“World Peace Doesn’t Telecommute!”

This is what I told my staff a week ago on Thursday when Washington media and general population was in hysteria over the Friday arrival of the (first) blizzard of 2010. While parts of the DC region closed down in anticipation of snowflakes, Sister Cities International staff made their way into work and continued to press on. As a native Washingtonian, I was nonplussed by the forecast. No offense to the resident meteorologists, but this is town is notoriously tricky to forecast snow storms. Although, Nor’easters do tend to get the best of us – like this past week.

Little did I know that was the last time I was going to see my staff for a whole week. After 30”+ inches of snow (and a 2nd blizzard – aptly named Snozilla), we re-opened our office (along with the rest of the Washington, DC establishment and federal government) this past Friday to complete gridlock, few sidewalks, and snow islands that were randomly deposited in the middle of major thoroughfares in and around the region.

So…world peace may not telecommute, but apparently world peace does have issues with snow management. I can proudly report that the Sister Cities International staff continued their work (electronically) throughout the week. But, I could not help myself in the midst of this extreme weather event to spread the good word of our mission, in my front yard.

This got me thinking of other deep freeze exchanges. People in (regularly) snowy places press on with our work every year despite the weather! How about Barrow, Alaska - the most northern sister city community in our membership? Today’s forecast: -3 degrees and blowing snow (yea, the temperature was negative three without the wind chill!). Barrow has two sister city relationships: Inuvik, Canada and Ushuaia, Argentina.

Then there’s the famed Aspen, Colorado. They have a number of hilly sister cities that happen to be ski resorts, such as Chamonix, France; Davos, Switzerland; and, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; among their six sister cities. Their snowiest exchanges include medical and life saving training for patrols as well exchanges that focus on mitigating environmental impact of ski resorts.

I know there are other examples – feel free to share them with me. Maybe there’s an exchange or two that weren’t meant to be snow adventures but turned into one. Send me an email and I’ll pass them along in our blog.