The Elders

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Originally uploaded by BK 14

Today was kind of surreal.

I sang Happy Birthday to Nelson Mandela, while sitting between Stephanie Nolen and Zackie Achmat, at a press conference hosted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and featuring Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson and Jimmy Carter, among others.

Peter Gabriel sang "Biko", a cappella, on a whim, because Tutu asked him to.

Richard Branson was there with his beautiful hair, beautiful tan and beautiful money-face.

But I have to say, the biggest thrill was probably having Zakie Achmat make jokes about the press conference directly to me, and me alone. My hands were sweating so much. I could barely say anything back to him. Anytime he said anything to me I was only able to nervously stammer out a "heh heh" or "hmm" or "yeah". I should've hugged him or something.

The press conference was to announce the creation of The Elders, which seems to be a new humanitarian lobby group made up of some of the most influential and popular political figures of the last half-century. Their aim seems a little unclear at the moment, so it remains to be seen how much influence they'll actually have in the world. (Tutu emphasized that anyone of "The Elders" could call up anyone in the world anytime they wanted -- I guess that's something in and of itself.) They made vague references to alleviating poverty, working to create peace, combating disease and fighting environmental degradation, but they didn't specify when or how.

But I must admit, the whole thing was pretty inspiring. There was a lot of heady language about changing the world and that sort of thing, which would've sounded overly precious and trite if it was coming from anyone other than Tutu, Annan and the like.

I have some more thoughts on this, but I'll blog about it later. Enjoy the photos for now.

(I only posted a few because my Internet sucks, but tragically, they're the best of the best. So many turned out blurry which may have been because my hands were shaking because I was so nervous or because I couldn't use a flash.)