Prouder Than Ever To Represent America

It's fitting that I'm in Lilongwe right now to go to the American ambassador's Independence day celebration (he has it a month early because he'll be in America for the real day),it just so happens that tonight we have an even better reason to celebrate our home country...The Nomination of Barack Obama to be the democratic candidate for president. I have never seen a political candidate in my lifetime with as much potential to change the world, and I'm so happy to see that so many people in America see the same thing in Mr. Obama. I have also never seen a candidate that has such an effect on the American public, it seems like he has mobilized and energized my generation in a way that I would have thought was imposable three years ago. He's bringing out people that never even thought about voting, and making passionate believers of them.

The only thing that might be comparable to the excitement in America is the excitement here in Africa! To give you an example the other day I rode my bicycle from my site to Mzuzu to do some repairs. While I was riding through Ekwendeni about 80 kms away from my village,(where nobody knows me or that I'm an American) a women raised her fist and said in slow Malawian broken English, "OH-BAA-MA." You can only imagine the size of the smile that grew across my face as she hid her embarrassed laugh in her her friends chitenge.

Six months ago everybody around my village just laughed at me when I held up my copy of "Dreams From My Father" to show them the picture of the man who I think will be my next president. Everybody, except for Vincent Mpese Gondwe a retired Member of Parliment that lives in Bolero who has become a very close friend of mine. This incredible man has seen the darkest days of Malawian politics, which he still bears in the form of scars on his head from when an attempt was made on his life for making a bold vote in Parliament. He also saw the darkest days in American politics as a student at Harvard in the early 1960's.

When Obama first won the primary in Iowa I rode my bike to Vincent's house to share the good news. He had already heard on BBC and was working on framing a picture of Mr. Obama that he had cut out of a Newsweek magazine, with his added caption "A Symbol of Change." Mr. Gondwe was chuckling as he said, "Daniel I tell you, if that man is sworn in as the American president then all of Africa will change the way it looks at your country."

Now everybody in my village is believing in the possibility of a black man leading America, and changing the world. When they walk into my house and see his picture hanging on my wall under a huge American flag I inherited from another volunteer, they say his name with the same delibrit hopefullness in their voice that that woman had the other day....OH-BA-MA. I'm proud to be a representative of America, and am all too happy to sit down with anybody who will listen and start ranting about this man who I believe has the life-experience to understand the world in a way no previous American president has, and the eloquence to relate that understanding to all American public as a whole, and the integrity to use all that influence to help us find a better way in the world.

I'm so proud to see the excitment of a growing movement in America. A mass awakening from the past eight years of our appathetic slumber, and a new demand for change. I'm also proud to see that his nomination was ensured with the final few delegates from my adoptive state of Montana, and will be confirmed with his official nomination in my home state of Colorado. But I would be most proud to say that I served as a Peace Corps volunteer under President Barack Obama's administration. Let's make that happen now!