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Wednesday, November 5, 2008

President Barack Obama

History has been made. Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States of America and will on January 20th, 2009, become the 44th President of the USA and only the first African American to hold that high office.

I watched the election retains with my great friend, Blessings Chinsinga in Zomba. We shouted, clapped and thoroughly enjoyed what turned out to be a historic night. If we, who were thousands of miles away from the USA could get so excited and worked up, we can only imagine the emotions that my family and friends in the USA must have been going through, not to mention what the Obama family and the crowds in Chicago must have been experiencing.

Zomba is as excited this morning as the rest of the world about Obama’s victory. I spoke to my Grandfather in Neno this morning and he asked me about the elections in the US where he had heard “munthu wakuda akuima pachisankho”. When I told him Obama, that munthu wakuda, had won, he asked me to extend an invitation to Obama to come and visit. That just touched me to think that even my Grandfather in rural Neno was following this historic election. In his moving acceptance speech, Obama spoke to people beyond the US’ shores “huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world”- he must have been speaking to the likes of my Grandfather. This was a truly global election and has demonstrated the opportunities available to those who work hard for them. I wish him a successful presidency in the years ahead.

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