Jan. 20, 2009 was probably one of the most amazing and dramatic days I’ll ever experience but I can safely say I’m never ever doing it again, unless of course I become a celebrity of some sort by the time the next inaugural rolls around so I can be dropped off in a limo just in time for the ceremony with make-up intact, hair in place, sporting high-heeled suede boots and a beautifully cut wool. As it was, being a non-celeb hoping to get a spot at The Mall this time around, I attended the inauguration the “People’s Way”—aware that I’d be out in the cold for more than eight hours—hence no fancy togs, just a borrowed muu-muu-like shearling coat, a bright red woolen beanie, and formerly-black $40 imitation Uggs that are now permanently gray from the dust kicked up by two million pairs of shuffling feet.
Getting There
I had started out for Washington, D.C., from Syracuse, NY, at 4 p.m. Jan. 19 while the rest of the country was wrapping up a day of community service in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. My late start got me into the heart of Pennsylvania well past nightfall, which meant sharing the winding mountain roads beyond Scranton with mad 18-wheelers wheezing scarily past my little rental car. With no NPR available, my choice for talk radio was either a sports station or Jim Dobson’s Focus on the Family. I picked the latter out of curiosity, and with morbid fascination spent an hour listening to pro-lifers going on and on about the evils of an Obama presidency, chiefly, his singular baby-killing agenda both here in America and all over the world. Deciding no one would rain on my parade, I tuned out their tunnel-vision rhetoric and settled on high school football replays.
I got to Laurel, MD, at 11:30 p.m. to find my host, my good friend Maureen Sieh’s cousin Nini Porte, already in bed in preparation for a 2 a.m. wake-up call. At 2 a.m. sharp the alarms went off, soon followed by a knock on my door by one of Maureen’s visiting cousins, Patricia Porte of Minneapolis, MN, whom I’d never met before. “You up yet?” she said urgently with the familiar ease I often encounter among my people that immediately makes one feel welcome. “C’mon now girl, let’s go do this thing!” I washed and dressed and found her warming me some food since I’d missed dinner, while re-checking the contents of a backpack she’d packed the night before with fresh fruit, carrots, lunch meat, and water bottles. She even had extra packets of hand and feet warmers, a blanket, a deck of cards, and best of all, an amazing perky spirit at that frigid ungodly hour.
By 3:30 a.m. we were on our way, parking Nini’s car illegally once we neared the Geenbelt Metro Station and saw the mile-long line of cars inching its way toward the station. We opted to walk that last mile, huddling into our collars like sleeping chickens to keep the heat in. The metro station felt like a football arena jam packed with excited Obama fans about to get on board the Obama Express. The hectic nature of the day soon became clear once the crowds started pressing into too-full trains as they rolled past suburban stops. One train ahead of us actually had to un-board frenzied supporters after people standing too close to the doors leaned into them and forced the train to a halt.
The Frostbite Hours
Once in the capitol, we walked through a crowded Union Station with people standing, sitting, and even curled up in sleeping bags, then began what ended up being a two-hour hike up and down the capitol as police sent us in all the wrong directions and like fools we just kept walking up and down and all over the place, into tunnels, over frozen landscaping, and eventually ending up where we started.
Nonetheless, we finally got into the mall, and excitement perked up again as bright eyed young volunteers shouted “Good Morning!” to the masses marching in as though we’d arrived at a breakfast banquet. Carried away by the enthusiasm in the air, we rushed to the forefront of our section, laughing and joking and stamping feet in the teeny spaces our shoulders or hips created to keep the blood flowing, little knowing we’d be squished together in that fashion like shivering sardines for several hours. We stood thus for a good two hours only because someone started a rumor the National Guard would open the gates and let us into the area in front of us, closer to the action, and seemingly less crowded. (What a lie!) In the meantime, a few people got so cold they had to be rescued but hardly anyone complained, except to beg the National Guard troops facing us to let us get into the section that looked so spacious and inviting in front of us. I was more giddy than cold, busy soaking in the happiness of the people around me: their joy, their anticipation, their bravery in such alien climates. Among us were little old women with walking sticks and big burly old men with gruff voices and scratchy beards from far-off southern states with grandchildren in tow, all standing in the cold for hours with smiles on their dark faces and twinkles in their eyes.
