Obama, My bama

11-5
In my hut, by candlelight, I've pointed many a time to Obama's bright face. It shines from the cover of a Rolling Stone magazine (curtesy of Becca G!) over which every villager has huddled 5,000 times. I've proudly bumbled through explanations that HE cuold be the next US president. Mostly people didn't believe me or understand. He's one of two... he could... the first... what??? And the appropriate joyfully surprised reaction came a smattering of times.

I can't wait to return à la village with some concrete news. From Dakar to Guinea, people shouted "Felicitations!" to me and we high-fived and shook hands and grinned mirror-images. I can't wait to be wholely proud of my country and not have to clam Canadian citizenship.

I've slept for about 3 hours. We held up a bar (I'm in Dakar) and got CNN on a slide projector until 6 AM. I madly texted updates to village-bound unfortunates. I'm thankful I wasn't on of them, cranking my radio in the dark, pulling the antenae out of the moquito net, biting my fist, and lacking company apart from the Rolling Stone cover. It would have been more romantic in 50 years ("Where were you when you found out?"). Still I'm glad I could be with visual coverage, electricity, friends, a cold drink, a full stomach (contents including tuna and octopus! delicious!), and a crowd of British, French, Wolof, Pulaar, Sereer, and our US democratic MAJORITY, bien sur.
I don't know how it felt in the States at your reasonable hours and live rallies and all. When we left the bar, shaking arms around one another, the morning prayer calls sang and bodies folded over mosque mats in the dark, pious as the day before. Did any of them know?
I voted around 2 months ago on an official ballot that Senegal's humidity warped so I had to rip open the envelopes and glue them back shut. I resisted including a post-it explaining, I KNOW THIS LOOKS BAD/ TAMPERED WITH BUT PLEASE SEE RETURN ADDRESS AND CUT ME SOME SLACK. I'd only had snatches of updates. Ridiculous things like "polls down because McCain called Obama a socialist." I know I've been gone a while but statements like this confused and worried me to such a point that after seeing the results I'm still skeptical about the reality of all this.
Can they take it back? Just kidding? Incorrect counting? Overthrow? Or is this all a mephloquine dream?
I allowed myself to unclench a bit once Obama took the stage. People around me had been cheering for a while but I'd been sipping iced paranoia, thinking jinxes. He looked different than he did the last time I saw him. More tired, like a man whose grand prize happens to be All the Problems of the World. And, like my next president. That's him, that's really him. Obviously a crowd of screaming goosebumps and parades of tears made the next appearances.
It's a gorgeous day. I have hockey bags under my eyes as I wander in a daze. People randomly shout OBAMA! at me and I stop to high-five them. Everyone's happy, sometimes just because he heard Obama is a black dude! One paper's headlines got straight to the point, "NOIR!" And a lot of people have clearly followed the news, policies, and their personal investments and connections.
Whatever it is, today I stand tall.