John on the D.C. Metro Area Ghost Watchers

"I grew up in Lansdowne, Maryland, in a house that I believe to be haunted. I was about 11 when my parents and I started noticing a lot of activity there. The cat would attack things that weren’t there. We heard hammering noises in the basement. I would go to the top of the basement stairs and it would stop. As soon as I left, it would start up again. The one that really pushed me over the edge was hearing a large crashing noise coming from the basement that sounded like broken glass. I went downstairs and there was nothing there. That pretty much convinced me that the house was haunted. I asked my neighbors about the former tenants of our house. One was a carpenter who died, which is probably where that hammering sound come from. That was my first investigation.

“I then joined the military and did 20 years of service. I got out at age 38 and was not ready to retire. The experiences from my childhood really stayed with me, and I contacted the head of the D.C. Metro Area Ghost Watchers (DCMAG), Al Tyas, about joining the team. He was retiring and ended up giving me the team in 2006 after we did a few investigations together. The D.C. area in particular has a lot of folklore and history around hauntings. Some people believe that Abraham Lincoln haunts the White House. There is also supposedly a demon cat near Congress that predicts doom. Since joining DCMAG, I’ve had some pretty intense investigations. Getting my hair pulled by a ghost was my first physical encounter with a spirit. You just don’t believe that it is happening, but, after a while, you get used to it. Each spirit has something that he or she can do particularly well.  Some can pull hair, some can talk, and some can make footsteps. I even played hide-and-go-seek with the ghost of a child once. 

“There are a couple of theories about why ghosts do this. One is that they don’t know that they are dead. Another theory is that they have unfinished business and are not going to leave until it’s done. This could be something like a ghost finding his murderer.  Other people believe that they just don’t want to leave. That’s like the guy who built up his farm his whole life and finally got it to where he wants it to be, and then he dies. Then, someone else moves in and he gets angry. The other theory is the fear of being judged by God. That could apply to a lot of prisoners and people who didn’t have time to repent during life. They would rather stay in Purgatory than go to Hell. Those are all just theories, though.

"In our work, which we do for free by the way, we use a number of tools to search for spirits, but there is no such thing as a ghost detection tool. Some of the tools we use are closed-circuit televisions, lots of audio recorders and parabolic microphones, Geiger counters, and all kind of meters that measure energy. The body runs on electrical current and, according to Einstein, you can neither create nor destroy energy. When you die, all of that energy has to go somewhere, so we look for that. I am also trained in psychic self-defense, which is teaching people to recognize when you are under attack by a spirit. These places where we work are negative atmosphere environments. A lot of times, you can absorb that energy and it impacts you.

"Before doing this work, there was something missing from my life. Now, things feel right and I am doing what I love. I think that ghosts have taught me more about life than living people have."

Learn more about DCMAG here. 

Sherri on Hair-Flair for Hope

"My family goes back three generations in Washington, D.C. I went to Florida for college, but couldn't take the heat and lack of culture there, so I moved back to this area. I transferred to the University of Maryland and got a job as a DJ. At the time, I was all rock and roll and had a pink mohawk. After school, I cleaned up a little and took a job at IBM. I started off in administration and ended up as a systems engineer, which is something that none of my friends know because I don't have a cell phone and people think of me as a technophobe. I was actually a Unix systems engineer.  

“All through my working life, I was always searching for this really creative career. I worked at a number of big organizations, but always felt like a fish out of water. Then I got sick a number of years ago and had to leave the work force. I spent ten years flailing around and had no focus. I was spending a lot of time at home and started making colorful wigs out of yarn because I always dressed slightly out of the norm. I started making them for my friends who were in the arts and began holding wig-making workshops. 

“At the time, I lost a number of people to cancer who meant a lot to me. One in particular was Kimberly ‘Kaihea’ Rupp.  She told me that she wished she could come to one of my workshops and make a wig, as she had experienced hair-loss at the time of chemotherapy. At the time, I hadn't figured out how to attach the wig to a bare scalp. I have always regretted that I didn’t figure out how to make her a fabulous wig, but I named this project in her honor. Now we make wigs on bandana-shaped wig-caps. 

“Cancer is a really frightening thing, and I wanted to find a way to make women and children feel like rock stars. I think that people who lose their hair to medical treatments go through a period when they are grieving about their own loss, especially after chemotherapy.  We are all walking canvases of art. I have always believed that the face deserves a proper frame of hair. More than anything, our hair is a simple representation of what our attitude is on the inside. I hope that on the days when people who are ill feel like they don’t have a lot of light, these wigs will help them illuminate their beautiful inner colors.

