Hi world! (Or parents and possibly one other
person!) Welcome to my first blog; we’ll see if I keep up with it.
So as you
may or may not know, I’ve made the exciting journey from Dodge City and Newton
Kansas to Washington, District of Colombia. My dad and I flew up on Thursday
and did some fun touristy stuff. We walked through the “mall” (which is the
stretch where the Washington and Lincoln memorials are, not a shopping center),
and got freakishly hungry and tired. We stopped in the Department of
Agriculture and ate some lunch in their cafeteria, apparently this is a common
ritual for city people to do although it seemed strange to us that the only
eatery we could find was the cafeteria of a government building. We went to
about all the Smithsonian museums and I can’t say I’m any smarter because of
it. On Friday night, my dad and I were going to walk by the MVS house and check
out where I was going to live (we had stayed at a hotel), and I heard someone
call my name. Mirmir and her family were driving away from the house and saw me
and my dad walking down the street. So we all scoped out the house together and
went out to eat. I know this really meant a lot to my dad that he could meet an
important friend of mine and her family.
Here are some pics of my first 2 days with my dad!
This was a crazy star fish thing we saw at an aquarium.
This is my dad and my favorite piece of art.
All the sticky notes talk about people's personal experience with memory loss.
We had to wear shoe covers as to not ruin the floor which had a layer of beeswax.
On Saturday I got to move into the new MVS house.
After dropping off my stuff, I said goodbye to my dad, and a group of girls and
I went down to the mall to listen to some speakers in honor of the 50th
anniversary of the March on Washington. There were a TON of people, it was
blowing my mind. We eventually got to a spot that we couldn’t really move up
any further and I could kind of see the outline of a person’s face on the
mega-screens. We listened to many wonderful speakers. I don’t remember who said
it, but one of the speakers said that we “shouldn’t walk around like you hit a
triple, when you were born on third base.” He was meaning that my generation
was born with our civil rights given to us, while generations before worked
their butts off to get us to this point. I also got to hear Nancy Pelosi (they
had the audacity to start music to cut off her speech) and Martin Luther King
the Third speak. It was super powerful and I left feeling empowered and hopeful
for the human race and whatnot. Also, while I was there, I ran into…. drum roll
please…. SARAH KNIGHT! How random is that!? So for those of you that don’t know
who Sarah Knight is, which is everyone I know minus about 10 people, she is a
girl I met in Guatemala, who lives in New York City. She was in town with her
sister or something. But literally, smallest world ever because I came halfway
across a country and stood in a crowd of thousands of people and saw someone I
met in another country!
Sarah and I reunited briefly!
On Monday I went to a meeting with my school I’ll
be working for. The lady in charge made everyone stand up who started out as a
volunteer, about 70% of people stood up, then she made people stand up if they
were former students of the school, and there stood up about 25%. I bet that
last 5% of employees felt foolish, or not. So it seemed like everyone at my
school spoke English and Spanish. It was pretty nifty. I think this might be a
good place for me to practice my Spanish without people being judgmental about
me being a beginner. I’m pumped! In the afternoon the staff had a picnic at a
park. It was a good place to meet people, but a little overwhelming. Everyone
was super friendly though.
Today was
a little bit of a whirlwind, I woke up to go on a run to make sure I could find
my work on my own. Not only did I not find my work, but I got lost on the way
back home, diagonal streets get me all kinds of turned around. I met up with my
boss later on that morning (so yes I did eventually find my work) and she gave
me a tour of two of the buildings that Briya works at, tomorrow I’m getting a
tour of the third. I learned two things: 1. Briya is an AWESOME organization
that really focuses on holistically serving the community. 2. A lot of people
participate in making the program awesome, and I don’t remember a single one of
their names.
When I got home I started making a sandwich and
then realized I had about 5 minutes to get to the bus station because myself
and the other MVSers were supposed to go to a self defense seminar. Half way to
the bus station and two bites into my sandwich my housemates remind me that you
can’t have food on the bus. So as I’m power walking/ inhaling my sandwich we
see the bus we’re supposed to take start to leave. At that same moment a lady
heckles me about giving her food. Without even thinking I said “OK” and gave
her the rest of my sandwich (I hope she likes mayonnaise) and took off toward
the bus. I lamented this action 10 seconds later when I realized it wasn’t the
right bus and I was left lunch-less and bus-less. We ended up finding a different bus that took
us to where we wanted and only showed up to the safety seminar 15 minutes late.
The seminar turned out to be super informative!
Here are some things that I think everyone should know:
1. If someone is attacking you, you should yell “KEEYA!
IT’S AN ATTACK! CALL THE COPS!” Apparently people hear the sound “Keeya” better
than any other sound, so it will warn people around you. Also, people hear
stong “K” sounds which is why “cops” is better than “police.”
2. If you see someone hitting their kid in public
and you want to stop it, a good way is to be really cheery and say “WHAT A CUTE
KID, LOOK AT HIS/HER SHIRT/HAIR/EYES!!….etc.” – I like this one on account of
it startles the parent and weirdly enough apparently usually gets them to stop
hitting the kid. HOW NIFTY!
3. If someone is saying vulgar things to you on
the street you say (in a bored-calm voice): “Stop harassing women. I don’t like
it. No one likes it. Show some respect.” And apparently that works! I wish I
had known that earlier on account of just this morning a group of about seven
guys harassed me on my way to work that morning and I did the classic “keep
eyes down and walk faster” technique which apparently gives them power and
encourages them to heckle more people. DAMN IT!
So I hope everyone finds those tips super helpful
or whatever, if you guys want to know more I have a ton! And they are super
great. Also someone should try pretend attacking me sometime on account of I
know awesome self-defense moves now.
Other random thoughts before I end this blog
session thing:
1. Someone
asked me for directions today, so I guess I look like I know what I’m doing.
YAY!
2. The people in D.C. are SUPER nice, what are people
talking about when they say big-city people are rude? D.C. people are really
quite helpful and easy to talk to. Kansans could learn a thing or two from
them.
3. I’m pretty confused at work still.
4. I hate personality tests, but since I started
taking them in 6th grade they have told me that I am a blue, a yellow,
a red, a circle, a south, a helper, and an enthusiast. Awesome.
Alright, talk to you later! Or, more than likely
this will be a one-time project thing that I won’t want to do anymore tomorrow.
LOVE YOU WORLD!
MARIAH!
