This coming Monday, I was supposed to start working as a Summer Intern in the World Bank’s Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice in Maputo, Mozambique. However, because of Covid-19, I will be working remotely from my room in Somerville, MA (or maybe traveling around the US?).
I was very excited about this opportunity. I wanted to practice Portuguese, learn about a country that is so distant to where I come from, Peru, and get to know a completely different culture. I could see myself working during the day and getting to know the city in the late afternoons. In my mind, I had already planned a safari trip to South Africa and going to the beaches in Madagascar.
I am grateful that I got to keep my internship offer, as this was not the case for many of my peers. However, if I am completely honest, I could not help but feel some bitterness because of how things ended up happening. I am aware that it is because we tend to assess situations based on our expectations. It had already been challenging enough to finish my second semester of the MPA/ID remotely. Like many of my other friends, I was hoping that things might be “normal” by summer, so we would get to travel anyway. But this did not end up happening.
However, since the summer break began, I have been reflecting on how do all the changes the world is going through are shaping us as human beings and, from a personal perspective, what do they mean for a future policymaker like me. While I have learned a lot from this process, I think that the most important professional takeaway is that I need to be flexible and resilient. I need to adapt to changing circumstances and be ready to accept that (i) I would not be able to control all relevant variables and (ii) it is most likely that things will not always go as I planned. Finally, from a personal perspective, I have understood that it is important to be both grateful and humble with the opportunity live gives you. This includes being empathetic enough as to understand that not all deal with crisis in the same way, so it is important to be supportive to others and not judge when people do not act in the way we would.
I am already looking forward for the start of my internship supporting the implementation of the Women Entrepreneurship Finance Initiative (We-Fi) in Mozambique!