“Now I wear my wig most of the time. Originally, I did it because I thought it looked cool. I wear it in solidarity with people who have gone through something more terrifying than I can imagine. This project has given me something to identify with after feeling so devoid of life for so long after I had gotten sick. With this project, I feel plugged into life again.” 

Learn more about Hair-Flair for Hope, Sherri's organization, here. To donate money, materials or time, email Sherri at info@hairflairforhope.org.  

Akiva on Connecting to People Using a Dead Guy's Words

"I grew up in the near suburbs of Boston. My family would probably tell you that they had to sit through a number of my interminable theater performances when I was eight years old. When I was 15, I read "Hamlet" and it really impacted me. I think that everyone reads "Romeo and Juliet" in freshman year of high school and just blows it off because they're forced to read it. I did the same thing, but when I read "Hamlet" on my own, that made all the difference. I tore through it in three hours and wondered, ‘Does anyone else know about this Shakespeare guy? He’s great!’ Shakespeare became a real love of mine. In college, I founded a Shakespeare Theatre that performed in the dorms. People would wander up in their pajamas and watch. There was something about the words, the style, and the subject matter that just got to me, and continues to get to me.

"When college ended, I thought I would say goodbye to that part of my life, but it turned out that I wasn’t ready to be a stock broker or an English professor. I wanted to keep this as part of my life and connect with people. Strangely, I felt most connected to people using this dead guy’s words. Still, I didn’t know that one could make a career in the arts; I thought that was just for hippies.

"It was a bet that I could find someone who would hire me to work in the arts after I finished graduate school. Now I work in a giant theater, with 775 seats, putting on these plays. Working at the Shakespeare Theatre was a dream job, where I could get my arms around the historical background, the language, and the interface with the audience.

"For me, one of the most satisfying things about working here is reminding the politicians, judges, and lawyers in the audience that a lot of these plays are about them. The reason these plays have lasted is because they have these eternal questions that people are always working on: How do you make your country better? How do you lead other people? To whom do you look when you need a leader? These are the questions that people engaged in this city are answering every day.

"There was this wonderful episode from the 16th century, when Queen Elizabeth was elderly and subject to a lot of revolts and uncertainty about who was going to succeed her. Before her conspirators launched their rebellion against her, they ordered Richard II to be put on stage because it is about deposing the king. After the conspiracy failed and she learned about the performance, she apparently turned to her aides and says, 'Know you not that I am Richard II.’ That’s a wonderful story because it's about someone really getting what history and drama have to do with their life in a political situation.

"At the end of the day, the politicians and I are working with the same material. Mine is just written down and they are making it up as they go along. It's funny to me that people come over to me and say, ‘You work in theater. That's so cool!’ I am thinking, yeah, but you are running the country. That’s pretty cool, too!"

Akiva Fox is a literary associate at the Shakespeare Theatre.

Councilmember Tommy Wells on Getting the Love Back

“I first came to Washington in 1983. I was about 27 years old and was just graduating with a Master's in Social Work from the University of Minnesota. I couldn't figure out where I wanted to go, but I knew that I didn't want to go back to Alabama where I grew up. I went to talk with a professor whom I thought very highly of to ask what he would do in my situation. He said, 'I would go to Washington. Washington is the most exciting place I have ever lived.' Being quite easily influenced, I worked a little bit that summer and then sold my car, a little Honda station wagon, and bought a one-way ticket to Washington. As I walked out from Union Station on September 6, I just fell in love with Washington that very moment. It was a beautiful day and the buildings were such heroic structures. My heart raced a little bit then and hasn't ever stopped.

“In 1985, I took a job as a child protection social worker for D.C. That early experience taught me a lot about Washington and the neighborhoods that most people had never been in. Starting in 1985. the city essentially went broke and that was the beginning of crack and the AIDS epidemic. That led to an explosion of kids coming into foster care. At the same time, because the city was going broke, there was a hiring freeze on social workers, so the caseloads were exploding. I had over 40 kids and families in my caseload, but had colleagues who had from 200 to 500 kids.

