The month of April was a great time to be at the International Student House. The famous cherry blossom season usually starts around April 4^th (it lasts around a week) and I went to visit the Tidal Basin in D.C. on April 9^th. The National Cherry Blossom Festival started in 1912, when the Japanese Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo City donated Japanese cherry trees to the city of Washington D.C. The cherry blossoms represent beauty and the fragility of life in Japanese culture, and it was such an amazing sight to experience in person! The whole walk in the Tidal Basin was filled with tourists from all over the U.S. and the world! I walked from the Washington Monument to the Jefferson Memorial and saw the beautiful blossoms along the way. There were many residents from the house that also went to see the cherry blossoms, and I ran into some of them there.

The Tidal Basin overlooking the Jefferson Memorial with an ISH housemate from Italy

This month was really hectic for my master’s program at Georgetown. We finish all of our classes by the end of April and then we have two weeks for final papers and final exams. I can’t believe that I am almost done with my second semester of my MSFS degree! I’ve spent the last two weeks applying to summer internships and going to interviews while trying to turn in my assignments and attending lectures. I received an offer to intern this summer at the World Bank and I am really looking forward to staying in D.C. for the summer and learning more about how this multilateral institution functions. The MSFS Service Committee organized an event for Earth Day and I volunteered to help pick up trash by the Anacostia River. It was great to see such a huge turnout in the midst of final exams and papers!

MSFS students volunteering on Earth day by the Anacostia River

What better way to end the week of classes before finals than to attend the Africa Night event at ISH? My roommate Zinna, who has some Ethiopian heritage, organized the Africa Night at the house with the other African residents. It was such an amazing event! They showcased typical food, drinks, clothes, flags, music and even dances from each of their respective countries: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan. While we were listening to music during the event, there was a slideshow playing in the background with interesting fun facts and pictures about African countries. I learned a lot! I had no idea that Sudan has double the number of pyramids that Egypt does. The residents really enjoyed the evening and I feel more energized to tackle my final exams.

MSFS students and residents at the Africa Night event

It is hard for me to believe that this was my last full month at ISH. The eight months I’ve spent here have flown by! As the weather has slightly warmed up with cherry blossom season, residents have been able to enjoy spring by going back out in the garden. On Saturdays a group of residents takes advantage of the nice weather and go to a nearby field to play soccer. As more of a volleyball person, I joined a local league that has games on Sundays at a gym near ISH. Several of my teammates couldn’t make it for our last game so I recruited a few friends from ISH to fill in.

There were several events at the house this past month starting with Argentina Night. Two Argentinian girls put together a fun evening of dancing and a tasty home made dessert. A week or so later there was an Italian reception in the Great Hall where I met several new residents from Italy and got to try Limoncello, an Italian lemon liquor produced in Southern Italy.

The highlight of the month – and my entire ISH experience – was Africa Night. It was a very fun process to be on the other side of a cultural night. As one of the coordinators I had been planning the event for about a month. Lots of time was put into preparing the food, music, decorations and activities. Between the six of us Africans currently living at ISH, we had representation of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan and Ethiopia. We put together a playlist of a variety of African music featuring multiple languages as well as one of my proudest achievements – a 100 slide PowerPoint with fun facts about Africa.

One of the highlights from the night was an Africa trivia game I created using a website called kahoot. Questions were projected on the screen and players responded by selecting the answer on their phones. This picture shows an example of one of the questions (the correct answers are Liberia and Ethiopia). After trivia each of us introduced a dance from our culture. I chose to show an Ethiopian music video about Gojjam, which was a kingdom in Northeastern Ethiopia. The traditional dance in Ethiopia is called eskista, which involves moving your shoulders. Everyone was very engaged with trying the dances, it was a blast!

In reflecting on my time at ISH, hosting Africa Night made it full circle in a way. My earliest involvement with sharing Ethiopian culture at ISH was making a poster about Ethiopian New Year back in September. So I ended up starting and ending my time here with something to share about my Ethiopian heritage. It has been an incredible experience living at ISH during my first year as a graduate student. Living in such a diverse environment with kind, open minded and talented people is something I will never forget!

April is a busy month for DC with the cherry blossom festival and the IMF-World Bank spring meeting. The cherry blossoms are one of the most beautiful happenings in DC and ISH is in the perfect location to enjoy them! My fellow housemates and I usually take a nice walk along side 19^th Street or 18^th Street, pass the White house and reach the tidal basin. On weekdays, we walk so fast for work or study, and never really have the leisure to enjoy the views on the street. The beauty of DC in spring is beyond words. The picturesque streets and architecture mixed with the cultural vibes make downtown Washington the most attractive place. From far way, we saw the fluffy pink cherry trees around the National Mall and Tidal Basin. It is a symbolic flower of the spring, a time of renewal, and the fleeting nature of life.

