What Happens Next?

Not a Plan. Just a Pause.

I don’t have a five-year plan.
I don’t have a big announcement.
What I have is silence. A pause. A moment that feels like standing at the edge of a long road – dusty, uneven, but somehow beautiful.

This fellowship wasn’t just a job. It wasn’t just “fieldwork.” It was a slow burning, soul-cracking, incredibly personal journey through people, places, and questions I still don’t have answers to.

The Villages Changed Me. But Not the Way You Think.

Not in the textbook way. Not in that romanticized “I found myself” way.
But in small, sharp ways.

Like how I now wait before speaking.
How I’ve started listening , not just to stories, but to silences.
How I learned that development doesn’t always look like success sometimes it looks like trying, again and again, and still showing up.

There Were Days I Felt Helpless.

Days when the system felt too slow. When I felt too small. When I couldn’t give answers. When women asked me for help and I could only listen.

There were also days of laughter. Of tea under trees. Of shared meals. Of trust built slowly, without a single word of English or a PowerPoint presentation.

So what do I carry from all this?

Maybe This is What “Work” Looks Like.

Maybe work isn’t about saving or fixing or transforming.
Maybe it’s about being there.
Maybe it’s about not leaving when things don’t go your way.
Maybe it’s about sitting with the problem until the problem doesn’t feel alone anymore.

What Next?

Honestly? I don’t know.
I have dreams research, writing, maybe a PhD, maybe a completely different path.
But right now, I’m not chasing a “next.” I’m processing the “now.”

I’m still carrying the field with me – the faces, the questions, the rawness.
I’m still learning how to be okay with unfinished things.

If You’re Asking Me for a Lesson, I Don’t Have One.

All I know is this:

Go where people are not just data points.
Stay long enough for names to matter.
Leave only when you know you’ll return in another form – as a better listener, a better human, a better version of who you were when you began.

Thank You, Without Performances

To everyone who held space for me — thank you.
To the women who let me in — thank you.
To the system that frustrates me but also fuels me — I’ll be back.

Just not with big plans this time.
Maybe just with better questions.