“I remember that there was a young man in my caseload who tested positive for HIV at 15. I needed to find a home for him, but group homes would not take him. I found a gay AIDS activist in the city who said, ‘I will do it.’ I took that information to the government, but the city never paid him or did its part to support him. We had a crisis and the government could not respond. The system wasn't there to help kids with HIV and AIDS. These kids ended up in group homes, which are essentially orphanages, instead of foster homes. In response, when I ran the Consortium for Child Welfare, one of the first things I did was to write grants to create a recruitment program for people who were willing to be foster parents for children affected by HIV. That was a powerful experience because I was just moving a couple of gears and it changed the whole machine. Now kids were going directly to families. Some of those kids were even adopted and most went on to live healthy lives. Experiences like this made it clear to me that I was more drawn to systemic change rather than helping people one at time.

“There are two things that ultimately impacted my decision to run for political office. One is that, with time, I was providing more of a leadership role to social workers in the city, which made me more of a public person. The other thing is that during the late 80's/early 90's, D.C. became the murder capital of the world. I would read the paper on Monday morning about the egregious things happening in my ward and didn’t want to leave the house. I would feel so dark, gloomy, and fearful that these awful things were happening.

“I wanted my neighborhood to be better, so I ran for Advisory Neighborhood Commission. Even though it is only Advisory, I really felt like I was making a difference. It introduced me to a lot of public policy issues that affect our world. Because of my concern about kids, I ran for School Board and won in a District that was over 75 percent African-American. It gave me hope that if people recognize they want a better future in D.C., they will give you a chance regardless of your race. I love Washington and to get the love back was just an extraordinary experience.

“At the school board, I mandated that all students had to be fully immunized. At the time, 20,000 out of 60,000 kids had not gotten their immunizations. It was a powerful feeling to see how you could have an impact on a child's life through elected office. When Sharon Ambrose was not running for reelection in Ward 6, I saw an opportunity to continue to make major systemic changes. I felt good about electoral politics and ran to be a member of the Council.”  

Councilmember Wells was first elected to the City Council in 2007. He is the Chair of the Committee on Human Services and currently sits on the Committee on Economic Development, the Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs, and the Committee on Health. Tommy is also Chair of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Human Services Planning Committee, Chair of the DC Safe Routes to School State Network, and the incoming Chair of the Chesapeake Bay Local Government Advisory Committee. Learn more about Councilmember Wells here. 

J.B. on D.C.'s Rich Sports History

"I am a native Washingtonian and like to call this city a big country town. I was a basketball star a few pounds ago, to say the least. I am blessed to have played at Dematha High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, one of the great national power houses. Dematha helped to put high school basketball on the map as a sport to watch. Lew Alcindor, most people know him as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, only lost one game in high school and two in in college. Each of those games involved someone from Dematha. He would rip me when I saw him by not giving me the best interview.

"After high school, I was blessed to use my athletic talent to go to a great academic college, Harvard. From there, I thought that I was going to be a professional basketball player. While it didn't work out to be a player, I have been blessed to be on the periphery of sports as a sports broadcaster. There are a number of people from Washington D.C. who had a hand in my career, starting with Petey Greene. It was on his program, on the old WDCA Channel 20, that he steered me over to the sports department to interview for a position as an analyst for the then Washington Bullets.

"When I think back on sports in D.C., I think of the old Washington Senators. As a little kid, I was a baseball fanatic. While I wasn't born at the time, I think about the old Negro League baseball teams that played here, especially the Homestead Grays. My grandfather owned a baseball team down in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, appropriately called the Black Sox. I would listen to all of the old guys talk about playing baseball along the Chitlin' Circuit, as they called it.

"I think about the Washington Bullets and their championship year in 1979 when Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes and that group played. Washington was really quite a proud and  hopping place then. I was so excited about getting to be a part of that sports history when I came on a year after they won as an analyst. The Bullets then went on to have some pretty tough years, but things turned around. Now, if you look at the Wizards, they got rid of all of their marquee players and even though they are playing with 'lesser known layers,' they're still winning.

"Collegiately. we have some excellent teams in the area from George Mason where they had that NCAA Tournament run a few years ago with Coach Jim Larranaga. Maryland is always going to be in the thick of things. I am very proud of Georgetown and the John Thompson legacy that continues there. Washington has a rich sports history and I am very proud to be a part of that."

James Brown, 'J.B.,' a 1969 graduate of Dematha Catholic High School, is the current host of The NFL Today on CBS and Inside the NFL on Showtime. See his 60 Minutes interview with Michael Vick here. 

Vishal on Feeling Free

This story follows yesterday's post from Dominatrix Mistress Domina Vontana. 

"I'm 22 and was born in Arlington, Virginia. My family is Indian and Anavil Brahmin, the highest caste. All my life, I was raised by women -- my Mom and two older sisters -- as my Dad was always at work. I think that girls always telling me what to do is where my submissiveness comes from.

