The View from Over Here

Cordoba, Spain

I´ve been so busy these past several months that it often comes as a surprise to me that Obama is President and not just someone that I really, really want to be President.

When it hits me that it´s real and he is the President, my arms flap in an impromtu dance. I manage to forget and then remember several times a week.

It is interesting talking with people in Morocco, and in Spain about US politics. People are interested in how things are going with Obama. And they congratulate us on no longer having "a stupid person for a President."

The general hope seems to be for the new administration understand that what the US does affects nearly everyone else in the world, for good or for bad. People want the arrogance and disaffection for the concerns of the rest of the world of the last 8 years to be a thing of the past.

I just read in Obama´s op-ed to Latin America that he says the United States government wants to listen and learn as well as to lead when appropriate. Respect for others. That´s a good sign.