Inauguration Day

I'm constantly amazed at how closely my Albanian colleagues, students, and friends have followed the election process. It seems like ages ago that I was giving endless (and confusing) explanations about the electoral college to my students and watched as their faces fell when I explained in primary after primary that there still wasn't a winner. As a people, they were early supporters of Clinton because of Bill Clinton's actions during the Kosovo conflict.

Another great moment was in my extracurricular activity - Club America. I split the kids into two sections and gave them summaries of each party and asked them to design their own political poster. It cracked me up how quickly both groups began designing smear campaigns. I quickly stopped this and declared they could only put positive statements on the posters. By the end of the evening, they could actually summarize each political party. It was great.

But the most memorable event was the morning after the election. I arrived at school (like always) and was greeted with a standing ovation, numerous double cheek air kisses, and cries of Gezuar (Cheers, in Albanian) It was a really touching moment. To top it all off, my counterpart came up to me and told me that she never thought she would see an American president who was not only African American, but the son of an immigrant. She followed it up by saying, "Americans have taught me today that democracy can work."

So to all of you out there, from my Albanian friends
Gezuar