Sneaking Past the National Guard
But eventually the crush got too much for us, so after much debate we opted to get to the back of our section for some breathing room. The ever vigilant soldiers in their dusty-hued camouflage cracked open an exit so we could get out and be escorted to the back. Just then, a woman with a medical emergency caused a delay in our exit, and in the ensuing confusion, some of Maureen’s cousins just waltzed past the soldiers, crossed the street and didn’t look back as they calmly headed for the section we’d been coveting all morning. (The soldiers had explained that the section had been closed off hours earlier to allow for safe evacuation if need be, in fact, many of the people in that area had camped there all night.) Thinking they were lost, I called out for Nini, and since she barely glanced back, thought, “Oh, she can’t hear me,” so I ran across the street to get her. But when I got to them, one of the guys said, “hush, walk!” In disbelief, I turned back to see the soldier now shouting after us, calling Nini’s name. At that moment the last cousin standing with the soldier decided she was better off with us and she ditched him too! I thought we were done for. “Did we just cross the street?” I kept asking no one in particular, but the little rugged band of nonchalant rebels just walked on. We were laughing so hard as I looked shiftily around for the soldiers to pounce. It didn’t help that at that moment we noticed snipers perched on rooftops of government buildings bordering The Mall, but oh well, there we were, in the Promised Land.
Once in that forbidden section, we felt renewed again. Despite a mean wind, the sun’s cheery rise had helped matters considerably. Plus we could breathe fresh air as opposed to other people’s frosty exhalations and peculiar smells, move about more freely without bumping bums into crotches (unpleasant, really), as well as get hot chocolate and coffee for $2 a plastic cup and an hour-long queue (really, the promised land). At around 10 a.m. event planners put on a replay of Sunday’s concert on all the Jumbotrons, which got spirits up as people jumped up and down in synch with Garth Brooks’ rendition of “Shout” which I daresay was the favorite, followed by Will.i.am’s Bob Marley “One Love” number.
The concert replay got us thru’ the chill till the hype begun with the arrival of the rich, powerful and famous at about 11 a.m. Celebrities, legislators, the sweet Obama girls, the gorgeous Michelle in her sparkling cheerful yellow dress, smiling gracious Jill Biden wit her, and finally the arrival of the ex-vice presidents, ex-presidents, and the man of the hour, Obama himself, looking dapper and cool, took the focus away from our frozen aching limbs.
The Ceremony and Speech
I loved every minute of the ceremony, from the Rick Warren invocation (see: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jXNqyw4oiojN9JQHtitxwyEqJGhgD95R5DG80) with all the names of Jesus in all the languages of our great faiths, to Aretha’s out-of-this-world voice and her outrageously cool hat, to the tingly swearing-in moments when first Joe Biden then Barack Obama took the oath of office. People had screamed themselves hoarse by this point, but somehow we all found that last ounce of shrillness to pierce the air when it mattered. I was caught up in the moment though slightly distracted by a near-fight caused by a belligerent photographer who stood on an up-turned rubbish bin and refused to get down, to the consternation of citizens who had traveled miles to witness this moment. One of Maureen’s Minnesota cousins was ready to punch the self-important fool out, freaking me out as I imagined spending this special day in a D.C. jail cell. Luckily I managed to tune out the heated scene and didn’t miss out on the history unfolding before me, including Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robert’s funny fumble as he delivered the oath of office.
The supercharged crowd settled down somewhat to hear the first speech from the 44th President of the United States of America. If we were perhaps collectively hoping to receive yet one more inspiring “sermon” from the man whose ambitions and dreams had become our own, we weren’t disappointed: the speech was poignant, poetic, relevant and assuring. The more President Obama talked, with his deep, carefully-measured tones, the more it hit me that we were standing on the threshold of history. I’m convinced that 40 years from now people will be talking about his inauguration like they do the March on Washington with Dr. ML King Jr.
For me, the giddy thought kept spinning in my head: Who knew? That a black man born of an African father who would have been denied service at some lunch counters a mere 40 years ago would one day be standing on the steps of the slave-built Capitol taking the oath of office for the nation’s highest post? Subsequently, my heart rejoiced when he talked of America’s “patchwork heritage” as a “strength, not a weakness”. There was so much to like about his entire speech. It felt at many times like balm on a sore wound, and I fought the urge to close my eyes and sway to his pitch. When he talked directly to all the people of the world and their governments, and said “America is a friend of each one nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity” I had to blink back tears. I wished fervently that every single leader in the world was listening—all those nations like my native Kenya where people’s rights are a joke and economic viability and sometimes survival depends on who you know and what tribe you belong to.
