Obama Obama

Obama Obama, originally uploaded by kasias pics.

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.