Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Obama, Obama, Obama

This needs to be quick as I have real work to do, but the political science nerd in me couldn't let the inauguration of America's 44th President pass by unremarked.

First of all: yes, people the world over (read: in Malawi at least) really were paying attention to the inauguration proceedings.

I haven't seen a Malawian paper yet today, but the weeks leading up to the inauguration have been sprinkled with stories about the newly minted President. As far back as November, American Ambassador Peter Bodde was warning Malawi that Obama's election could mean renewed pressure for democratic reform. A couple of weeks ago, both papers ran stories quoting Bodde quashing any hopes of a Presidential visit in the first 100 days. This editorial in The Daily Times on Obama's oratory style was a really interesting read last week.

Anyway, a number of people in the office spent last night watching the inauguration in various T.V.-equipped locales around Nkhamenya (the speech wrapped up around 7:30 p.m. local time). One fellow from work showed up this morning with a digital video recording of the address; another has already printed off a transcript of the speech and has half-jokingly vowed to "imprint the words on his heart." Someone also keeps wandering through the office singing "Obama.Obama.Obama" in a rising chant. The whole event is also a hot topic of conversation... in particular people are (unsurprisingly) interested in Obama's hints at foreign policy and what the talking heads on PressTV and other outlets have to say about it.

For my part, I stayed late at the office last night and attempted to watch via online video feed. One of my colleagues left to try and watch it at a neighbor's but came back, foiled, because the neighbor didn't seem interested/was under the impression that the speech had already aired. So we cosied up to the laptop to watch streamed video, which glitched and we missed a lot of the speech (as the video froze and lurched forward, played for a few seconds, then froze and lurched forward again).

We got the general idea though.

I'll save critical analysis for some other day - right now I have to go to a meeting to discuss work schedules for the next two weeks (I have a village stay, site visits to some Community-Led Total Sanitation projects, some software training and at least one visit to the field to learn about home visits to sponsored children to coordinate).
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The point of this blog is to share my experiences and perspectives on my experiences as an OVS, the politics of my world, the wonders and tragedies of my communities, and anything else that finds its way into my average little head. Keyword: "my."

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(props to daveberta for inspiration on the wording)