Obama Mania

For months everyone in this country has been obsessed with Obama. They no next to nothing about him, but it doesn’t matter. What they do know is that he lived in this country when he was a child, and that’s enough for them. He’s one of their own, and they love him for it.
What’s crazy to me is how far they are willing to go in their blind admiration. They are totally smitten, and it baffles me. Books everywhere, written by locals mind you, proclaim him as “the white-hearted president” and “the greatest American president since Lincoln”…and all this began before he was even inaugurated!

But today I saw something that takes the cake. This country will be holding its own presidential election in a month or so, and the campaigning is intense. You thought it was hard to choose between 2 candidates? Try 20-30! Posters, banners, television ads, walls littered with faces—it’s mind boggling.

But today as I was riding on a bus to another city I saw a television ad of Obama’s campaign footage…used to get votes for one of the local candidates! I was toward the back of the bus and couldn’t hear, so I don’t know if they were comparing the candidate’s “white heart,” passion for “change,” or what but whatever it was about, Obama had more “face-time” than the actual candidate!

I honestly don’t know if it was from shock, amazement, or the shear novelty of it all, but all I could do was laugh. I suppose there are some aspects of the culture that I’ll never understand.