"My parents never had that sex conversation with me, so I had to figure it out on my own. Ever since I was little, I remember being into BDSM. In elementary school, I had this dream about two girls tying me up. When I was older, I would play cops and robbers and tie people up. Later on, I started surfing the internet a lot and came across BDSM stuff. I would find rope in the house and tie myself up. My parents saw some of the websites I was checking out and found rope in my bedroom. They had my brother-in-law talk with me once. I told him that I was just experimenting and to leave me alone. Look, my family knows that I'm a kinkster, but there are some things that you don't talk about in an Indian family, and this is definitely one of them.

"When I got older and started having vanilla sex, it satisfied me, but I was still thinking about being spanked, tied up, or whipped. I started pursuing BDSM in October when I finally had the money to come and do sessions with a Dominatrix. I was scared that it might be a sting operation, but it turned out to be totally legit. I remember going to a chat room before I went to ask about dress code and things like that. Someone wrote back saying, 'Don't worry, you're not going to be wearing anything!'

"For me, things really clicked when I met Domina Vontana. She said I could do better by serving her than by paying her. Now, I help clean her house, build her website, shovel snow, give her rides, whatever she needs. It is really fulfilling and helps out with my anxiety. It is a total power exchange. I give her myself completely during scenes and as a lifestyle. Nothing that I have done with her has been sexual; it is all discipline. We have more of a mother-son relationship than anything else. She constantly praises me and makes me feel good. In turns out that this is the best therapy I have ever had.

"Now, as a submissive, I am under a consideration period where we get to know each other. There are a few more stages between being a submissive and being a slave. Mistress says that I am on the right track to getting there, though. As I pursue my own relationships, these experiences make me realize that I need to find a partner who has a dominant personality. At the same time, I need to keep a separate relationship with my Mistress to maintain my discipline and kinkster needs. I will definitely have to tell my partner about my Dominatrix, and they will need to meet. If the person is open-minded, I am sure it will be okay because Mistress is the kindest person that I know. Being with her makes me a better, more proactive person. Now I know that I want to be powerful in the business world, but, outside of that, I don't mind being submissive. It makes me feel free."

Mistress Domina Vontana on Power Exchange

"I am a preacher's daughter from Whitefish, Montana. I grew up in barns, and we would go out on stampedes and round up the young bulls in the spring and castrate them. I saw the force of life from a very young age and was taught not to flinch. Education was a huge emphasis in my family, and there was always that push to seek knowledge. I definitely credit the area where I grew up for a lot of the qualities that now make me a Dominatrix, like hard work, education, and loyalty.

"When I tried to break into the Dominatrix scene in D.C., no one would give me an opening, which is how I ended up stripping out on the Eastern Shore. During that time, I went out to San Francisco for S&M training and really benefited from the networking. I found people whom I could call when I had questions as a young Dom. Three weeks after my Dad died, I put up an ad on Craigslist as a Dominatrix. One of the major reasons I do this work is because I know that my father was submissive. I know that if he had understood himself, he'd still be here today.

"When people don't accept who they are on whatever level, whether sexual, social or personal, they can do a lot of damage to themselves because of how unhappy they are. I just want every father, mother, daughter, and lover out there to be able to know who they are and honestly communicate that to their partner, whether it is vanilla sex or extreme kink. If someone is coming to me to induce a feeling of shame because they don't feel comfortable with what they desire, they need to seek a psychotherapist, not me. I only want to play with people who are comfortable with their desires and embrace their identity. I screen people using extreme intuition and patterns. When you are in the business long enough, you learn who the wankers are and you can point them out in ten seconds.

"People come to me to do all kinds of scenes that include things like rope bondage, impact play, which is everything from spanking with a hand or a paddle to flogging and hitting, and cross-dressing, which is my bread and butter. There is so much cross-dressing out there. You would have no idea because someone can just wear panties to work under their trousers. I love edge play, which is the scary, psychological stuff when you get inside somebody’s head and play with their fears. It builds up someone’s confidence. As for rope bondage, I was into rope before I knew about this scene. A pile of rope makes me smile. I think it takes me back to my farm days.

"I also do traditional slave play and service. Some people are really fulfilled and satisfied by coming and cleaning my house and knowing that I appreciate them. It sounds a little unbelievable to those that haven't experienced it, but it is very sincere. Now I have one boy who is 27 and Jewish and has served me for two years. I also have my little Indian boy. He is 22 and has been with me for a couple of months now. I would love to find a girl, too.

