A Beautiful Experience
Writings by
Okeyo Ajamu Jumal
All Rights Reserved
Departure
The digital temperature sign flashed 14 degrees Fahrenheit as Jostlyn, my grand cousin who nicely opened her home for my visit, sped pass the nondescript shopping mall a little after 5AM on our way to the Greenbelt subway station. When we passed the last checkpoint entering the station drop-off/pick-up area, it became clear that the Greenbelt station was the final destination for hundreds of tour buses dropping off thousands of folks like myself, headed for the National Mall.
Jostlyn and myself had walked the full length of the Mall the day before and I made a nice little plan to avoid much of the large crowd expected. I would exit the subway at L’Enfant Plaza and after a brisk walk of a mile or so, I’d end up watching the proceedings on big screen from the Lincoln Monument. The crowds would surely be thinner watching from two miles back! Just follow my plan and everything should be copacetic.
Jostlyn, was sounding very much like the good mother as I stepped from the car into the cold,
“You checked to make sure you have both gloves? Make sure you have my phone number. And it’s probably going to be icy so be careful. And call…”
A smile lit-up my face as I walked the final block or so to the station, the resonance in Jostlyn’s voice conveyed the same excitement I’d heard two days earlier when leaving home in California.
It was still dark when wife Phyllis and myself were on our way out the door headed to LAX, when five year-old granddaughter Sariah came bounding down the stairs in her pajamas, her head of thick black hair going in every-which-a-way and dragging her coat behind while exclaiming,
“I want to ride to the airport with you Papa!” Sariah and her mother Angela had stayed the night as plan B in case Phyllis, who was on call, had to go in to work.
“I’m going too”, was Angela calling down from the landing.
“That’s okay” I said, “Your mother is taking me, so you guys can go back to bed.”
“Can we please go with you Papa,” was Sariah’s response, her bright eyes staring up as she zipped her coat, “I’m all ready to go.” She may not have understood what my trip was about, but she knew who it was about—because she loved hearing herself say his name, Barack Obama.
Arriving at the airport, Phyllis parked in the white zone, something she never does, and the three of them popped out of the car to give me big hugs, those long hugs like I was sailing away on some voyage across distant seas. If I didn’t know when long time Andrew called last night to wish me well, I knew now, this trip was something very special, I could hear it in their voices and see it in there eyes, this was like taking the first step on an epic journey, a pilgrimage or hajj or something yet defined.
Greenbelt Station
Jostlyn was waving good-bye as I rounded the corner from the drop-off point, and just as the entrance to the Greenbelt Station came into view, I was swallowed whole by a mass of people. I’d been in large crowds before, including the World Cup and Olympics, but nothing like this! Into this subway station most likely built for a capacity of a few hundred, five to ten thousand travelers were attempting to squeeze-in, all at once! And since the station entrance-way was at the bottom of a down slope, those in the back were pushing down hill with those nearer the entrance left with no place to go except pressed against the iron security gates. This could get ugly I’m thinking, those at the top could lose balance with all the pushing and start an avalanche of people cascading on those below.
But bad things didn’t happen! People in the crowd said, “Please don’t push.” Others repeated the request as it echoed all the way to the back…And the pushing stop! Just stopped, like some mass courtesy descended from a darkened sky. And it‘s all good.
After a little over an hour, I had finally moved twenty-five feet to the door of the station when a sudden surge of people carried me through the door, my feet off the ground and landing me standing sideways in a crush of humanity. That personal space encapsulating us that no one trespasses, had long since disappeared. My face was shoved into some guys shoulder with a ladies elbow stuck in my ribs while my arm was tangled in someone’s coat. We were like olives stuffed in a jar, less the wiggle room.
And just when I thought it couldn’t get more exciting, it did. Those crushed-in on the left side of the station needed tickets that were located on the right side and moving cross-ways in this crowd wasn’t an option. Then an idea, people on the far side began passing twenty dollar bills across the station to those nearest the tickets and in turn, tickets were being passed back in the opposite direction, hundreds of $20 bills dancing in the air like leaves in an autumn breeze, passing through finger tips of perfect strangers while tickets floated back across like butterflies in the same breeze and all seemingly finding there destination! What a uniquely chaotic scene, un-orchestrated politeness that purred with the precision of a finely tuned machine. And it’s all good.
