Viewing the capitol with new eyes

Driving up to Washington, D.C., yesterday, I had no idea what to expect. Derek Noble, Olivia Hubert-Allen and I were the “meat” of a sandwich caravan between the journalists of Phoenix 14 in front, and Colin Donohue, our adviser, and his wife behind us.

We drove here with a decent idea of stories that we wanted to seek out and cover, and the various ways in which we would go about writing, photographing and filming them. But I never could have expected what we faced when we hopped out of the car and approached the capitol yesterday afternoon. Our first plan was to take photos in front of the capitol before everything gets too busy and crowded to snag those few moments with a clear view of the American flag-bedecked building. But as we made our first attempt at a headshot, we were approached by a woman from Georgia, who wanted to share her story with us.

Several interviews and meetings later, we had solid material when we did not expect anything more than the comfortable feeling of getting our bearings of the area. We met an online reporter whose mother just moved to Elon, a man from Durham, someone for works for Voice of America, a retired Marine, a pair of pedicab drivers from Texas, and my favorite, a man from the Comoro Islands, which is between the eastern coast of Africa and Madagascar. Because of Abou Kaudra’s strong enthusiasm for Obama and the American way of life and politics, he was given a free trip to D.C. by the American ambassador of Madagascar. Traveling for 16 hours, he is here to take small steps and a giant leap for his country.

Two hours passed by and we hadn’t even realized it until it became dark enough to use a camera light for our final interview with Kaudra. Exhausted on the ride home, but energized by our productive first day, we got to working as soon as dinner was over.

This is going to be one of the best reporting experiences of my college career, and as I mentioned to Olivia and Derek when we were first approaching the capitol, I never imagined that I would attend an inauguration, but covering it is even more incredible.