I have to admit that two little bits of the speech sat a bit uncomfortable with me: the “we remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on earth” line and later, the “we will not apologize for our way of life”. Maybe the lines are true in some cases, but measured against what? Education? Poverty? Unemployment? Technology? Population? Integration? Human Rights? Economics? Equality? I fear that this sense of superiority is what so often has led this great nation astray, for if one already sees themselves as top gun, what’s the point of pursuing perfection then? And how can we as humans say we cannot apologize for “our way of life” when we know for sure sometimes that way has made things worse for so many… depleting natural resources because of over-consumerism for example? (For full text see: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/20/obama.politics/index.html)
Too soon it was all over, considering we’d been on our feet since almost 4 a.m. waiting for a ceremony that would last less than an hour. But I can sincerely say it was worth it: a lovely, inspiring powerful ceremony, topped off with a poem titled “Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander (see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-poem.html?ref=books) and a sweet and almost sad benediction by gravelly-voiced civil rights activist and global citizen Rev. Joseph Lowery. (See:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h4SrWpZNd-yocKSO7_9FO51iLJowD95R4RTG0
I’d been dying to hear both Alexander’s and Lowery’s words, but as soon as Obama stepped off the dais I knew I’d have to google them later as my party had lost their patience and wanted out.
Getting Out (and about)
Overall, I am still very glad I braved the long drive, the lack of sleep, the bone chilling cold, the walking, the standing for hours, and worst of all, exiting the capitol. That was the worst crowd control I’ve ever seen. Just imagine the morning’s crush, which had been semi-controlled as people came from different gates, different times, etc., to now having more than 1.5 million of us heading towards the same metro stations, at the same time. It was a miracle there wasn’t a stampede, as the entire shuffling crowd moved as one in tiny little penguin-like steps for over an hour. I was still cheerful, but I couldn’t quite shake off the panicky fear of an emergency that would surely result in a deadly stampede. (Read fire, al Qaeda, a fight, a hard-core Tim McVeigh like Obama hater, etc). But, we did finally get out, safely, though not without seeing some tempers flare as people’s patience wore thin. And 12 long cold hours after we left Greenbelt Metro station, we finally got back to Nini’s place, popped open two bottles of sparkling wine, reheated some wonderful jerk chicken and black beans and rice, and zonked down in front of the telly for hours till it was time to get ready for the night out. Only Maureen and I went, the rest were almost comatose: the combination of the long trek, 12 hours on foot in the biting cold, followed by a good meal in a warm house, had taken its toll.
We attended the unofficial Kenyan ball in some suburban town, arriving two hours behind our schedule and four hours after it started (really bad right? We even missed the Kenyan Boys Choir though Maureen interviewed one of the young kids later). There was a young refreshing Kenyan poet (Caroline Nderitu) whose dream of a lush and peaceful Kenya went largely unheard as the crowd just talked through her spoken-word act. She took it all very well, saying the excitement combined with wine over the long dinner got the better of the audience. The music was great, featuring Tony Nyandudo’s band from Obama’s father’s Luo tribe that had produced an album dedicated to Obama got the crowd up on their feet the rest of the night. A Ugandan Christian entertainer closed out the night with an amazing afro-pop repertoire and his ability to use the Luo language as well as Swahili as he performed. I had my LOL moments too when I was re-introduced to the shadier side of Kenyan one-liners that night: “You know, next time you come to Washington, you don’t have to get a hotel, I have a place, you can stay. I just have a white wife.” (?!), or “Wee ni Dem wa nani?” (Whose Dame are you?), or “Hello. I’m Peter and I know for a fact you and I are going to have one dance before the end of the night. I’ll come for you.” Right. Overall, the “ball” was okay but either because of the fatigue or because we didn’t know anyone except one of the organizers, it wasn’t as much fun as I’d hoped. I also get tired at Kenyan functions where I almost have to pull out my passport to prove my belonging: “Are you I sure you’re not a refugee from Sudan?” People actually say things like that to me, as if people my shade of black have no place in Kenya. (Yes, you can say it with me: shame on Kenyans and their colonized brains, and thank God Obama is American LOL.)
At 2:30 a.m. we finally were home, bone tired, voices reduced to rasps, heads spinning, wondering how the Obamas and Bidens and their entourages could have gone to so many pre-inaugural parties, events, train rides, church services, and still made it thru Jan. 20, 2009 looking fresh, beautiful, and inspiring from morning till way past midnight. These are the new über people, and they are our leaders. Welcome to a brave new world.
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