The Train Ride
Finally, in the flash of a few minutes, a group of us that had become glued to each other in the crush, were through the stiles, up the steps to the platform and on the train! There was a mass sense of accomplishment as we now sat joking with each other like a bunch of old time friends. Towns and states became our names, I was seated next to Texas and we were facing Mo’town and Chi’town. Seattle was across the aisle and I was Cali.
“I bet you’ve never seen this kinda cold in California!”
“Is that a myth or is it true that it never snows in Los Angeles?”
The conversations flowed in a relaxed way, with Chicago grabbing our attention when she randomly asked the group a question,
“When did you make up your minds to come to D.C.?”
For me, the answer was easy. Sometime before Obama’s nomination, my lingering doubts and suspicions had waned, I embraced the possibility, the possibility that it could happen! On election night, November 4, 2008, while standing amongst the celebrating crowd in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, with emotions thundering forth like a powerful storm, drenching me in tears of the most wonderful kind, my decision was made. I was going to ride that emotional crest all the way to Washington D.C. and meld into the inauguration day crowd. Melding, a most apt description.
The conversations buzzing amongst us were interrupted by announcements from the engineer,
“Do to over crowding, this train will not stop at Gallery-Pl Chinatown,
Archives-Navy Museum and L’Enfant Plaza.”
L’Enfant Plaza, I thought to myself, that’s my stop! As the train whizzed through the station on the center track, I caught a glimpse of the massive crowds cramped on the platform, so I made up my mind that wherever the train stopped, I was gettin’ off. If I thought Greenbelt Station was a big crowd, as the sayin’ goes, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”
The Crowd!!
Up the escalator to the street, I emerged into crowds hundreds, thousands fold what I’d encountered at Greenbelt and all seeming moving in different directions. Seems like a whole bunch of us had the same plan!
“Which way to the National Mall” I asked. “Just follow the crowd going that way,” was the given advice by a security officer, so I did. After five blocks we ran into more security and twelve-foot high crowd control barricades, “you can’t get through this way, you need to go that way!” After seven blocks walking that way, we ran into more barricades and security,
“You folks came the wrong way, you should have been directed to go the other way!” Experience tells me that at this point, frustration turns to anger, but not on this day. politeness and jabbing fun at our predicament had people joking deep on the humorous side. And it’s all good.
Security consisted of TSA, Secret Service, D.C. Police, the army, the navy, FBI, and you name it, all seemingly with different instructions and giving conflicting directions. After a few more of these go this way, go that a way and passing the same spot twice, what I had ignored finally made its presence felt big time, this was some serious COLD! My frozen face felt like it was being pierced by thousands of needles and my gloves seemed useless. But luck turned as a toasty looking pub appeared right in front and there was room on the inside.
“Whatever you have that’s hot and quick,” was my shivering request.
“We have coffee, tea and delicious homemade chilli.”
“I’ll have the tea and chilli” was my order to the affable waitress. From the window, I could see endless lines of icy looking porta-potties. That got me thinking, maybe strange chilli on a day like this might not be a good move!
“Ma’am, you can hold that chilli.”
Back on the street, a man preceding me out the door was bumped and dropped his Styrofoam cup of hot coffee. Within a minute, the spilt coffee had turned into a splash of brown ice, but rather then getting bent out of shape, the man started laughing,
“I be damn, ice coffee anyone?”
I was trying to find a way on to the National Mall. My original plan had been to watch the proceedings on giant screen monitors from the Lincoln Monument. But that wasn’t going to happen because of all the barricades and check points between me and there, so my next plan B was to just get as close as I could. And just like that, I saw my chance! While a group of folks were explaining their situation to security, other people were stealthily slipping behind security and through the gate, just like we’d do at high school football games back-in-the-day. If no one says anything, just keep walking like you belong!
The Home Crowd
The sign read 3rd Street and as I turned the corner at Constitution Avenue, I found myself in a spirited throng of hundreds of thousands of people, people who had been sent this-away and that-away and finally ending up here, on the parade route with a third of the inaugural stage in view. Not bad, I can hang-out here! These were the hundreds of thousands of people who came to the inauguration with no orange, gold, purple or any other color passes, who came absent of inaugural ball invites and with tickets to nothing. These were the Hundreds of thousands people who traveled the many miles, most at their own expense, to brave the cold and the crowds for the best reason of all, just to be here!
