Since I landed in the United States (U.S.), I’ve heard a lot about the life of Washington DC on weekends from senior fellows and team members in Host Organization. They say, weekends in DC are usually full of thrilling cultural, social, and networking events at different locations. This weekend, after settling my housing etc. I have had a chance to visit an event, Around the World Cultural Food Festival 2018. It was an extremely organized but diversified event! You can get a variety food of different countries at different booths. It gives you a remarkable feel with an amazing diversity and colors when you walk around. Also, there were live performances from excited young performers who were presenting their country’s culture and tradition in an amicable way.
The event has many colors; the food stalls of different countries; Columbia to Indonesia, Trinidad & Tobago to Vietnam, and many more. Folks were enjoying mesmerizing foods of different regions of the world. What you eat, how you eat, and present is a larger part of a country culture. This gives you an idea of what eating habits are prevalent in that country. I tried food from different country’s kiosks, which gave me a sense how would I feel if I would have been in that country, physically. Tremendous!
The most exciting experience for me was that I met with young and amazing profession
als, who were fellows, but not Atlas Corps! I met a group of passionate Peace Corps fellows. We exchanged our experience about our fellowship programs and identified many commonalities in both programs in terms of exposure, learning and perspective. Terribly amazing! We exchanged our contacts, as you never know this relationship could be an exciting potential benefit for either of us, in future. It was incredible. I love the time I spent in event and took a lot of wonderful memories with me. I realized these events are a true sense of internationalization and globalization, which I will be experiencing throughout my fellowship, here in the U.S. Fascinated and still thanking the day I had an offer to be an Atlas Corps fellow and my final decision I made for acceptance.
