From the other side...

This election has been interesting over here.
Wednesday morning I woke up in Mozambique and watched CNN international. We are 7 hours ahead here so I watched all of the things y'all stayed up late to watch.
So now we have a new president.
It's funny to see the international reaction. The whole world is excited that we have an "black president" (I think that expression is funny in itself. He's bi-racial right? So if he lived here the Africans wouldn't even call him black they would call him 'coloured.' And he would probably be discriminated against. But I guess if you are the new American president you are 'black'.)
That morning I went into a gas station to buy a bottle of water. On the counter was a newspaper with the entire front page filled with Obama's picture and big headlines in Portuguese.
Then I pulled out a metici to pay for my water and looked at the picture on it. I laughed to myself, "They have a black president,- I don't know what all the fuss is about"
But I'm realizing the hope that people are putting in him. In all of the newspapers and radio shows here they are talking about "What does this mean to Africa now?" There were news clips and articles with his "family" in Kenya dancing and shouting "We're going to the white house!"
And I guess that makes seance to them. "Family" is a very different concept here than in the US. So now that their cousin's brother's wife was once married to Obama's grandpa's sister's niece, they probably do think they are going to the White House to help him rule. After all, when you come into power the first thing you do assign high paying jobs to all of your family.
I don't know what kind of international promises he made in his campaign, but I'm pretty sure he will focus on fixing our country first, and then other countries later.