Politics

Some of you have asked about how Malians(in general) view the US elections and what we are hearing, through local media, about the primaries. Basically, and this is generalized, Malians don't like "Bushi" as he's referred to here. They say he "wants to avenge his father and will sell his people for oil."
So they are excited by the primaries. Hilary Clinton, not so exciting, although they did love Bill. I think part of the reason is that a female head of state is nothing new in Africa. Its happened before. But Barak Obama, well, thats something else entirely. "Il est noir!" The tell me and ask skeptically if Americans would ever have a black president. When they find out his father is Kenyan, well, he's even better then. The foreign press I see seems to wonder if he's our savior.

It just is such a good reminder to me about how self absorbed our country is. Seriously, even being here, I couldn't tell you 1/10th of the information of Malian politics that Malians can tell you about ours...