All Eyes on One Man

As everyone in the entire world knows, last Tuesday, Obama became president of the United States. I have to tell you it was very interesting being in Africa, and specifically Rwanda during this week. Most of my students made some sort of comment to me about Obama, all my fellow teachers asked if I would be watching on TV, and on the actual day many strangers on the street made comments to me.
For the inauguration I went to the US Embassy in Kigali to watch it on CNN. This was a very well attended event. Evidentally you had to be on a list to get in, and of course we were not aware of this, but we somehow managed to get in anyway. On the lawn of the embassy they had tents set up that had TV monitors on CNN, and in one conference room they had a huge screen up with CNN on.
Now first I was excited to see the inaugration, but of course I was also excited to get the free food, and let me tell you, your tax payer dollars are going to good use feeding us over here :).
Aside from the food it was also very nice that they provided drinks, not only soda and beer, but also wine, which my fellow volunteer and I were very excited to have.
So for the inauguration literally we were all crowded around the TVs watching in practically absolute silence; it really was amazing.
The whole event was almost ruined beause after the swearing-in portion the power went out to the entire embassy. You can only imagine how we all felt because we all wanted to hear his speech. But in times like that the only thing one can do is wait and get another drink.
Luckily in a fairly short amount of time the power was restored and we were able to watch the middle/end of President Obama's speech.

The crowd stayed pretty silent for most of the other addresses, but there was an increase in noise when the poet was reading her poem.... anyone else realize that poems delivered in that cadence is the reason why poetry does not have a more important role in American society at the moment??

Overall I am very happy that I was able to get together with a group of Americans and experience it.
A few fun things to note about the night.
1) there was a delay of the feed between the conference room screen and the TVs outside, so it was amusing to hear the reactions of the people inside a few seconds before our reactions.
2) Had a great convo at the buffet line. A guy said is it bad that I am almost more excited about the food then watching the inauguration?.. we informed him that since we are volunteers any free food is always exciting... it should be noted that because of that exchange the 5 of us got invited to a party..haha
3) Almost exactly after Pres. Obama's speech has concluded the embassy had printouts of the new government, aka the key players. And they had it in English, French, an Kinyarwanda.. we were all like wow right off the press..
4) At promptly 8.30 we were all thanked for coming..aka time for us all to leave.haha

So as much as I might have missed being in the US for such an occasion, it was very neat to be in a foreign country.
As my final note I want to say it is truly amazing how the entire world was watching and how at least here in Rwanda many people feel a kinship to him because he is part African, so I can only imagine what it was like in other African countries.