An afternoon tea with Michelle Obama

What a day! It's Sunday, a school night. Many of us have to work the next day. We don't mind. We are full of energy and joy and meet prior to the main event. It is just after 3pm, just the right time in the UK for some afternoon tea. There was tea, I am not sure anyone consumed it though. Lots of other delicious things made it to our stomach. We laughed, we chatted and we got excited. No one wanted to be late so we left our afternoon get together at about 6pm, reaching the O2 arena in London East. Lots of women, you could feel the excitement in the air. People in beautiful dresses, women of all ages and backgrounds. Hope!

Photo by Alex Nemo Hanse on Unsplash

We found our seats. Not everyone sat together as getting your hands on these tickets wasn't too easy. I sat down and felt overjoyed and super grateful towards my friends. For the afternoon tea fun, for thinking of me when buying the tickets and for taking their time to share a Sunday with me. We were early and saw the big auditorium filling up. We had excellent seats, very close to the stage. Tweets from people at the venue were shown on the stage display. Many different faces, long ways for some people to join that event. Short film clips were shown: Michelle and her family and their time at the White House.

Girls, we run this motha, yeah

Girls, we run this motha, girls

Who run the world?

Girls

Who run the world?

Girls

Beyoncé heated up the audience over the O2 sound system, some more videos and suddenly she was there!

People were standing, people were screaming, people were clapping their hands furiously. Michelle Obama. She was there on stage. For us. “I think it’s a testament to how much we all have in common around the world.” Michelle looks into the audience, she smiles her wide and bride smile and I know she meant it. We all have so much common. We might have differences, but we are all equal. 

Stephen Colbert moderates the evening, speaking about Michelle Obama's book: Becoming. A truly wonderful book, full of inspiration and hope. It was great to see her speak about her life in person. It's easy to say, things are not easy for me. Things weren't easy for her. It's easy to say change is hard and she planted a vegetable garden in the area surrounding the White House. Something considered impossible as it wasn't done before. And of course, she was the first black First Lady. She has to hear and read horrible things about herself but keeps on smiling for the camera. And especially important kept on going. "When they go low, we go high!" says Obama, explaining that we mustn't follow negativity and respond with negativity. We must keep going also if it's hard.

“It’s time for us to roll up our sleeves and if we are not happy with the state of things then, in democracies, we have votes." The Guardian, 14th of April 2019

This is indeed the power we have. We can vote. We can use our voice to influence how politics will influence us all, every day. It is easy to say my voice will not make a difference. People won't listen. It is harder to check some facts and go to the polling station and give our vote. But we all should. We can't invest our energy in moaning about the unfairness in life but not make ourselves heard when we get the chance given.

Soon there are elections again. For the European Parliament. And after that for something else. There is always an election. There is always a choice you can make. You have a voice. Will you use it?