Meeting the President

Well, what can I say. That was pretty damn exciting.

A few weeks ago I received an invitation to the President's house for a reception. Two days later, the offer was rescinded, along with a promise to reschedule. We'd been invited and then uninvited to a reception for the Scott Fellows. I don't blame them - if I was in Liberia for a year working, I wouldn't the President to confuse me with some intern.

But a reception for the interns was never scheduled. So Jacob, taking the initiative, asked Minister Davis to schedule a meeting. Two days ago I was asked to prepare a packet for President Sirleaf. My bio, and my output for the summer. Was she really going to read it?

This afternoon we got our fifteen minutes of fame, in the President's office. Minister Davis took Jacob and I up and we quickly introduced ourselves and told her the work we'd been doing over the summer. She asked about how it would be implemented. She asked what we were doing next. She thanked us for our work and told us to consider Liberia our second home.

After the formal conversation and before the pictures were taken, I had a chance to converse with her a bit more casually. Pretty amazing, that's all I can really say.

An apt coda to the summer and a reminder of what an unbelievable and tremendous opportunity working for the government at such a high level has been. Seriously.