Happy Bday, MLK

This weekend has been full of meeting new people. Friday night and Saturday morning I went to Social Justice Camp DC, which was “a free two-day event on MLK Weekend gathering individuals interested in pursuing social justice in Washington, DC through art, technology & collaboration.” In short, it was genuinely the most exciting thing that I have attended since I returned to this city. I met so many dreamy changemakers. Yeah, I said it, social justice is dreamy.

Since I moved back to D.C. I’ve been working on trying to get to know the community around me better than I did during my internship at the Enough Project. I mean, I lived here for four months but I honestly spent so much time thinking and talking about genocide and crimes against humanity in Sub Saharan Africa since it’s what I did as my “job” and since most of the people I hung out with outside of “work” were Enough people. I honestly felt something missing if I went more than, oh, 48 hours not seeing Lindsay and Meghan. Imagine my withdrawal from them now. Anyway, I digress. What I’m trying to say is that now that I’m in a position where I am working with a population that lives here, I feel like I should be an expert on the resources that are available – and there are many. So many! I want to be a part of this community. I want to be a bus rider, not just a metro rider. I’m working on it.

I found out about Social Justice Camp DC online somehow – probably through Twitter. I thought it sounded like a good opportunity for a crash course in some of the problems this community is dealing with and a fabulous way to meet people who are working tenaciously to meet these challenges in a creative, progressive way. Well, guess what? It was. I already told you, it was my jam. I am looking forward to sharing some specific stories of the people I met and the organizations I learned about. Just know this: I’m in love with this city all over again, this time maybe a little more for real than last time.

I was sad to have to leave the (un)conference early, but I had to hit the road to Harrisonburg, VA with Rachael to go to our old roommate Andy’s elopement reception! When I lived here last time it was with three Eastern Mennonite University alumni. EMU is located in Harrisonburg, which I subsequently heard ALL about. This was my first visit and I got to put a lot of faces to names and see a bit of what is so great about this little college town. The party was classy and it seemed like Andy and Ellie were having a great time, which is what was most important. Today we had breakfast at a co-op and then played Boggle and Settlers of Catan with a couple of Rachael’s EMU buddies. It was a relaxing friendtime, perfect for a rainy and cold Sunday afternoon. On the way back, to keep from falling asleep at the wheel, Rach put my iPod on shuffle all and then had me guess who was singing. She was cracking me up in the car this weekend, asking if “food justice” meant freedom for tomatoes (joke) and asking where in the world I get all my *weird* music (not a joke).

All in all, it's been a great weekend so far. Tomorrow my clinic is closed but it's a day on packing and distributing safe sex kits (condoms & ??) with my AC pals for an org called Different Avenues. I hope that you all will be thinking of MLK tomorrow and celebrating his life by giving back to your community. Need some inspiration? Check out that link from the beginning of this post or read this article in the Washington Post.