"Being a preacher’s daughter and a Dominatrix, I can see things that other people can’t see in people, including their power. Power is real, and these people in D.C. pack a lot of it. What these people are giving up to me - their will, their intellects, their bodies, their desires, their pocketbooks - are larger and stronger than anywhere in the world. This is the perfect city for what I do. These are important individuals who have a lot of people that rely on them. They spend all day making heavy decisions. When they come to visit me, my ropes set them free. The smallest consideration for the submissive inside of them is enough to empower them to go out and work hard for another three to four weeks. I'm like a therapist, a life coach, a best friend, a Momma who is gonna tell it to you straight. Generally, if they maintain a professional relationship with me, they are also better husbands and partners when they go home.

"I hope to meet someone and settle down someday, as I was disowned by my family. That person has to be very emotionally secure and intellectually sophisticated. When I am out at a bar, I tell people that I am a consultant who works with the military. But when I'm trying to get to know somebody, I usually put it out there pretty quickly. Occasionally, I have a lover of my own who is not freaked out by what I do for a living. A lot of people think I'm a prostitute. All I want to say is that this is so much work with the equipment, the overhead, the cleaning, the supplies, and the sanitation. If I had wanted to take the easy way, I would have done that a long time ago. I pay thousands of dollars every year to attend seminars, where I build my skills. Give me credit."

Read more about Mistress Domina Vontana here. Learn more about the BDSM community in D.C. from Black Rose and DCTNG.

Jair on Authenticity

“Washington was a very manageable place for me as a young person. After elementary school, I attended Sidwell Friends School and also started gymnastics. That created a very broad world for me because I had my neighborhood, my school, and my sport, all in very different places that didn’t overlap at all.

"Sidwell is urban with strong attempts to create diversity, but a largely upper-middle-class school student base. Gymnastics was in suburban Columbia, Maryland. In Columbia, you saw kids pampered, in a good way, by their environment. And I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, Shepherd Park, where most kids went to parochial schools. Our neighborhood was full of aspirations, of people wanting to move up the economic ladder. Traveling among these three worlds taught me about the notion of place really early in life. That very much weaved into the desire to be in real estate.

"One of the reasons I came back to D.C. from California in 1998 is that it didn’t really change much in the ten years I was gone. You still had those three worlds, and they really didn’t talk to each other. I was still very lucky to be able to move among those three worlds. The connectivity among these places creates the new buzzword that everyone talks about now -- authenticity. I wanted to work in the neighborhoods where I thought one could create authentic places, areas like Shaw and U Street. As a firm, we have been working for the last 12 years to make those places have a soul. We are mindful of the past as we move forward.

"This authenticity reflects a huge shift in urban development. Now we have a young population much larger than the baby boomers who had been the bulk of our demographic weight and dictating policy for the last 40 years. There are 60 million baby boomers and 150 million Gen X and Gen Y-ers. These young people want urban and authentic. Developers are recognizing that and responding. Some will do it well and some won’t. We think we do it well because we start with the people. When we imagine things, we try and think about what people will need five or ten years out from now.

"We have a very systematic approach to creating space. It involves thirty steps and identifies location, need, customer, and how the space interacts with the neighborhood and its assets. Once we do that, it becomes like an engineering project. You work step by step and go around in circles, over and over, until you come up with a project. It is not much different than trying to come up with the best cupcake or cell phone. You have design, research, finance, and marketing teams, who all work around the clock through forty iterations of something to create a product that will endure. We do the same thing with real estate."

Jair Lynch is President and CEO of Jair Lynch Development Partners. Jair was a two-time member of the United States Olympic Team. In 1996, as captain of the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team, he won a silver medal on the parallel bars.

Ayehubizu on Big Chair Coffee

"I am from Ethiopia. I came to Washington in 1988 with my little girl. I am a registered nurse and did my training in Ethiopia. For my whole life, I have always worked two jobs. I was working at Birney Elementary School in Anacostia as a nurse. I would usually bring my own food because there was nothing to eat around here. I ended up having to go to the Safeway when I wanted a snack.

"With time, I saw that nothing was being opened, so I thought why not try myself. I heard that the government was giving grants to help businesses in Anacostia, which didn't happen to me. I wasted my time trying to get help from the city. I did it all by myself. I used my savings and had my family help me. We opened in January 2010. Now, my brother is the manager. My son and nephew help out. I come when I can and also still work as a nurse.

