Essay: A week in our national town
Through Western Eyes: Washington, D.C.
There were enigmas both simple and complex. But they weren’t what I’d thought they would be.By Jill Kuraitis, 11-16-09
Washington, D.C. is a town where an arcane government and a logical street grid are muddled by overlap and diagonal lines. But the reverent preservation and displays of America’s history have a clear and tangible path.
In a town where the ghosts of American history wait for you to discover them, your hosts are cabdrivers, waiters, and doormen from Eritrea, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia. They are a twenty-year wave of immigrants just as the Irish, Italians, and Eastern Europeans who are the backbone of the Eastern seaboard were at the turn of the 20th century, and by working as hard as their role models they remind you why America exists.
In a place where federal buildings are so baffling that in looking for the “Anteroom” you run across a door marked “Not the Anteroom” you can still simply have your bag scanned and then walk straight to your congressman’s office and state your plea.
But you’ll do a lot of walking, especially because Idaho’s congressional delegation of four are in four different buildings and Montana’s three are in two. And so the town doesn’t make sense again, especially after a long hike with a heavy bag in humidity that feels like walking through cheese.
In a week exploring the things in D.C. which are only experienced over the phone from Idaho, there were enigmas both simple and complex. But they weren’t what I’d thought they would be.
Thinking that access to people in the Departments of Energy and Agriculture would be difficult, I set up meetings in advance. But people I didn’t know also welcomed me without a problem and spent time on the spot to answer my questions.
Wondering how to find exactly the right resource person for something I wanted to know, I had spent hours before the trip trying to figure it out. But it was as simple as showing up and inquiring, and staffers would point in the right direction and make a phone call to tell the contact I was on the way.
As someone who has been to D.C. but never without cranky children and a bored husband trying to drag me out of museums, navigating the actual federal government was new. And it turned out to be an encouraging introduction of how it works. It’s good to know that at least some of it DOES work.
This week and next, I’ll write about that and other experiences of our national company town, so unlike the Rocky Mountain West. Some things about D.C. are better; some are worse, and both need enlightening about the other. I’ll try to shed a little light on a fraction of it.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
Add your comment below