female « Birth of a Movement: Entreprenuers Striving to Change the World

Back to Work

by RitaGoldenGelman

I’m back at my desk and excited to be working again. Not that it wasn’t fun to catch a four-foot dorado with my grandson! But it’s time to get that website up.

The best news is that a reader from New Hampshire wrote that she was going to be in DC for a while and she asked if she could help. You bet. Jessie Shepard has been my brainstorming partner for two days now and I’ve accomplished ten times more than I would have if she weren’t sitting next to me. I am so much a team person! She’s a former Peace Corps volunteer (Tonga) and is as excited as I am about LGG . We are very much on the same wave length and she’s coming back tomorrow! Hooray!

Content for the website is our main focus at the moment. I’m determined to have it under control in the next two weeks. We’re still looking for pictures of teens interacting in other cultures. So please, if you have any, send them. As soon as the content is in order, it will all go to Dave Chase who is putting it together for us. Send them to: femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com.

Have a look at my speaking engagements in February…one in Charlotte, NC , at the International Study Abroad Fair and another at Scripps College in CA. Details to come when I have them, just in case you happen to be in the area.

Yay. It’s great to be making visible progress.

I am still compiling a list of high schools who might want to be among our pilot group of twelve. We’re looking for schools that represent a broad spectrum of the public school population in the country, schools with counselors and principals who like the idea of kids doing a gap year. (We are suggesting that the students apply to colleges while still in their senior year, get accepted, and ask for a deferral so they can do their gap year.)

By the way, a gap year does not have to be a year. The students can work for, say, six months, so they can contribute to their international programs. I ran into an Australian program yesterday that trains kids to teach English and then places them in schools in China. In the end, the expense would be just getting to Australia, which is under $1,000.

There are a lot of creative ways to do a gap year that make it a possibility for everyone. Can you imagine a country where all the seniors are talking about their upcoming gap year?

See you later. Rita

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Rita Golden Gelman: Not My Week

by RitaGoldenGelman

What a week! It started when I drove an hour to a dinner appointment—a day early. It continued when I went to a McDonald’s that had no burgers! I wrote about that below.

But that was only the beginning.

Two days later I got an e-mail from the woman whose apartment I had sublet until mid-March. She was very sick in Peru and they were releasing her from the hospital so she could fly back!! On Friday. To her tiny studio apartment. I was out! I had to pack up my stuff.

When I got the news, I was staying in Virginia. But luckily, Janice, a long lost cousin-in-law, on her way to North Carolina, was spending the night with me in VA . (She knew where I was because she’d found me on Facebook.). Janice and I drove in her car to DC on Wednesday night and packed up six months of toilet paper, napkins, a gallon of liquid Tide, toothpaste, and a bunch of other stuff that I had piled in for the duration like soy sauce, fish sauce, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, coconut milk, and more. I was happy to have her car for the trip and her help in packing. Janice left to go south early Thursday morning.

I was flying to Wisconsin for the U.S. Servas conference on Friday morning; so, mid-afternoon on Thursday I started to pack. That’s when I realized that my purse, with my driver’s license, passport, about $70, and all of my credit cards, was on its way to North Carolina!! I had left it on the floor of the passenger seat.

I had no ID, no money, no glasses, no nothing!! How could I get on a plane with no ID? How would I get to Wisconsin without a penny? I couldn’t even get to the airport. I might have just skipped the conference except that I was giving the keynote speech at seven on Friday night. It was Thursday afternoon and my identity was on its way to North Carolina.

I called Janice. She was an hour outside of Durham. I called FedEx in Durham. Yessss. For 74 dollars, they could get it to me by eight the next morning. And by God, they did!

The plane was late. For an hour and a half I was writing the above story. Then I started talking to the woman sitting next to me. The conversation was so interesting that I stopped writing, turned off the computer and began to talk. I never saw the text again!

And not only that, but the plane was so late that I almost missed my speech. The good news is that the bus from Chicago to Racine was twenty minutes late. If it had been on time, I would have arrived too late to talk!

What a week!

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Rita Golden Gelman: MAY I HAVE YOUR ORDER, PLEASE

by RitaGoldenGelman

So everything was going great. I was researching foundations, writing a query letter to them explaining who we are, and making a list of things to do before I left at five to meet some unmet friends for dinner about an hour away. I was struggling with the letter….it all had to be right. The organization of the information, the words, the facts. The only thing in the whole world that I am a perfectionist about is my writing. For those of you who think writing is easy for writers, you might enjoy this quote from Thomas Mann. He speaks for all of us: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

But I was doing it and the words were piling up nicely.