In addition, the IMF-World Bank also held its annual Spring Meetings in April here in DC. Government officials, press, NGOs, academics from all around the world descended upon Washington to join the meetings. Many important messages about global economic development were conveyed through the meetings. I attended several interesting seminars and forums about how technology and innovation is changing the future of global economic development. Whether technology and innovation can help the least developed countries skip the industrialization remains unknown, but our generation is in the position to make the change.  Spring is an incredible time to be here in Washington and enjoy all it has to offer with my fellow ISH housemates!

It has been an eventful month at ISH! Residents have been planning many cultural nights to share their country’s food, dance, fashion and traditions with the ISH community. First was Bollywood Night! Delicious Indian food and drinks were served in the Great Hall followed by lots of dancing. A projector was set up to show popular Bollywood music videos and residents from India taught us their moves.

Japan Night was next. The Japanese residents decorated the Great hall beautifully with different “stations” or tables of activities. At one table I experienced a tradition Japanese tea ceremony with a sweet cake and bitter matcha tea. Another had Japanese games including Kendama, a game that involves trying to swing a ball connected by a string to a wooden stick into a cup. There was also a calligraphy station where I learned how to write my name in Japanese. The Japanese residents created a true or false trivia game that I learned a lot of fun facts from. For instance, did you know that many families in Japan make reservations at the fast food restaurant Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas Day? At the end of the night several residents performed a Japanese dance called the koi dance using glow-in-the-dark wands.

The day after Japanese night my Master’s program at Georgetown had an International Student Night. Students cooked food from their cultural backgrounds and dressed in national outfits followed by a talent show. I wore my traditional Ethiopian dress and my roommate, Manuela wore a dirndl that she got while she was living in Germany. Here’s a photo of me and Karin, one of the organizers of Japan Night and a fellow Georgetown MSFS student.

The final event of the month was Latin Night. Manuela, who is originally from Colombia, was part of the planning team along with residents from Brazil, Peru and Mexico. The Great Hall was decorated with pictures from beautiful places across Latin America as well as Colombian, Brazilian and Mexican flags. Music in Spanish and Portuguese kept things lively all night. The same morning as the event I got my Brazilian visa for the internship I will be doing at the U.S. consulate in Sao Paulo this summer. I wore a Brazilian jersey to the event and being at Latin Night got me even more excited to go to Brazil.

I am happy to report that I am now involved in planning a cultural night. On April 28 myself and residents from Congo, Rwanda, Nigeria and South Sudan will be hosting an African Cultural Night!

In January I made a trip to Mexico as a one of the scholars at Inter-American Dialogue, one of the leading U.S. center for policy analysis, exchange, and communication on issues in Western Hemisphere affairs. As part of the trip, I participated in private and public meetings with government officials as well as business leaders in Mexico and was invited by the Mexican Ministry of Education to visit a public high school which is under education reform.

As I mentioned before, I used to study and worked in Mexico and this is the fourth time that I have gone back. I feel very fortunate and grateful that I could develop such a special and strong tie with the people and culture in Mexico, get involved with the dynamics and contribute my knowledge and expertise to solve the development issues there. This time I joined the cohort of eight scholars and together we aimed to understand the infrastructure financing dynamics and China’s future role in the region. I have to say that I’ve never felt so important being a Chinese!

After the conference, I was invited by Mexican Ministry of Education to visit a high school. I was introduced to the teachers and the principal there and they gave me a thorough presentation on the on-going education reforms in the high school and how these public schools support the daily life of working-class families. This experiment high school implements two timetables for the students: morning and afternoon schedules. Each schedule of 12 hours is filled with academic class, workshops and sports classes. The long schedule, according to the teachers, allows parents to focus on their work while their kids are getting a variety of training. In addition, the conversation with the teacher union caught my attention in terms the labor reform for the teachers, which greatly changed the hiring process and cut the benefits for high school teachers. I believe that the education reform in Mexico could be a very research topic in the coming years and I will closely follow it.

Now it is time to go home to ISH and I cannot wait to see my housemates and share about my time in Mexico.  More detailed reports and papers will be published by the Inter-American Dialogue. You are all very welcome to check out the work when it is published!