A HOT and steamy mid-afternoon in the US capital during a record-breaking heatwave is an experience to behold. The mercury was nearing 100°F and humidity levels were even higher. The sun was blazing down. 

You could barely breathe in the heat. To decide to walk was to invite sweat so prodigious it looked as if someone had thrown a bucket of water over you. 

Around us were containers. Unprepossessing shipping containers that made up a public forum called The Bullpen in a recently regenerated area called Navy Yard. It wasn’t the most welcoming name for a meeting of like minds. Of people from a myriad of different creeds and colours and backgrounds and races and languages.