Opiyo Oloya
21 January 2009
guest blog
Washington is ready to receive the new Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama. Everywhere you turn, in small shops, along the streets, on street lamps, even on sewer grates, there are signs welcoming Obama to town.
American flags adorn trees and lampposts and fences. Excitement is palpable; people are friendly, exchanging greetings with complete strangers. They have come by bus, by air, by water and on foot, and they are here to witness history.
Obama memorabilia are everywhere ranging from bobbing Obama heads, Obama champagne, Obama hot sauce, Obama pillows, Obama pens, Obama calendars, Obama chairs, even Obama pyjamas. There is Obama mania everywhere you turn. Whatever has Obama on it is for sale. A man joked that Obama will single-handedly pull America out of the recession just because of the brisk sales of things associated with his name. Everyone is making a buck off Obama’s name.
Sunday evening along the Pennsylvania Avenue was busier than normal. Hordes of visitors were busy walking up and down, taking pictures of Capitol Hill, the Washington Monument, the Treasury, Jefferson Memorial, and of course, the White House which is under a much tighter security. Still, the Secret Service guarding Obama’s new house, are very friendly, exchanging high-fives with little children, even posing for pictures with anyone who asked.
While there are all races coming to the inauguration, blacks appeared to have taken this to heart with many pouring into DC every few minutes. There are tour buses from Florida, Tennessee, Buffalo, New York, Wyoming, and all over the place. Blacks are very excited, seeming to discover America for the first time, seeming to see the White House as their own for the first time, seeming to find a new voice to speak with pride for the first time, seeming to want to show black pride at every opportunity for the first time. America will celebrate Obama as the first African American to become president of the USA. But many blacks it seems will celebrate Obama as the beginning of the end of always feeling as second class citizens.
We touched down in Baltimore at 2:30 p.m., and walked into a buzzing airport as passengers disembarked from all over America. We took a rental for the forty minutes drive to our hotel. I programmed the NeverLost GPS system to take show us the route to the Residence Inn Marriott at Pentagon City. I imagined the hotel was somewhere in Virginia, but was using the name Pentagon as a form of business advertisement.
Little did I know that the hotel is literally across the street from the Pentagon. The GPS system was on target until we got near downtown DC, and then things got out of hand. Every road we turned into was closed by police. There are literally hundreds of police cars at every corner. The US National Guard is also very much around town. We attempted to find alternative routes but got lost, tried again and got lost.
Thanks to technology, the NeverLost kept returning us on track until we finally drove straight to the front gates of the Pentagon. Trembling with fear of being told that we had encroached on America’s national security, we stopped and motioned to one of the heavily armed SWAT officer standing near the gate. He walked over and when we confessed to being hopelessly lost on our way to the Residence Inn Marriott, he laughed heartily and told us that we had arrived. The hotel, he pointed out, was just a scant 50 meters ahead. He sure was friendly and we sighed with relief.
After dinner at the Café Italia in Crystal City, we took a taxi driven by Sammy from Eritrea—Sammy was very friendly—to Capitol Hill where preparation is in full swing for Tuesday’s inauguration. Most of the streets are now closed off, and although we could still walk around rather freely, the atmosphere is quickly taking on the feel of an emergency. Indeed, President Bush declared a state of emergency for the District of Columbia has been on Tuesday, allowing for the deployment of the US National Guard for the inauguration and for additional federal monies to be given to the city.
Washington is about to become even busier as Tuesday approaches.
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