"I wanted to open on this side of the river because there are so many people who need coffee and a place to sit around and relax. This is the only place where you can get an espresso around here. Remember, coffee comes from Ethiopia, so this is what we love, too. I also wanted to give the community healthy food. I am also thinking about bringing Ethiopian food in by request.

"Now, a lot of people are thanking me and sending me cards. But I feel I am the one who is blessed. We have people who come by and say, 'We will still come and support you in the bad weather because we want you to succeed.' They want the neighborhood to succeed."

Big Chair Coffee, home of the Marion Barry Latte, is located at 2122 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE.

Jen on Being Miss District of Columbia

"I grew up on Long Island. I wanted to be a music major in college and got a scholarship to go to the Hartt School in Hartford. I accepted and about a week later, I was hysterically crying and told my Mom that I would hate Hartford. Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to move to D.C. So, I switched and came to D.C. That one decision has completely changed my entire life.

"I watched Miss America when I was little with my sisters, but never thought about actually competing. I had all of these stereotypes of pageant girls. I was the type of girl who would never wear make up, never go the gym, and never do my hair. I ended up getting into the pageant world because my voice teacher here was the voice teacher of a former Miss D.C. She got an email asking if she had any students who would be interested in auditioning. She came to me one day and said, ‘I decided that this year you are going to be Miss D.C. and then be Miss America!’ I just laughed.

"She kept bugging me and I eventually went to the audition and made the Top 15. It actually turned out to be pretty fun. I got on stage and sang a song, O Mio Babbino Caro, and walked around in a swimsuit and an evening gown and got paid. Plus, the other girls were nothing like I expected. They worked on the Hill or were in college. One girl was even trying to get into the FBI. Many states are very 'pageanty', but not D.C. The girls here are all really smart and professionally driven.

"The experience also taught me some of the beauty tricks for pageant girls. You glue your bathing suit to your butt, so you don’t get a wedgie when you’re on stage. We all bronze our abs and legs to make them look more defined. You also put hemorrhoid cream under your eyes and on your legs the night before, so that it sucks in all of the moisture and makes you more defined. Some girls even wear Vaseline on their teeth to help their smile.

"I ended up competing three years in a row. This year, I came to Miss D.C. to win and go to Miss America. It was my senior year of college and all of my friends were applying for jobs. They asked me where I was applying and I said, 'I am not applying for jobs because I am going to win Miss. D.C.' I just knew it. Walking out on stage at the final crowning, I said to myself, I am not going to make that face and start crying. That is the first thing that I did when they called my name. I can’t believe that I did that. I am still so angry at myself.

"Everything changed after winning Miss D.C. and getting Top 10 at Miss America. I got to meet President Obama. I get to go to all of these fun events. I got to sing the national anthem at a Caps and Nationals game. I am working to promote my platforms of recycling and education all around the city. I mean, who does that? One thing, though, is that as much as I want to be myself as Miss D.C., people have certain expectations of what a pageant girl should be. I try and work to balance my life as Jen Corey and Miss D,C. to have a little of each in both. My friends make fun of me for being in full make up all of the time, but my biggest fear is to introduce myself as Miss D.C. and someone says, ‘Really?’ I still have my friend’s houses where I can go to as a refuge and I am still the sweetheart of one of the fraternities at American. I can go over there with my sweatpants and drink a beer, eat a whole pizza, watch the Superbowl, and just be Jen."

Learn more about Miss District of Columbia here. Hear Jen's rap song "Dream Without Boundaries" with Kokayi here.

Raymin on Standing Together

"I’m 33. I was born in the Dominican Republic and came to the U.S. in December 1983. My family first came to New York and then we settled in Hyattsville, Maryland. I have been doing construction since I left high school in 1995. I did general labor, demolition, asbestos removal, whatever. Being out there in the field, I was exposed to a lot of the injustices that people in the work force deal with, things like poor or no pay and mistreatment. I am fortunate because I am bilingual, so I could speak up for co-workers who didn't speak the language. There were a few times when I would be let go for speaking up, but the way I look at it, I am not going to let anyone disrespect me or my co-workers.

"My whole time in construction, I was never in a union. I don’t have a pension or insurance, none of that. With my health, I always just crossed my fingers. I got hurt a few times and always had to pay out of pocket. Back then, I didn't know about the unions. It’s not like contractors were telling us about our rights. Their bottom line was making money. The last thing many of them wanted was for us to have the knowledge that if we joined with our co-workers, we could have what they had -- a contract. No job gets done in this city without a contract, yet we never had one. Part of that may be that union density in D.C. is not like New York. Here, there isnt' that mentality where your Dad and Granddad were in the union.

