OFFICIALLY DAY 1 (crazy ik, we’re in natural numbers now)

Wow, the past days have been crazy! I was so busy making it through them that this blog has been delayed… for 4 days. Sorry about that! But let’s get into it!

I am honoured to declare that as of this day, the Spokes 2025 trip has OFFICIALLY STARTED!

Yesterday all eight of us Spokies convened in Washington DC. And after a long night of preparation and not enough sleep, we woke up at around 5:30am convincing ourselves to conquer our first day. On the agenda was a learning festival in the Department of Corrections Correctional Treatment Facility (I’ll just say DOC) and Youth Services Center (YSC). For the morning part, we split up – me (Ramona) and Greta went to DOC to later join the rest of the group at YSC. At DOC we met up with Judge Faruqui, Ms Reason, Fiona and Brie and headed in.

We were greeted by Judge Faruqui and Fiona and Brie, before meeting Ms. Reason, who came to let us in the facility. To enter you go through something similar to airport security, except no electronics for us and some additional metal doors. Luckily all of our learning festival supplies made it through! Greta was teaching a workshop on phases on matter and I did one on cryptography. (We should each write about our lessons in detail in these blogs at some point! Would you like to hear more about that?)

After securing our way in, Ms. Reason took us through a series of locked doors. At that point, I started to realize that I was in a real jail and question what was I even doing here. I mean I knew what I was doing, but the lack of sleep and actually being in there felt surreal. It was clearly a high security place, with one goal – to keep people from leaving.

But turns out there is more to it. We got to visit a unit that stands out. The YME unit, YME standing for Young Men Emerging, is all about learning, improving and working on yourself while incarcerated. We got to hear about their routine, packed from waking up to going to sleep and how the program has impacted them. I can say they were determined, insightful, brave and humble. A tight knit community with the common goal of improving themselves. I was incredibly grateful to be able to hear from the young men in the YME unit.

Afterwards we set out to do our learning festivals. I set up a table for my intro to cryptography through the Ceasar cypher activity. It was super cool to see the students engage with what I had prepared. There weren’t many students, so we could do a lot of questions and answers, and, in addition to encrypting and decrypting practice, we also did sending encrypted messages to each other!

Afterwards we headed to YSC, went through security, took a lunch break (with pizza!) and ran all five of our activities on rotation for 3 more class periods. It was a rollercoaster, some students were super engaged, others were tired and the teaching was not without its difficulties, but we made it through!

This would probably be the place to give a huge thank you to Judge Faruqui and everyone at DOC Correctional Facility and Youth Services Center that helped make this happen!

Around 3:30pm we were ready to head out. Next up on the agenda were a bunch of errands. But, first, we took a snack/drink break at Union Market. Nicely AC-ed area of cafes, food and a water fountain.

Then 7 of us in our 7-seater took in some DC vibes and sights as Joseph skillfully weaved through narrow lanes of terrible DC traffic. We went to the car rental company to get some formalities done and to avoid crazy expensive parking, pulled up in an alleyway. I got left to guard the car. Now, you would think nothing much happens in an alleyway in 45 minutes or so, but 3 people came to park or unpark their cars and 2 people wanted to pass through. So I, who had never driven an automatic car, was left to maneuver around our Crysler Pacifica, equipped with a bike rack for added difficulty. I survived. The car survived. The alley also survived. I felt ready to take on the world.

Then, a brief venture to get propane and gas later, we finally got back and it was already late. Tian cooked a lovely dinner of pasta for dinner in our Airbnb (thanks Lawlers!) that just hit the spot. And I spent a long evening of trying to make my brain work, packing and setting up our bikes. At this point I was starting to wonder when the next day of reasonable number of hours slept will be. But we made it through! So, excited, tired and a little scared, we went to sleep to set out on our bikes the next day..

Editor’s note: I cannot believe I actually finally wrote this! Hope you enjoy 😀