Then it was time to go. I left early because I’d never been to the town in Maryland where we were meeting. The drive wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been and I was happily listening to NPR in the almost rush hour traffic. Then, after I’d been on the road for forty-five minutes, the guy on the radio said something about “the weather on this fifth day of October …” No! Our dinner was on the sixth!” I got off the 495 highway going north and got back on going south.

I’d been thinking all the way about pupusas…a national dish in El Salvador that they served at the restaurant . Now I wasn’t going to have them. So I got to thinking about national dishes and suddenly I wanted, needed, craved a Big Mac. Yes, I couldn’t wait to bite into a Big Mac. I get that urge about once a year. This was my Big Mac day. I smiled in anticipation; but I had no idea where I would find a McDonalds. I decided that I would take my chances and hope that those yellow arches would appear. I couldn’t remember any along the way, but I stuck to the route home. Then, miraculously and by mistake, I turned the wrong way on South Van Dorn and there they were, inviting me to have my Big Mac. I got into a long line of cars, two of which were strangely trying to back out of the Drive-In order line.

I ordered my Big Mac and the voice in the machine informed me that they had no meat. I thought I didn’t hear right. I ordered again. No meat. No hamburgers. No Big Macs. But I was in a McDonalds. There had to be meat. That’s the definition of McDonalds. “We have no meat,” she said for the third time.

Now once upon a time I was in a vegetarian McDonalds in India….but this was Alexandria, Virginia. No meat really meant no meat. Apparently the truck with the meat never arrived. I ordered six chicken nuggets and a small French fries and drove back to the house where I am house-sitting. Not a good day!!!

Tomorrow it will be pupusas…and the good news is that I know how to get there.

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Rita Golden Gelman: From the Female Nomad: Too Much Information

by admin

For those of you who are not aware that papers multiply spontaneously, I have two things to say. First, I hate you for not experiencing this evil phenomenon. And second, how I wish I knew your secret. The papers in my life expand exponentially. As I write this, I can feel and hear them reproducing themselves like millions of lymphocyte cells endlessly and relentlessly reproducing themselves.

I am very much aware that you who are immune are part of a conspiracy to keep those of us who are plagued by this environmental disease from escaping its clutches. Oh, you give us lectures and lessons and you tell us about numbering pages, using organizational software, buying special notebooks and files and sticky pads and sticky labels. So we rush out and buy the equipment…but it never works. Many of us have brief moments when the disease is in remission, but always it flares up again, like herpes or malaria.

Those of us afflicted need those of you who are immune. At the moment I have three of you who are trying to help. I really don’t hate you; I need you. Liz, Hope, and DeeNice. I do appreciate your efforts, don’t stop trying, but I confess that I’m secretly afraid you will all abandon me when your frustration peaks, and then I will be left alone with a growing pile of disaffiliated papers, notebooks, recycled sheets and napkins and sales slips with scribbles on them. Surely it is a genetic thing. Just a few more generations and the fittest will survive and the piles of papers will disappear. But meanwhile, don’t go away. I need you.

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Rita Golden Gelman: Let’s Get Global: My Passion

by admin

Well, I’m not climbing mountains in the jungles of New Guinea at the moment, and most of the people I meet have clothes on, and here in DC I don’t see a lot of saris or sarongs—but launching “Let’s Get Global” is definitely an adventure. I’m in uncharted waters and it’s both frustrating and exhilarating.

I love the passion I’m feeling. I am absolutely determined to change the country, to convince people that it’s important to have a global population if we want to be leaders in today’s world. I mean, we can’t keep our young people inside the United States and expect world leaders to emerge.

Education—for everyone—has to continue beyond our borders. International experiences develop independent thinking, challenging situations develop values and self-confidence, and intercultural interaction inevitably yields respect and understanding………..and leaders.

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Rita Golden Gelman: I Like DC

by admin

I like DC.

I chose to settle into Washington because I felt there were organizations, colleges, movers and shakers that would be important contacts to have while creating a national movement. DC just felt right. As an outsider, I’m seeing the city with the eyes of a newcomer. It’s overwhelming. When I arrived at the end of August, I moved into a beautiful, quiet neighborhood.

