Kiva Stories from the Field

Just shout it out: Obama! On the streets off Kenya, this gets you cheeers and hoots and offers off friendship and prayers…a good word, indeed.

It is good to be American in Kenya, that much I can say. Nairobi was not totally wild, but I definitely got shouts from buses and Matatus all day long. People were happy: Obama T-shirts, Obama buttons and stickers…good vibes all around.

This is absolute bliss compared to 2004, when I had just arrived in Germany and had to answer for the re-election of Bush…regardless of my opinion of the man, I felt that I alone had to act as his and America’s spokesman; I had to answer for his deeply unpopular foreign policy…as if Iraq was my call…I had to answer for the all American people, and this is difficult…I am from Rhode Island and there is much more to America than the smallest state (with a great big heart, mind you)…and I was doing this in my (at the time) sad, sad German…no fun in 2004.

But those days are over, folks!!! It is a new day, and one can feel the energy here. The Kenyans are happy, and I think that they are hopeful; this somehow vindicates their own troubles after the election in December here.

Obama is a Kenyan today (and will be for the next 4 years, at least). And that gives this country hope: hope that a black man can be the most powerful man in the world, hope that America will give them more attention, and hope that anyone can become anything they want to become.

Whether or not Obama Fixes All the World’s Troubles, he has inspired people at least. For the Kenyans, he has shown them that politics can be positive and that politics can heal a nation instead of just dividing it.

Tomorrow I head to Kisii, in the west, towards his father’s homeland, and closer to where the violence in January and February almost tore the country apart. I will report soon on how exactly Hope has arrived in Western Kenya.