Ewe sinako*

*Yes we can

It was frustrating to have been following the presidential election and then not be able to stay up on Election Night for the results. But I had a nice surprise this morning when I woke up and found the radio station carrying Obama’s victory speech - 7am here is midnight on the east coast. What a pleasant way to wake up!

In Itipini, despite my previous connection to Sarah Palin, our preferences have been clear. I finally voted for a winner in a presidential election!
And we made sure to fill out our absentee ballots too, just in the nick of time.

The commentators on the radio are waxing poetic on the election and some of the rhetoric is just way over the top, as I am sure it is in the U.S. as well. I wish someone would tell them that historic, like unique and pregnant, is a word that cannot be modified. Something cannot be “very historic” or “most historic.” It is either historic or not. And this election manifestly is.

As I write this now, the radio station is talking to their correspondent in Kenya. She’s in Obama’s father’s home village. A public holiday has just been declared for tomorrow in Kenya - not a bad idea, really. As I listened to the correspondent report that the people in the village are saying they are all now going to get visas to the U.S., I couldn’t help but think that expectations have been set so stratospherically high that we’re all about to be let down in one way or another.