The internship
Immediately as I landed in DC, I had a voice mail for an internship with a legislator's office on the Hill, so I quickly rushed to my friend Cassi's place, researched that representative and had my first interview since my renewed job search! First night in DC and one interview down, not bad right? I was exploring a few options aside from a straightforward job hunt including AmeriCorps, another GI-NET internship and the Hill. In the end that first interview amounted to nothing, but my first Monday in DC, I had another interview on the Hill yielding an internship starting the next day. Until December I answered phones, opened and inputted mail and provided tours at the Washington D.C. office for Congressman John Boccieri.
While in Uganda my continued struggled to decide whether I was better suited and more interested in advocating toward greater international development, promotion of human rights and an end to genocide or if I wanted to contribute through research on those goals. Quickly through my experience on the Hill, I realized my niche would ultimately be research. That being said, and while I may have offered my fair share of groans over opening mail and answering phones, it was definitely a wonderful experience being on the Hill for three months. If anyone at the Boccieri office reads this, thank you for that experience!
Housing
Rewind, so I stayed with my friend Cassi when I first arrived and for that she is someone I am hugely grateful for making this move possible. On that first Sunday, through a friend, I found a room in a house in north Silver Spring (along the DC metro red line for all those folks not familiar with the region) and while the house was a bit further out then I would have preferred, the roommates seemed nice and it was a brief walk to the rail. Before my first week was done, I had moved in and over the months have maybe myself a cozy room with extra furniture provided either by roommates or the landlord.
Job number 1
So that internship ended in December and since this is a full 6 months update you might be wondering what am I doing now, aside from living in my room in the big blue farmhouse with borrowed furniture. By the end of my first month here, I got hired to work part time at the National Abortion Federation hotline. So while I'm celebrating 6 months in DC, I am coming up soon on my first six months there. I might've never imagined I'd be working on a pro-choice hotline, but its been an incredible experience. I have always felt strongly about my pro-choice and feminist beliefs and aware that financial restraints continued to de facto make it impossible for women to exercise their full reproductive rights. Not to mention low income women who are unable to exercise these rights further feel the economic squeeze when they have an unplanned and perhaps sadly unwanted extra mouth to feed.
Can't say counseling is my strongest talent, but I've heard positive feedback from co-workers and patients. I hope its sincere because overall I love the job and really hope I am making at least a small difference for the women (and men) who call into the hotline. I can't go into too much detail for confidentiality reasons, but I've helped counsel dozens of people who have had been victims of domestic violence, been raped, conflicted morally about their decisions to have (or have had) an abortion and/or simply caught in an unexpected situation and overwhelmed by the fact they are pregnant. I have had to struggle with women to help them get funding for a procedure that irregardless to your or my feelings they believe is necessary for them to take care of their existing family, finish school or to cope with the difficult circumstances surrounding the pregnancy.
Throughout all this, I want to toss out a big thank you to the women (and men, I'm not alone!) at NAF for helping me survive and hopefully succeed at this job, but for also for becoming some of the great friends I mentioned before. Although we sometimes to cry from the horrendous situations we're confronted with or scream at the absurdity of the system we and these women are living in, y'all have some much passion for the work along with joy to the office. I have had many profound conversations associated with reproductive health, but also with my passions in international development with y'all along with many many laughs over absolutely ridiculous things. I have learned so much from everyone and from this and though I doubt I will be doing work directly connected to the work of NAF, long term, I will always proudly fight for women's rights particularly reproductive justice.
Job number 2
A few weeks ago you may have heard about (or shared in experiencing) the insane blizzards that hit Washington DC. Go figured, the life-long Texan who spent the bulk of his time outside of Texas in equally balmy Israel and recently Uganda comes to DC and experiences his first winter and it blizzards... a few times. Most people kept telling me DC winters are quite mild when I arrived. When it started to snow the first time in December, I was told this is rare for DC and that same weekend I got stuck in downtown while at the hotline and spent the night on my friend Danny's couch. (Danny, again: thank you, thank you, thank you!)
During the most recent blizzard I was at home and stayed at home so I didn't end up on a friend's couch, but we did lose power and with it our wonderful friend: heat. By the end of our snowy weekend I could see my breath almost everywhere in the house despite drinking gallons of hot tea (luckily our gas stove survived the outage) and wearing half my wardrobe.
Why am I talking about all this during the section called "Job number 2", well I wanted to add in the mention of my first real winter, but also during the fun indoors time I was beginning to hate, I got a phone from Clare at TrakServices. On a whim and out of necessity I sent my resume to a temp agency that kept advertising on a job list I subscribe to. She asked me to come interview that following Monday, the next day I was offered my first assignment and Wednesday I started. While temp work doing mainly data entry sucks (I tried to be articulate, but sucks really is the best word for it), the additional income is really fantastic.
So what now?
For a few reasons, when I arrived to DC, I started to work on my grad school search and application process. I guess a mix between job impatience, my total academic nerdiness and my renewed vigor for international affairs I wanted to get myself back in school! Starting tomorrow (March) until the end of April I should be finding out about grad schools. Meanwhile I am still seeking out and applying to various subsidized, free or paid programs overseas including a Peace Corps application I foolishly keep putting off. I keep considering directly volunteering with a local organization overseas and most seriously been thinking of returning to Uganda out of a slightly higher familiarity. I'll write more about that soon!
Of course the job search continues, though while I wait to hear from grad schools I have cooled the hunt greatly. Through more experience overseas and/or school I hope to be able to get work in international affairs for a few years and with that experience enter a PhD program to ultimately teach and research how development can be practiced in order to prevent conflict. You can read some more about that here, but I'm sure I'll be writing more about it soon.
Obviously a lot more I could write about and perhaps I will, but for now I should go to bed. Working two jobs requires me to sleep when I can! Ask me questions if you want to and I'd happily answer them and please visit DC. I may be busy with everything, but I'll make time to give you a personal tour of the Capitol among other things. There's always a couch/bed for any of you wherever I am.
Thanks for everyone who wished me well or who have helped me during my time here. I could write a whole long entry on who I need to thank and why... which I may very well do soon, but for now if you read this just assume yourself sincerely thanked!
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