Freedom from fear

Andy couldn’t sleep last night—was nervous and excited. While I bed hopped with children, he hopped back and forth between the couch and bed, knowing he would have to go to work today and keep fighting off this nasty cold that has left him voiceless. Larygitis on election day didn’t stop us from voting of course; in fact, we voted weeks ago like all the other absentees.

I drove Andy’s ballot to the American embassy where I picked up my own too. Two guards stopped me before the parking lot, made me turn off my car and pop open the hood. Then they walked around looking under the car with a big mirror on the end of a pole. When they were through, they closed the hood, I started the car, and they opened the gate. Once I’d parked and gone inside, I have to show my passport, sign my name and address and phone number, have my stuff scanned, turn off my cell phone and leave it there. Then I go to a different building to cast my vote and give it back to mail in the diplomatic pouch.

But when Finn and I woke up this morning at five, we rushed out to the living room ten minutes before they announced a winner. And though I couldn’t help letting out some whoops and joyful strains of “God bless America, my home sweet home,” it was when John McCain gave his concession speech that the tears started flowing.

What a gift he gives to his country to gracefully accept defeat and to pledge his support to “the man who was my former opponent and will be my president.” Watching the news here in Malawi, where so much of the continental political news is about rulers unwilling to part with power except through violence, I was deeply moved by it, by what my brother Martin calls the genius of the American system: that there’s a campaign, there’s voting, and then we all get up and have breakfast the next day, just the same. (Mart, I got the jist of what you said, yeah? I was running with babes in arms to the gate to meet the carpool when you said that part).

We didn’t have TV for the first presidential debate that happened while were here, but Andy managed to solicit an invitation from a Baylor administrator who works here, to watch it live at 3am in his living room. We were new to the country, to the socioeconomic caste system here. We invited Mohammad, our housekeeper, to come too. It was an awkward mistake, we learned.

But one we repeated willingly this morning just before the Obamas walked onstage. Unbolting the door, Andy ran out on the condi shouting for Mohammad, who at six thirty, was already working around the yard, moving the hose, whacking the hard red dirt with a homemade hoe.

“Do you want to see Obama?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Come and watch. He’s about to speak.”

Mohammad moved to the windows, so he could get a good view of the TV from outside the house.

“No, come inside,” we urge him, and he comes to the living room and stands to the side, behind our furniture.

“Please sit,” we tell him, clearing off pillows and shushing him at the same time because president elect Obama has walked out and is starting to speak. And I love this man who has inspired us, and the Malawian man daring to watch him beside us. Tears stream down our cheeks again because we feel in our hearts the truth he is speaking:

“And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

“And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

“For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

Americans and America can change; the whole world can change. Social caste systems can change. Malawi and the rest of Africa can change too, I want to believe. Even Mohammad can determine his own future, have a chance at liberty and opportunity and unyielding hope, I want to believe.