October 5th and 6th 2008–Bible Way Ministries Mobilizes the Vote and I Head to Guatemala City
Technically it’s now October 6th and I’m writing retroactively from Guatemala because I have been on the move since 11:30am yesterday, including pulling an all-nighter reminiscent of college days last night as I scrambled to pull myself together to head to the Americas Social Forum in Guatemala City.
So, rewinding a bit, yesterday morning I started off at 8:30am at the Bible Way Ministries Church! At Bible Way, an African American church in South East Atlanta, a family (not so coincidentally named Patterson) with the encouragement and support of political firebrand Pastor Monte Norwood, set up a table and conducted voter registration outreach with congregants. Their approach was simple. A table, a bowl of candy, and a stack of registration forms. As congregants passed the table, Jack (my brother) or Tara Patterson (my sister-in-law) asked if they were registered and offered the opportunity for them to register at the table.
While I was there a young woman, who had just turned 18, took advantage of the table to register as a new voter. Another woman was a newly established Georgia resident who had just moved from South Carolina. So she took advantage of the conveniently located Patterson Voter Registration table to register as well.
We just encouraged all others who passed to be sure to vote. Many stated that they had already taken advantage of Georgia’s Early Voting!
Other women came by the table and provided their viewpoints on civic participation and the importance of all voices and votes being counted. Check out their comments in the “Views from the Campaign Trail” section.
N.B. Word to the wise, do not set up your table under a beehive. My sister-in-law was stung by a bee L in the midst of her noble efforts (fortunately it was only slight as it didn’t fully get to embed itself before she felt the sensation and brushed it off.) I spared you all some rather comically wild footage of me holding the video camera while being chased by a bee all around the table! (I have a bit of a bee phobia).
At 11:30am, I embarked on my journey home. Since all will tell you I’m the slowest driver they know, I didn’t arrive home until 1am. I was met by the intrepid Alecia McGregor who very graciously made the trek from Washington DC to Burtonsville MD in a rented Zip Car, no less, at 1:30am. We finished up all of our final details discussion before our respective journeys and I passed off a bag of “I’m a Woman of Color and I VOTE” buttons and stickers and then saw Alecia off at 2am. After packing, organizing stuff, and catching a 45 minute nap, I left for the airport at 4am bound for the America’s Social Forum.
Remember how I lost my debit card on Thursday? Well, when I went to buy a salad in the Atlanta airport (ironically after driving for 13.5 hours from Atlanta the night before, my flight to Guatemala was routed through Atlanta) the one and only credit card I had with me was declined! Since the salad was already made at this point I gave up my $7 and the change I had at the bottom of my purse to make this purchase. Since my flight was leaving moments later I fled for the flight and boarded the plane with the frightening knowledge of being penniless (not that the $7 would have gotten me very far) and now also without a lick of credit. All I could think was, ‘What if my pick-up isn’t there at the airport?”, as happens SO often with international travel! Long story short, the pick up wasn’t there, but fortunately some of my fellow delegation members were there. So I rode to the hotel with them.
Later, here in Guatemala via Skype I called my visa company and found out that because of the uncharacteristic surge in activity on my credit card (due to my total reliance on the visa after the loss of my debit card) they had frozen it! I got it unfrozen and even got a pin number so that I can withdraw cash. So all is well now and I should be fine until I can get back home and get my debit card. J
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