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Rita Golden Gelman: I Like DC

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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

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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: Let’s Get Global is Born

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I’ve always wanted to be a hero. When I was a teenager, I was a lifeguard. I used to have fantasies of saving lives…but no one ever needed saving on my watch. I used to have dreams of going into burning buildings and rescuing children. But I never did. Suddenly, I knew I had to do something. I was seventy one. It wasn’t too late. But it had to be a fit.

Before the month was over I decided to work at changing the mentality in the U.S. I would create a movement that would encourage our kids to take a gap year, between high school and the next phase of their lives. Let them discover the world. Let them learn that we are indeed all the same…the tribal people in New Guinea and the tango dancers in Argentina, the farmers in Mexico and the royalty in Bali, the sheep herders in New Zealand and the goat herders in Tanzania. These were things that our population needed to know.

In my travels I had met tons of young people from England, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, and many other countries, who were maturing themselves while discovering the world. They were doing their Gap Year, Bridge Year, Overseas Experience. It’s a concept that has never taken root in the U. S. We’re a country that doesn’t trust foreigners, a country that is geographically isolated. Ignorance breeds intolerance. If we are going to be leaders in the world, our population has to cross borders, share meals, laugh, work, and play in other countries. And share and learn about other ways of being. Let’ Get Global is determined to open up the world to our high sch0ol graduates. We will have a very different country when the majority of our population has experienced an international “GapYear.”

That’s when Let’s Get Global was born. Except I called it Global Learning.

The idea was born in December. I left for Spain at the end of January on a planned mini-adventure.

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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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