A new way

Barack Obama is president. I watched the inauguration alongside my host family yesterday. The day brought with it an extra hint of specialness as we celebrated my host dad's birthday too. We watched this long and drawn out "live" event on CNN as though something magical would appear, beers in hand, a big pot of food boiling, neighbors coming in and out. True, it's "history in the making"...but I felt as though we were waiting for something big, something huge, and instead we got a 4 hour glimpse into the formal wishwash of DC politics as this former president waved and smiled and that Senator spoke. Anyway, that's okay. Its the actual event, the beginning of America's first black president that is the exciting thing. And it was amazing to see the joy and excitement of all the people there, witnessing the change happening before their eyes (even if for me, here, it was anticlimatic). I loved Aretha's little rendition.

Keyvanel and Stanilus were waiting for me outside my door as usual and when I asked them if they knew why today was so important, they both shrugged. When I explained that it was a very important day in history because we have our first black American president Barack Obama, they nodded and said "oh yeah, oh yeah...Obama". Well, they recognized the name at least. We played clips of the inauguration from my computer and they both looked at me and said "but he's not black." I told them that his father was a black man from Kenya and his mother a white American. "oooh, well he's kind of black, I guess" was their response. We were looking at a picture of Obama and Bush hugging and when I told them that this was the former president Bush, Keyvanel laughed and said "what, does he live in the bush?" They always have a silly way of turning things upside down like that; it's fun.

Anyway, Dominicans are thrilled about this knew change in America. You see Obama t-shirts and hats and pins and a general excited talk around the matter. But it doesn't seem they feel it will make a difference in their own lives...

For me, I'm hopeful. The politic discourse is opening up and shifting. Outdated modes of thinking are being challenged. A realization that we cannot continue down the same path is emerging. What will come of all this hope, of all this talk, of all this enthusiasm is not yet known, but I believe change is there. And as a note on my fridge says... "any paradigm shift in thought or action is a revolution"...so let the revolution begin.