"When I was given the opportunity to be an organizer, I said, ‘Heck, yeah.’ Now I'm able to give back. I spend a lot of my time in the field talking with people. I have been in their shoes, so I know how to relate to them. I think that it's important to even the playing field. If you want your community to thrive, you need to give your community the resources and options. Without options, people unfortunately turn to other means.

"With Small businesses, Minority contractors, and Advocates for Reform Today (SMART DC), we represent workers, whether they are black, Hispanic or white. The problem is usually the contractors who aren't held accountable. A lot of these construction companies get a contract and claim to want to boost the local economy and hire local labor, but we find that many of them get the contract and pull out the rug from under D.C. workers. Right now, one of our projects is holding Clark Construction accountable for their development of the new Homeland Security building in the old Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Ward 8. Each project and contract is different, but there are terms that discuss the percentage of local workers to be employed. A lot of times, though, these contractors sub the work out to people in Maryland or Virginia instead of hiring directly from here. In the past, part of the reason was that some companies hired undocumented workers and brought them to construction sites. Look, if the contract said hire D.C. residents, hire D.C. residents. There are plenty of folks here who want to work; they just need an opportunity to do so. As a community, we need to stand together on this."

Learn more about SMART DC, including their work to bring more jobs to D.C. residents, here.

Michael on Growing Up

"I was born in Hawaii. I came to D.C. when I was three. I am Hawaiian, Egyptian and white. D.C. is a great place, but a bad place to grow up. I would not recommend it. There is too much gang activity and all that jazz. If you grew up somewhere else, I would suggest moving here. I wouldn't raise children here though. I have younger siblings, but they live in Gaithersburg. My parents and siblings couldn't deal with living here, so they moved. I decided to stay because D.C. is pretty much all I know.

"There was this one time when I was minding my own business and walking up 14th Street and got chased by at least twenty people just because I look like I look. People thought I was in the 18th Street gang. They beat my ass pretty bad. Some of the gangs are territorial. You can't walk in certain neighborhoods if you don't belong to that gang. Most gangs are just people who have known each other for a while and they just established a group. Around Columbia Heights, there are so many gangs. There is MS-13, 18th Street, and a bunch of other groups, most just form to go up against MS-13. I learned all of this on the street. You have to.

"For me, this gang stuff has been going on since middle school. I don't fight because I want to, but because I have to. I try to talk my way out of things before I fight when I can. If you don't mind defending yourself once every month or so, D.C. is a great place to live."

D.C. is home to over 130 gangs. The District has an estimated 2,500 active gang members and 5,000 others who are “loosely affiliated.” Read more about them here.

Ann on Being a Korean Export

"I came to Washington, D.C. in 1969 from Korea. A U.S. Army soldier married me and brought me here. See, I'm a Korean export! I always tell people that I must have been very beautiful, that's how I left. When I was little, I thought America was a paradise because Americans gave us chocolate and blankets after the war. But there was no way for me to visit America because I was not rich. So, my girlfriend and I decided to date American guys.

"When I met my husband, I spoke very little English and he didn't speak Korean. We just used our hands and said, 'Hi' and other little words. My husband is over six feet and I am under five feet. I said, 'I can't marry you. You are too tall!' I wanted to go to America, but I thought that too much of a height gap was not right. He told me that height didn't mean nothing. My husband is from Washington, D.C. After we married, we moved here.

"I thought America was a paradise when I was in Korea, but it was a big mistake. Koreans are short and tall, poor and rich. In America, you have extra ones. Here, you have color and race problems, too. I said to myself, 'What am I doing here?' I cried for five or ten years. I told my husband, 'There are so many women here. Why did you have to bring me here!?' I missed my food, my language and culture. Back then, there were not that many Koreans here. But now I have adapted and this is my country. I also took on an American name, Ann. Ann was the name of a character from the comics who I liked. People would always mispronounce my Korean name, Sok, and call me 'Sock.' So, I decided to go by Ann.

"In America, my first jobs were working with hair. In Korea, everyone cleans their hair and wants to make it nice. Here, it was totally different. Doing hair was more like doing laundry! One of my friends told me to go and work in a Korean wig shop. In Korea, wigs were used to help people who were old or losing their hair. I think wigs as fashion was really an American thing. Korean people eat a lot of garlic and that is why their hair grows so long and clean. For a long time, Koreans sold their hair to Americans to make wigs. About ten years ago, there was a hair shortage in Korea and places like India and China started selling hair.

