Obama Mania

November 4/5, 2008

Sorry if there are mistakes in this- I haven't slept for almost 48 hours... and it paid off! Finally. Today I have never been prouder to be an American, which is a weird feeling when you have not felt proud for almost a decade. Especially an American in Africa. Let me paint the mood for you here: Africans are beyond excited. They yell "Obama- Yeah" as we, wazungu, walk passed. There are songs all over the radio in Kiswahili and English singing his praises. Tanzanians are comparing him to Nelson Mandela. Every Tanzanian wants to talk about the election. And we finally get a good excuse to be those crazy Americans that they knew we were- jumping up and down, yelling, smiling, singing, etc.

Now what I did for the election. I came to town. Ran into my friends, Benja and Gregor, who are part of the group going to Dar to close up service in a week, they were on their way to another volunteers site to have an election party and invited me to come along. I figured why not as this is my last week to hang out with those guys. We took a coaster to Craig's site which is super nice and only a half an hour from Njombe. His house has running water and electricity and his school has Internet and cable. This is practically unheard of for a PCV site. First off we watched the new "Simpsons" on his laptop projected onto his wall which was poking fun at the election, then we watched Obama's most recent "info-mercial" for lack of a better word. We talked politics and then laid down for an hour only to get back up at one AM to start making pizzas for our election party. We had to start early because our plan was to make four pizzas, chocolate chip cookies and a victory cake, which was complete with Democrat blue frosting and Obama's name and 2008 scrawled across in white frosting. To make all of this over a charcoal jiko takes the skills of four people, three of which have been in the country for two years.

Then we began to watch as the states came in. Ah, Oregon, how I love thee. Thank you Portland and Eugene. The beauty of all of that blue on the West Coast and New England, of course was to be expected. But the blue around the Great Lakes, Colorado and most notably Florida (who apparently has come to their senses after ruining years for the rest of us) was more surprising. It can only be said that "Obama is a rock star". Finally proving to the world that the United States are ready to cooperate with the rest of the world- More love, less war. He might have the toughest job in history, but I have hope.

Unfortunately, I have not yet seen his acceptance speech, which I assume was very moving. I had to walk to catch a coaster to go back to town for a meeting. I lamented for a minute not being able to see this moment in history. But I realize that everyone in America will have this memory of watching this speech- most of them will have the same memory, which will be nice. My memory is different but no less profound. Walking along a dusty dirt road, greeting bibis and young children doing chores outside thatched roof huts- I am in East Africa. What better place to be for a moment when Americans have decided to give hope to people all over the world.