Rita Golden Gelman stay in Washington DC for Let's Go Global

Nearly empty sidewalks with strolling moms, young people casually dressed, dog walkers. Lots of jeans, shorts, tank tops, flip flops. I chose to rent a place in the middle of the action. If I walk just three blocks north from my apartment house, I pass the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Capitol. Quiet and elegant.
Then a week or so ago, Congress returned from summer vacation. My neighborhood is suddenly filled with suits and ties and high heels, all carrying briefcases or small backpacks. There are lots of suits and heels in my building too. Apparently there are tons of congressional people who have their small city apartments in my buildings. You sort of know the ones in elected office because they smile and say things like, “How are you doing?” There’s a gym room in the building. Apparently that’s where people meet. When I move back in on October 12th, I’m going to begin an exercise routine. Gotta be good for Let’s Get Global as well as my body.

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Rita Golden Gelman: SETTLING INTO A NEW U.S.LIFE

by admin

I’ll pick up in my next entry on my Spain visit. Vaughan Town was pretty amazing and Barcelona quickly became my favorite city….but I was so into changing the U.S. that I spent hours and hours Skyping about Let’s Get Global. Actually it was pretty appropriate to begin a global movement from out of the country. But more on that later.
Now I want to move into the present for a bit. I’m deep into the Gap Year project which we are calling Let’s Get Global. I’m on it 24/7. I’ve given up nomadding for at least a year, although I will probably be talking and traveling a lot, just not in exotic places.
I’m currently staying in a tiny studio apartment in Washington, DC. I’ll be there until mid-March. A couple of weeks ago I got a call from a family I had met in June (when I get back to the history of birthing this movement I’ll talk about them again); they were going to California for a month. How would I like to house-sit in Alexandria, VA? Sure, why not. So I have gone from a nomad with no home to someone with a city house and a country house! The invitation came with a car because there’s no metro in the part of Alexandria where my country house is. When I saw the car, I almost died. A silver Mercedes!
“Oh, no, “ I said. “I don’t want to drive that. What if…” He cut me off. “Rita, it’s a car,” he said, handing me a card from his body shop! So I’ve been hanging out at my country house in Alexandria for the last two weeks. A couple of days ago I drove from my country house in Alexandria to DC. Got lost, of course. But got there.

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Rita Golden Gelman: The inspiration

by RitaGoldenGelman

rita_golden_gelman_2005 Birthing a movement was never part of my plan. I was a happy nomad, following my whims all over the world.

For twenty-three years I’d been wandering the world, living among other cultures, sharing meals and laughter and songs in Bali, in Argentina, in Suriname, in Guatemala, in New Guinea. My life was rich and filled with the joy of connecting. As I traveled, I wrote children’s books, collected modest royalties on the ones I’d written before, and lived happily, eating and hanging out with native villagers. It was a life I loved.

In 2000 and 2001 I took two years off to write and promote my adult book, Tales of a Female Nomad. I wrote it in New York City, and when the book was published, I bought a car and promoted all over the U.S. for nine months. Most of the people and kids I talked to had never left the country.

When I talk to school kids, I tell them that I’ve learned two things in these twenty-three globe-trotting years.The first is that we’re all different: different smiles, different languages, different skin color, different religions, different eyes, different clothes, different foods. And the second thing I’ve learned is that we’re all the same. It confuses them…but only for a few minutes. Those second graders get it.

The tribal people in New Guinea, I tell them, like to sing; so do I. The women in Bali love their children, just like we do. People cook and laugh and cry and die all over the world. If you stay in one place long enough, you stop noticing the differences. The people you are living with in Thailand or Nicaragua or Tanzania become family. You walk, pray, cry, eat, and sleep with them……….and they become family. The whole concept of “foreigner” pretty much disappears if you’ve ever had a chance to live in another culture.

Then came December, 2009, and my life changed, dramatically. I was dog-sitting for Roxy, my grand-dog in Seattle, and we were snowed in. The whole city was. So, stuck in the house, Roxy and I decided to watch some TV. We chose Christiane Amanpour’s special, SCREAM BLOODY MURDER, a history of genocide….in Germany, in Cambodia, in Iraq, in Bosnia, in Rwanda, and more. It was the visuals that haunted me for days. Bodies on the streets, in holes, in fields. Piles, piles of bodies all over the world. And there were people trying to help, screaming to the world for help, but the world wasn’t listening.

I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I was–still am–that world. Then a few days later I watched another CNN program about ordinary people who were doing extraordinary things in the world. Reaching out, caring, helping, sharing. Bringing skills and love and passion to people all over the world. After watching the two CNN specials about people who did and didn’t reach out, I knew….

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