Obama Obama

On my birthday, I was eating a breakfast of chapati with avocado and

strawberry jam and left -over spinach salad when Liza came into the

room and announced with a smile, "Obama won!" I joined her in her

smile and we hugged in celebration and relief. Who could ask for a

better birthday gift? I thought.

 

As the day spread its wings, more priceless moments made me feel like

I was walking on air: Jackson, a boy I had met in town,

enthusiastically came with yet more ideas as to how to coordinate and

fund an educational program of Tanzanian crafts at Umoja and I

couldn't help but feel hopeful that he might actually have the

initiative to make it happen; at Makumira University, where I am

teaching courses in European Music History and Tonal Theory but more

importantly a new member of their African Ensemble, my students

spontaneously sung me the most harmonically complex and in-tune "Happy

Birthday" I have ever heard in my life; then during African Ensemble

class, when I became the student and they the teachers, Ng'oko called

over the dancing beats of our drumming, "David! You must drum as if

you are celebrating!" David, who had the fattest drum tilted in front

of him, let loose the energy of his arms and body and raised is voice,

"Obama! Obama! Obama!" filling the room with the smell of burnt hide;

the class ended with yet another impromptu Happy Birthday, this time

accompanied by drums and bells and in rhythms I couldn't even begin to

imagine in Western notation.

 

Yes, the whole world did seem to have their arms raised to the sky

that day, drinking in the hope of sun. And the stories spread - of

Obama's voice waking my friend in the wee hours of the morning,

blaring from not her neighbors radio, but from the neighbor three

houses down; of Kenya wanting to oust their president and hire Obama

in his place; of smiles and hugs exchanged in more places than Umoja's

art room.

 

But as more talk saturated with Obama's name fluttered around me, I

realized that the arms raised to the sky were not in celebration but

in asking. At a local bar, another friend had sat talking with the

barman and a Tanzanian Masai about Obama and the Masai man had asked,

"Is he circumcised?" And that seemed, for him, to be the only thing

that would determine if Obama were a worthy president or not. The

mother of Francis, an 8 year- old Tanzanian cello student of mine,

while admitting that the election of Obama was indeed good news, had

said, "Now we will see. We will see if he can do what he said he will

do." And just today, I was sitting on the ground with a bunch of

pre-teen girls, and I asked them, "So what do you think about Obama

being elected?" "Oh! It's great!" "Yeah, it's really cool!"....."But

he's probably gonna get assassinated." "Assassinated!?!" "Yeah, you

know like King....and with all those crazy people out there....." At

that moment, unnerving chills of foreboding rippled down my spine and

the girls went on to discuss security and the time when former

President Bush waved at them from behind the bullet proof car window.

Attempting to clear the clouds that had darkened my thoughts I said,

"Can you imagine how hard it must be to be his wife?? I mean, she now

has to be the model woman for both beauty and intelligence," which was

met with general agreement and more speculation about how it must be

for his kids, until one girl said, "But I really don't like his

wife." "Why?" asked another. "Because she's ugly."

 

So, just as the drum misrepresents the whole of African music, Obama

(and his wife) are mere icons subject to dismissal and unrealistic

expectations. Knowing that the world is in truth holding it's breath

with drums quiet and waiting, the time for unrestrained celebration

has yet to come.

 

But I did celebrate the end of my birthday with a batch of homemade

oatmeal and coconut cookies.....eating all of them at once, save for

half a dozen which I promptly ate for breakfast the next morning.

Done