Obama fever, Part 2

Theresa is right: Ugandans are absorbed by the the US election campaign, and especially Barack Obama.

But if Ugandans are absorbed, then Kenyans are obsessed. No, not obsessed. They are freaking out.

I was in Nairobi for one week. Every day, the main newspaper (and the one where I was training), the Daily Nation, published 4-5 tabloid pages about the campaign. They published nearly the full, very long, New York Times editorial endorsing Obama. They had columnists speculating from Kenya and from America; wire stories, their own stories. They reported on the police set up a 24-hour guard around the home of Obama's Kenyan grandmother so she would not be bothered.

Some Kenyans I talked about laughed about the extent of the obsession. Renaming your children Obama? Maybe that is a little over the top. But there is much thoughtful nuance, as well. The Nation driver who took me to the airport said he really respected Obama because when he came and spoke in Kenya, after being elected Senator, he said Kenya needed to do a better job of facing up to corruption. That honesty was what endeared the man to this driver.

But the fascination and excitement are universal. There are huge electronic billboards with pictures of Obama and his wife. EVERYONE who finds out you are an American -- up to and including the immigration officer who had to check me out of Kenya, and who wouldn't let me go for close to 10 minutes -- wants to talk about it. They are concerned: will you be able to vote? (And they are a little surprised that we were able to vote early. Of course, like theirs, our country has had its share of voter glitches, so the surprise is not surprising.) They are well informed; they know the stands of both candidates, and they're familiar with the polls -- although, as in Uganda, they also are perhaps overly confident that the polls will accurately predict the results. They are a bit baffled by this Electoral College thing; despite features and graphics in the newspaper trying to explain it, I still had people ask me: "Why doesn't the majority vote in the country decide it?" I gave a short history lesson about our system, with its strong protection for states' rights, but couldn't help thinking: Yes, good question.

And that driver also told me: There will be very many people coming in to work late on Wednesday (the results will start to trickle in here around 4 a.m. local time Wednesday morning), or not at all. And the streets may be full. How exciting!