, but to the wider circle of people whose lives are connected even in the simplest of ways.