Welcome to OBamako: Africa Awaits Obama's Return

[babylonsister]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1909327,00.html


Postcard from Bamako
Welcome to OBamako: Africa Awaits Obama's Return
By Vivienne Walt / Bamako Thursday, Jul. 09, 2009


A Kenyan tout calls on commuters onto a "matatu" (mini-bus) bearing the poster of Barack Obama, in Nairobi.
Simon Maina / AFP / Getty


Hamid Diarra is not a man who hides his passions — and these days one consuming love inspires him as he drives his taxi through the clogged streets of Mali's capital. He's crazy about Barack Obama.

During the final stretch of the presidential election last fall — when Diarra's fantasy of an African American in the White House began to seem probable — he downloaded a new ringtone on his phone, of Obama chanting: "Yes we can! Yes we can!" As the election results rolled in, Diarra joined the celebrations on Bamako's streets, and changed his ringtone again to Obama's victory song by Stevie Wonder, "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," which he has kept ever since. His taxi's dashboard is decorated with stickers of Obama's face. And during the hours he spends chugging through Bamako's streets he has created his own jingles, which he belts out — windows rolled down, fist pumping the air to the rhythm — with a grin on his face: "O-bama! O-bama! Nôtre frère! Nôtre ami!" (See pictures of Barack Obama's family tree.)

Diarra is hardly alone among Africans in thinking of Obama as his brother and friend. On a continent sorely in need of political role models, the U.S. President is a huge icon these days, not to mention a lucrative marketing tool. Bamako's market sellers do a brisk trade in Obama T-shirts, buttons and posters. Obama-love even reaches remote communities with no electricity or television. One day in May, a driver took me 30 miles (50 km) into the Sahara Desert from the northern Mali town of Timbuktu. There in the tiny village of Ber, he unfurled from his trunk a rolled-up poster of Obama smiling under the slogan "Change we can believe in." "It's the most important thing I have," he said, as a group of mostly nomadic Tuareg tribesmen gathered to admire his prized possession. (See the top ten attempts to cash in on Obama.)

But nowhere has the mania reached a more fevered pitch than in Ghana, where Obama is due to arrive on Friday on a one-day trip to Africa — his first as president — direct from this week's G-8 summit in Italy. The market stalls in the capital Accra are brimming with souvenirs, including a button with the words "God's Chosen Presidents," showing a montage of Obama and the country's new President John Atta Mills, who took office in January, just two weeks before Obama's inauguration. "The radio stations continuously mention his visit and play excerpts from his speeches almost non-stop," Ghanaian journalist Ebo Richardson wrote to me in an e-mail on Monday. "There are posters everywhere featuring Barack and Michelle, and everyone I know plans to join the procession to catch a glimpse of one of the most inspirational leaders Africa has ever spawned!"

snip//

In the end, the biggest impact Obama makes during his trip to Africa might be the enormous accomplishment he has already achieved — getting elected president. Even though that alone will not be enough to oust dictators and usher in new democracies, it is sure to keep Diarra singing out of the window of his taxi: "O-bama! O-bama!"

[monmouth]

1. I think I hear heads exploding from FReeperville about the "Kenyan"

as we read this post...LOL.

[lamp_shade]

2. Ohhhh... I can't wait to see the film clips.

[Clio the Leo]

3. Now THOSE pictures will be AWESOME!!!! NT

[lapfog_1]

4. Uh, first trip to Africa???

Egypt is in Africa, last time I checked.

I know that ethnically and politically, Egypt is possibly more closely aligned with the "middle east", but geographically, and historically, it's all African.