"A few years after working at the shop, I opened my own store. At first, we did hair and sold wigs and beauty supplies. Five years later, I started selling homeopathic products because I was using them. They really helped me and I thought I could help my customers by selling them. Now, I have been in this location since September 4, 1995. This wig store paid for my three children to go to college."

Ann's Beauty Supply and Wigs Co. is located at 125 L St. Southeast.

Daniel on Sleeping at the End of the Day

"I came to D.C. in 1996 because of the political situation. I was a member of the Ethiopian Constitutional Assembly. I was active in the Parliament and became a victim of the current government. They threw me in jail. After I was released, I managed to come to this country as a political asylum case. Now, I have all of my family here. I personally believe that Washington is the capital city of the world just like Addis Ababa is the capital city of Africa. 

"Before I came here, my expectation of America was different. I thought things were no hassle and everything was easy. My first shock was seeing the homeless and those struggling to survive. But the longer I stayed, I became familiar with things here. Now if you ask me, I like the system here and the work culture. Many newcomers from Ethiopia have trouble settling in and experience depression, suicide, or end up on the streets. We have very strong family values in Ethiopia. We live with family and friends. When you came here, you miss your family, your neighbor, and your country. 

"I had the idea to open the Ethiopia Community Services and Development Council when I moved here. In 1996, there was a lot of snow and I heard that two Ethiopians died because of the weather. When these two Ethiopians died, it was not a big issue. The next year, a Hispanic guy died in a similar situation and it was a big issue. The newspapers wrote about it and the city opened a shelter after his death. I said, 'This happened because we are not organized. Our voice is not heard by city officials.' Those experiences paved the way to start this center. After I graduated from university, I gathered known people in the community to develop a strong organization to provide our community with what we need. 

"Now, we offer a variety of services for the community. We have a training center that offers pharmacy technician courses, computer training, dental assistant program training, and English as a second language. We also help people find jobs, do counseling, help with immigration issues and offer free health services. Once a month, we have a program about how to live in this country, things like what you can and can’t do. Let me give you one example. There was a guy who was shot by the Virginia police years ago. In Ethiopia, when the police tell you stop, you can either stop or run. Many times, you can outrun the police and they leave you alone. Here, when the police ask you to stop, you should stop whether you do wrong or right. This person did not have the same information. He didn’t stop for the police and tried to outrun them. The police eventually shot him. They thought he had drugs or something, but he was innocent. As a community, we teach people about their rights and the rules and regulations to live in this country. 

"This job helps me to understand people. Here, I meet different people. People who are not rich or successful, but people with situations. Some people come here with a one year old baby and no place to go, no family, and thinking about kill themselves. When they come here, I talk to them and change their mind. I show them a better future than what they see at that moment. Helping people gives me great pleasure. I sleep at the end of the day, nice good sleep."

The Ethiopia Community Services and Development Council is located at 1901 9th Street Northwest. 

Jim on Doing Something about it

"I grew up in Saint Louis. I came to D.C. for the first time in 2004 as an intern. Then, I moved back to Saint Louis and applied for the Peace Corps. I went to Africa with the Peace Corps and came back to D.C. in November 2007. I was living in Brookland and then moved to Shaw in May 2008.

"Before the snow, I hadn't met any of my neighbors, except for the people above us. Through the snow storm, I have met most of the people on the block. I am from the Mid-West and we know that when it starts to snow, it is best to shovel every few hours. I have probably dug the same stretch three or four times during the first day or two. I knew it wouldn't be dug out because I knew the businesses on our street don't typically dig out their walkways and it would be around for a while. There are a lot of older people in this neighborhood and personally, I wanted to be able to get to the Metro, so I did it. People thanked me. I really confused a lot of the homeless people in the area. They were carrying around shovels and digging people out for money. They couldn't figure out why I was digging out someone else's property and not getting paid. I had a lot of long conversations with them. I don't know if they thought I was stealing their business, but it was clear that these walkways were going to stay covered unless someone did something.

"I went through about 400 lbs of salt during the storms. I have about 40 lbs left and I am just getting the corners. A lot of people walk through here and there is a lot of vacant property. They dig things out eventually, but not fast enough for I don't know what the laws are for digging out your property, but if you have a sidewalk in front of your property, you should be digging it out. Rather than just be angry about it, it is better to just go out and do something about it. I like being active. It is probably part of the volunteer spirit and finding something to do when you are home and stir crazy from all of the snow."