A Presidential First

Sandhya Kambhampati
sjkambhampati@gmail.com
@sandhya__k

President Obama is visiting Myanmar (Burma) to show support for the reform process by Burmese President Thein Sein.

It's a presidential first and Twitter is making note of it.

@chucktodd  tweeted many pictures including this one below to show how the people are getting ready for POTUS.

@chucktodd

Personally, it's an exciting thing that the President is visiting a country which has never been visited by another president before.  It shows that we are moving forward in our thinking of establishing better relationships with other countries.

Once President Obama touched down on Myanmar(Burma),  I immediately saw my Twitter feed flooded with information on his every move.

Various tweets from Twitter feed 

I also came across this tweet from @HannaIngber which mentions that President Obama's grandfather spend time in Burma as a cook for a British Army.

@hannaIngber

This tweet made me think about how different this visit would of been if it happened before during the time (WWII) that his Kenyan grandfather was in Burma and how Twitter really is the  bridge to letting people know about this historic event.

Some people on Twitter chose to see this event as one that is bad for the country, as President Obama is focusing on other affairs rather than what is happening at home.

Personally, this presidential first shows that as a country we are working to expand our help and also that people need to realize that while yes, we need to take care of the U.S., it is important for us as Americans to understand what is going on around the world.

I will be following this trip on Twitter in the next few days and along with many other journalists and tweeters am interested to see the outcome.

Reuters has more about this visit here:Myanmar--Reuters