From our travels, we all know how impressive it can be when you are invited by strangers to enter their home, and you are offered a cup of tea. It is as if a thin veil between “us” and “them strangers” has been lifted, and we look each other in the eye, recognize traits and share a laugh, even if we don’t speak each others’ language. That is why the welcoming activities are so central to WBFN—each time you have the chance to make new friends and discover similarities with people whom you have never met before. It is easy to forget how you felt yourself when you had just arrived in DC, wondering where to choose a home, afraid of the many legal rules, frantically in search of your favorite food, and not understanding why Americans keep excusing themselves even when they are only getting out of the elevator. They had done nothing wrong, had they? It only hits you later that apparently, they had to enter “your” private space to exit the narrow confinement and therefore had to apologize to you.

Every year, around 400 new families are welcomed into the DC area. The office team invites them to Welcoming Coffees, and other programs. We rely more and more on email since volunteers can only commit for a short time, some contracts are for a short period, or spouses get jobs or babies, so you have to constantly train new volunteers for the administrative tasks. We have established a new way to find Buddies for newcomers, and have put together a real good set of questions and instructions for Buddies, as well some useful information material. But, to keep track if Buddies reached newcomers, and to make sure that newcomers do not fall “between the cracks” you need hands at the office. It is true, that we should try to call more people, especially when they have just arrived. You all know, how badly you needed someone to help you out, when your spouse went on mission three weeks after arrival, the baby had fever, and you had no clue how to make an appointment with a pediatrician. Or you just had to find that shop with organic vegetables and non-treated meat, or just simply where to buy a bucket! I found mine finally at the bike store, of all places..!!

It is totally understandable, that not everybody has the time, nor the mindset or the possibility to come to the WBFN office. But also at home, as a reader, you could support our ongoing welcoming activities, at your own time and leisure.

What you could do from home —

Pick up the phone and call your compatriots, listed in the monthly Newcomers list in Mosaic, and invite them to the next Get-together as announced in Mosaic. If the newcomer is not yet at ease with public transportation, you could offer to meet them at a certain place and take them to the get-together or take them around or maybe even shop together. For things you don’t know, you can always refer to the Office Welcoming Team, phone 202-473-8751.

Offer to be a Buddy, and get all the required materials from the Welcoming Team. Send an email to wbfnwelcoming@worldbank.org

Open your house for a Get-together in the coming year. Do let us know which month!

Call newcomers in your area/zip code and invite them for a WBFN event or the next Get-Together, or an activity that you like.

If you have more time to offer, volunteer at the welcoming desk where we always need hands to prepare binders, call prospective volunteers, fill envelopes, and send emails.

If you are creative, please come and help us redesign some old materials.

You could be the stranger who offered a cup of tea, and made a difference. So, please, pick up the phone, next time you see a newcomer listed in Mosaic in your area or from your home country. Let us know if you have some spare time and energy. You could lift the thin veil between feeling alone, depressed and useless, and being suddenly connected to a whole network of like-minded people with tons and tons of things to do and discover.

Maaike le Grand