The crowd here on Constitution Avenue was just as relaxed and talkative as the folks at the Greenbelt Station. And like Greenbelt, conservations seemed to start with the same question, “Where are you from?” And the answers came in dialects and accents from every state in the union and from a multitude of countries around the world.
“Ottawa, Canada!” exclaimed the lady wrapped in a big Obama scarf. “I’m From Paris! I couldn’t miss this for the world.” I found myself absorbed in laugher and conversation with people from, Hawaii, Johannesburg, Kansas, New Orleans, Madrid, Boston, Atlanta and then, there was the couple from Kenya, Mary and Kisii, as I’d soon learn.
While in conversation about my book, Spiritual Shackles, I handed my card to a nearby couple to pass it over to Kansas. The couple stopped the card to take a closer look at the name,
“Your name is Okeyo?” “Yes”, I replied as she continued, “That is a Luo name from Kenya?”. “Yes”, again I replied.” “We are from Kenya and we are Luo. Unaongea Kiswahili?” She was now asking me if I spoke Swahili, and to my own surprise, the walking around, market place Swahili words and phrases I’d learned when living in Tanzania way-back-in-the-day came rolling out,
“Ndiyo, nina ongea Kiswahili kidogo. Jina lako nani?” I responded that I spoke a few words and asked their names. A look of surprise came over their faces, “Jina letu Mary na Kisii. Na wewe je?” I replied , “Jina logo Okeyo Jumal. Una toka wapi?”, asking them what town they were from, “Tuna toka Kisumu. Wewe ulikaa wapi Kenya?” “Nili kaa Kisumu pia?” The three of us broke out in big laughter and it was only then that we realized we had attracted a small crowd. Then the three of us really start laughing, I was laughing for how stiff I must have sounded and they coulda been laughing because my Swahili was so lousy. And those listening were laughing in amazement,
“I didn’t know they spoke Swahili in Cali!”
“What a coincidence!” came a voice, “out of all these people, you three meet each other.”
Now speaking in English, we talked briefly about Kisumu, a town on the shore of Lake Victoria before Kisii, addressing the small crowd that had gathered, began answering questions about Kenya, the country of Barack Obama’s paternal family. “There’s no words to express how proud we Kenyans are of Barack Obama. The Obama family is Luo you know.” Laughing at the irony, Kisii stated, “ Do you know it was easier for a Luo to be elected president of the United States than for a Luo to be elected president of Kenya.”
“Only in America,” was an instantaneous comment from somewhere in the crowd, accompanied with an all consuming laughter. And it’s all good!
The warmth of comradery and shared conversations helped mute the freezing cold and made hours of waiting pass gently. It was now noon and the program was starting. A hush descended on the huge crowd, a quiet that seemed unreal, you could hear traffic lights clicking in the distance. But it soon became apparent that we could only hear a muffled sound from the large speakers because they were directed inward toward the Mall.
You could feel the buzz of disappointment moaning through the crowd, but just like at Greenbelt, a solution naturally blossomed. People began taking out cell phones and giving a play-by-play commentary on what was happening on stage just blocks away, commentary that was being relayed from folks watching TV back home. Then there were the web phones that were being streamed the live broadcast to their tiny screens. Blackberry’s, iPhones were being passed and shared with strangers, they were being held aloft so hundreds could see the picture. The fact that the phones were fifteen to twenty seconds out of sync with each other, depending on were their particular signal was being relayed, didn’t matter. The phones danced around like fireflies, these small lights darting about in all directions and this incredible sharing, this beautiful quality of goodness seemed to flow so naturally. And to wittiness goodness like this, the hundreds of thousands of people standing, clapping and appreciating the program knew—with these little screens—they had the best view in the house, better then seats right down on the front row. And it’s all good!
More…Part two 2 of 2
Tags: 2008 election, Add new tag, African American History, Ajamu Jumal, Barack Obama, Black, History, Jumal, Literature, Okeyo Jumal, spiritual Shackles