American Politics

Everyone here is interested in American Politics. In fact when I have a conversation with a new person I can almost bet that one of the first questions that I will be asked is “what do you think of the death of Osama Bin Laden?” The first night I was here, it was 10 p.m. I hadn’t really slept in over 24 hours and the old man sitting on the couch next to me was asking me this question.

At first I thought his question was about American summer. When he was saying “Osama” I kept hearing summer. I said, yes its hot in the summer in Nebraska. He clearly didn’t like my answer, so after some effort, I realized it was about the defeat of Bin Laden. The general sentiment here is that his death is a good thing, vindication. I usually give an answer like this: “it’s a definite challenge for Christians because we want to be encouraged by the death of an evil person, but Jesus did command us to love our enemies.”

They’ve asked me many times about Obama and if I think he will get reelected. They are following the tornados in the US and pray for those affected. Just about every morning Pastor Mmanga gives us a report from CNN’s headlines, he loves the news, in fact I have heard him list CNN as his hobby. Today’s report was that cell phones are not so good for us and we should hold them away from our heads by 5 centimeters.

There is this guy here whose name is Baraka, the other day I greeted him by calling him Obama, he laughed and laughed, he considered it a great honor to be given this nickname.

I think the interest in America’s news stems from the bombing of the US embassy in Dar Es Salaam in the late 90’s. At that time terrorism had touched this otherwise peaceful country and they feel connected in a very real way to 9-11.

The other day at Uroki Secondary School we were quizzed, do we know the Tanzanian President, or their governmental structure, or their capital city or even the geography of the country? No we do not.

Do they know all of these things about the US? Yes, they do.