In Conversation: Rachna Korhonen

“I arrived to ‘you are not invited to something because you are a woman’ and I left with ‘we really want you to visit, how do we make it happen.’”

Rachna Korhonen strums an oud, participates in an ardha, the traditional sword dance, cheers at an Al-Ettifaq football match and attends all manner of diwaniya. Captured in motion, her enthusiasm and seemingly effortless diplomatic engagement come to life. But there’s work behind making anything seem easy, and that work — those skills — are rarely explo…