The World is Watching
“The world is watching what we do here.” The words flooded my ears like the first day of rain after the dry season. Barack Obama’s speech in Texas crackled from an old television set into the green patio of a dusty hotel in Yabello, Ethiopia. It was early March, and Obama had just lost my home state of Ohio to Hillary Clinton. I was on the other side of the globe, probably at the only satellite TV in a hundred miles, but I had never felt closer to the man who spoke of change.
That morning in Yabello, I looked over at the faces the young Ethiopian men watching the screen, their eyes filled with eagerness and excitement. I knew in that moment that across the world, in living rooms, classrooms, restaurants and bars, the world was indeed watching.
I had left the U.S. in January, right after the Iowa Caucus, to report on water scarcity and climate change in Ethiopia and Kenya. Two months in, we were halfway down the deteriorating road from Addis Ababa to Nairobi. Post-election violence in Kenya had calmed for the time being, and I was eager to spend my last few weeks in Africa in a country as riveted to Presidential politics as my own.
Obamamania
On a cool morning a few days after our eventual arrival in Nairobi, I squeezed my way into an overcrowded matatu headed for downtown. The minibus was silent as we wound through the green jacaranda trees and glass-windowed malls of the suburbs. Then I heard it. A reggae beat started up, punctuated with calls of “Obama.” As lyrics extolling the candidate’s virtues poured from the blaring speakers, I could sense the exuberance and pride of my fellow passengers.
The Nairobi I saw in early March seemed recovered from the violence that had recently swept the country – and ready to let Obamamania sweep over recent unpleasant memories.
Henry Gadiga, a senior in Communications at Daystar University in Nairobi, says he watches news of the elections on CNN every morning.
“Now that things are coming back to normal, we’re back to talking about the elections in the U.S. ” he told me, standing in a stone courtyard outside the university. As we talked we were joined by other students eager to share their views on elections here in Kenya and in the U.S.
“Truth be told, it’s either you have the traditional McCain, who is like the rest of the presidents that the U.S. has had, or you have a black man who has African roots, or you have a woman. I don’t think Americans have been faced with such a decision before, and that’s part of the excitement,” added Moharry Matua, also a Communications senior at Daystar. But he worries that excitement over superficial change could distract from the meat of the race. “People are [more] caught up with the image of who he is than really with his policies.”
But Gadiga points out that the symbolism in this race is important. “Most people are proud that Obama has a Kenyan father,” he said, “most people, especially right now, did not believe in the American Dream in a way. But if the son of an immigrant can become president, then anything is possible. Just the chance is good enough for us.”
Claiming a Piece of Obama
Penninah A. Ogada, PhD, a lecturer of Gender and Political Economy, helped explain why this election resonates so strongly for Kenyans: “Obama has a piece of Kenya. He has a piece of the Luo [ethnic group]. He has a piece of Islam,” she says, adding that an Obama presidency would help the world see the U.S. in a new light.
Obama also seems to have piece of all Americans: of the white man who’s been laid off, of the immigrant trying to feed his family, of the African American struggling through the education system.
Although I am now back in the U.S., I have thought back to that moment in Yabello, Ethiopia many times. I remember the questions Obama addressed in that March speech, and the answers we were searching for.
As he talked about coming together across party, religion and race, about being a responsible global leader, about making our country the “last best, hope of Earth,” I looked at my colleagues. All our faces were contorted with a plethora of emotions – shock, inspiration, empowerment.
Obama was talking to the women who walk miles a day to fetch water from a contaminated spring. He was speaking to the Somali pastoralists who have clashed with neighboring tribes over resources. And he was talking to us – a group of five weary travelers in Ethiopia. He was saying to the world, “Yes we can.” And we were hoping he was right.
© 2008 The Common Language Project
