My Mom and Dad had not set foot in the village since their wedding day fifty years before. In our tiny village of about 150, there is still no running water just a well in the center of town. No indoor plumbing no toilets. People still use chamber pots, and sewage runs in open gutters along the walkways that connect the tightly-spaced dwellings. Very little has changed for the people of our village since my grandfather left 100 years ago.
People still live by the ancient rhythms of planting and harvest of birth and death.
They measure time in generations, not in news cycles. To the members of my family village, my return was a vindication of their faith in their purpose, confidence in their abilities, and their hard work. My election as a governor in the United States of America represents the success of our entire clan and the affirmation of all that America promises. They rightly understand and they reminded me that my success belongs to them, and to my parents, and not just to me as an individual. I know for a lot of you graduates it was a long hard road to get to where you are today to find the time and the money to go to college in the first place and then to stick it through to the end.