Day 7: God Bless Benin

I read through some of the previous blog posts and I must apologize because there are a lot of grammatical and spelling mistakes. The long days are taking a toll on all of us. By the end of the day I start going delusional from lack of sleep. Most mornings we left the apartment by 6:30am and would sit through seminars until 12:30pm and end with site visits till 7 or 8pm. Then back to the apartment to read and do our homework.

Today was the last day of our morning seminars and technically the last formal day of the program. As the days went by, it was apparent that there were more and more empty seats. Everyone was just physically and mentally drained.

This morning our special guest was Sam Donaldson of ABC News, followed by a panel of former congressmen. I won’t go into the details of the talks, but they have all revolved around the media’s role in campaigning and the Presidency as well as discussion of Obama’s policies as he transitions into the White House.

After our seminars let out, we filled out evaluation forms and met up with our small groups for our site visit. Today we visited the Embassy of Benin, at Embassy row in an area called Woodley Park. Washington has some cool suburbs, and each one has its own unique feel.

Benin is a small developing country in Western Africa with a population of about 6 million. We spent our time there talking to their Ambassador to the United States whom was very gracious and offered us coffee and tea.

I knocked back a cup of coffee with about 3 tablespoons of coffee and 2 tablespoons of sugar just to make sure I would pay attention.

Man, I found so much inspiration from the story of Benin. It’s a really young democratic country; it only gained independence from the French about 40 years ago. The Ambassador was proud to say that Benin has been a model of democracy for the rest of Africa. In its short history, Benin has been a peaceful nation, no wars or violations of human rights, which as he explained, is probably why you’ve never heard of it. Benin has Muslims, Christians and people of other religious faiths living harmoniously together. That’s pretty impressive, especially for a nation in poverty.

Come on Israel, you guys need to Benin it up.

It really choked me up a little, when I thought about it. Benin is like our generation; Young, hopeful and more highly educated than ever. Marc Pachter, one of our speakers said the other day that the political process is the “uncertainty of the experiment.” Our future hasn’t been written, all we have to is take action. Change is on the way, and it’s up to us.

Thanks again to everyone keeping up with us. I really am so grateful that our school has given us this opportunity of a lifetime. I also wanted to say that everyone on our team, Jessica, Crystal, Trent, Jenna and James help contribute to the blog, it’s not just me. We are all so grateful for this.

I want to especially mention my wonderful girlfriend Crystal. Every time I say “Hey can we video diary?” she just stops and helps me, no questions asked. We’re trying to conserve money, so every time we buy food, she’ll always give me half of her food, because she knows I’m still hungry. That’s love man. I’m gonna marry her someday.