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Published: September 12th 2008
of Africa.
Barack Obama is the most popular person in Africa, and so we thought we should mention a little bit about what people over here think about him, given the heated political battle back home. There are actually fairly few American tourists in Tanzania at the moment, and so, whenever anyone finds out where we're from, we're frequently asked, incredulously, if we think Obama can win. The people here are VERY excited. This we were expecting. But we were not expecting Obama to generate so much goodwill toward America even before the election. The people here are simply excited that an African man would even have the opportunity to become president of our country. In other words, the fact that he's gotten as far as he has means all the world to them - whether he's elected or not. Don't get me wrong - if he is elected, it will do incredible things for US - African relations. But the goodwill the people here feel toward America right now is not necessarily contingent on that electoral outcome. We were surprised by this.
Some examples of our Obama encounters: porters carrying massive loads up the side of Kilimanjaro sometimes carry radios broadcasting African music. During the commercial breaks, you can catch soundbites from Obama speeches. When we were eating in our kitchen tent on Kili, the porters were in the next room listening to the news on the radio. A hushed silence would fall over the group and, when the broadcast would end, we would hear a bunch of Swahili punctuated by "Obama" "Obama" "Obama"! We also ran across a tourist souvenir cart in the middle of a Tanzanian shanty town proudly proclaiming to be the "Barack Obama Shop" even though it did not contain any Obama goods. Here in stone town, there is a central square with an Obama portrait hanging on a tree. A man approached us at the tree and wanted to sell us Obama t-shirts. Obama is everywhere. I wonder if he knows it.
But we digress. Today we had our spice tour, where we visited a plantation run by local villagers where they grew all sorts of exotic spices. We then had a typical Zanzibarian lunch in a local home, prepared by a local villager just for us. Then we visited the Jozani Forest and saw the Red Colobus Monkeys. For dinner, more seafood. We also saw Freddie Mercury's birthplace and Dr. Livingstone's house. Tomorrow, we travel to Chumbe island for some snorkeling. We will probably not be able to provide another update until after we arrive in Egypt, which could be several days. Thanks for the updates from home!
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Zach and Jen
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Thanks!
Thank you so much for taking the time to post this blog... it is so interesting and good to hear from you all the way from Africa. We are glad that you are having a good time!! It is amazing that you were just wandering around "with" all of those animals!!