election night

Barack Hussein Obama is our 44th President-Elect!!!!! (I sincerely hope I nailed the spelling on his name…) I am very much excited about this. Do you know what this means to the developing world? In this country where there is both blatent and latent racism, people have told volunteers that there was no way Obama would win because he is African American, this is a powerful statement. We Americans are inching toward being truly colorblind!! We’re not there yet, but this is a great step. I cannot say how proud I am. His heritage, too, is of great encouragement to the developing world. If the child of a Kenyan and an American can become the president of the United States, then there truly is vast opportunity for all peoples on this planet! The message says, have hope! Shoot for the stars, you just might make it!!

I am currently at in-service training, or IST, and that means that we have access to the internet and to televisions every day. Last night, we set up camp in the sitting room in the hotel where we are being put up for the training. There’s a 5-hour difference between us and the eastern seaboard of the United States, which means that the declaration of Obama’s election happened at 4 am for us, and his acceptance speech wasn’t until nearly 5 am. So, yes, we stayed up all night long. It was fun! We drew ourselves a map and colored it in as the election results came in. The majority of us had already voted by absentee ballot, so yes, we did participate in this election. And in some states, like North Carolina, it’s so close even absentee ballots are needed to determine the result! The result of this is that there are some very tired PCVs wandering around like zombies this morning. J I myself snagged between 3-5 hours of sleep, I’m not really sure.

In any event, this is history, this is our history, to my generation, this is ours!!! Ours to celebrate and, as our new president-elect said in his acceptance speech, our opportunity to make change in the world. It is also an opportunity for all ages, but for my generation this is our first testing. Let us all remember that hardship is an opportunity, because it means change, and change can go either way. It is entirely up to us what we do with our lives. I encourage everyone to make the most of the time given them. This has been inspiring and motivating for me, and I hope it is for you, too!