Welcome Mr. President

Barack Obama´s becoming the first African-American president didn’t fully sink in until yesterday. Watching the inauguration with my co-workers, including one other American, it was surreal and fantastic.

Just when the world was losing hope in the U.S. after eight years of recklessness and arrogance, we made a great leap forward by showing everybody how much we had advanced since the Civil Rights era.

Barely one year ago, I was in Mexico for the holidays, and I was staying at a hostel in Oaxaca when Iowa held its first primary – the official kick-off of election season. I woke up the next day and heard excited ruckus from other gringos –

“Did you hear Barack Obama won the Iowa primary?”

Someone asked me, “Who is Barack Obama?”

“He’s a black presidential candidate.”

I thought, how amazing it would be to elect the country’s first non-white president, but he probably won’t make it past Super Tuesday...

Now, a year later, our country and the rest of the world face huge problems, and Obama has Superman-like expectations. By electing him we’ve already regained some of the credibility we’ve lost, but let’s see what happens when our new president flexes his muscles and gets his hands dirty. I hope you can pull us through, Mr. Obama. I have a lot of confidence in you.