Every time I visit an American city for the first time, I am fascinated by how American it is—how similar it is to Chicago or anywhere else in the U.S. I find all the similarities remarkable, especially how homogeneous culture is from coast to coast. So it seemed I had traveled across the state rather than across the country when I made my first trip from Chicago to Washington, D.C.

I know visitors commit plenty of blunders when visiting Chicago. You see them walking around downtown, asking where this or that attraction is, and then you supply the worst advice ever: “Just walk toward the lake.” So easily Chicagoans forget that only Chicagoans have the chip of ‘the lake is east’ implanted in their brains.

But my trip from Chicago to D.C. was unfettered by these kinds of transportation issues. I had only 24 hours in the city, and I needed to get to the Rayburn building as soon as possible. With such little time, I felt that stress of having to be somewhere and having little control over when I got there.

This occasion would have to be the closest I’ve gotten to being on a business trip. Paying for your own ticket doesn’t come close to the glory of an expense account, but somehow I seemed in much more of a hurry than any fellow business travelers.

Once I got to the train station in D.C., I was completely oblivious as to what direction I needed to head, so I hailed a cab. When I arrived at the Rayburn, I was suddenly amazed by the fact that I was standing in the halls of the federal government, where the laws that have ruled me for the past twenty-seven years have been drawn up and laid out. It was only then that the “other-landedness” of D.C. hit me.

The rest of the Congo/Women team had already arrived. Announcements to more than a thousand people on our list had been sent, alerting them to the event. Visitors had begun trickling in.

My first task was to call a woman from National Geographic and advise her of the start time of the exhibition and speakers’ talks. After hanging up, a warmth was coming over me, that not-quite-sweating, nervous feeling as I realized I had given her the completely wrong information. First blunder completed, I summoned some composure, called her back, apologized, and told her the right time. I crossed my fingers and hoped she could still come. I also hoped there would be a crowd when she got there.

The next step was to call Angelina Jolie. We received word that Jolie was in town filming, so I called her agent. Sadly, the exhibition didn’t fit into her schedule.

So the clamminess brought on by the phone calls, and all the stress and urgency I had felt in arriving at Rayburn, was brought on by the sense—a somewhat presumptuous idea—that I needed to be there. That the show just wouldn’t go on without me.

After investing all the time—making the calls to members of Congress and their schedulers, liaising with potential partners, following up with e-mails, writing press releases and sending out e-blasts—Congo/Women had to go on without a hitch. That was the reason I had taken a floating holiday and flown myself out to Washington, D.C.

Yet, as the last one to arrive, it quickly became clear that my presence in the Capitol wasn’t so much crucial to the event at hand. Rather, it was integral to my ongoing commitment to Congo/Women, and to Art Works Projects.

Standing there on Capitol Hill, it had become clear that our work was having an effect. From one resonant speech to another, the captivating speakers championed the cause of Congolese women.

Representatives of groups like UNFPA, Humanity United, Amnesty International, the list continues, were all present. These were people I had only recognized thus far by e-mail signatures.

Now, they were right in front of me.