Watching Obama from South Africa. On TV.

 

I was informed mid-morning that Obama’s speech would be covered by the network television station, SABC here in South Africa.  (As an aside, the reason that I found out had to do with a friend’s coworker being upset that his ‘soapies’ would not be airing).  Personally, it was an opportune time for the inauguration speech being that I am spending this week in Seleteng (one of the two villages where I live) and in Seleteng there is a chance I can have access to a television.  (In the other village where I stay, Phoshiri, I have yet to see a TV which is not at all surprising considering electricity is less than 18 months old there).

The coverage was supposed to start at 6 pm here (11am in the eastern states).  Upon seeing my host mother Gillian (her Christian name) this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that she was as excited as I about watching the inauguration.  As I finished up some things in my room a few minutes prior to 6, Gillian came by my door somewhat flustered telling me that her TV set was not working and no picture was coming through.  This has happened before and though one of the neighborhood boys seems to be able to fix it with relative ease, the apparent simple solution continued to evade me as I jiggled wires behind the set in vain.  Gillian watched me briefly and then took my arm and said “come now, let’s go.  We will watch at Lolo’s.”  With that, we left the house and walked down the dirt roads to where her daughter-in-law stays. 

Grateful and a bit baffled to be able to not only have a backup venue in the rural village where I could watch this historical US inauguration but also to have a steward as intent as I, it took me a few minutes to adjust to the uniqueness of the situation.  About the time soon-to-be former-President Bush ambled down the aisle solo, I realized fully that I was watching the new US President take office with two older South African women to whom English is a first language of neither.  As I glanced over at them, faces plastered with grins, I felt a sense of pride as an American.  And this, I must somewhat shamefully admit, is not a feeling I could pinpoint having had too often during my first quarter century. 

And entertained was I after fielding Gillian and Lolo’s questions – which they delivered with such a genuine curiosity: “Was (the woman who was) Diane Feinstein Hillary Clinton? Who is Obama’s wife?  Where are Obama’s Children?  What is that waterway behind the first group of people?  Is it winter in Washington?  Is Obama a lawyer?  Was Bush a soldier?  What was Bush before he was a President then?  How did they get all those people on that lawn?  Or is it an outdoor stadium?” 

As the song “Air and Other Simple Gifts” (at least, I think that was the title) performed by Yo Yo Ma and company came to a finish, Gillian literally stood up clapping vigorously and proclaiming “I love music.”  As Obama walked to the podium, she said “so dignified in that coat.”  And as the news narrator for SABC said that a recent poll found that the majority of Americans think Bush has been the worst President ever, Gillian laughed.  She actually laughed.  So did Lolo.  (And to that I must mention: gathering humor from a 2^nd language is a skill of which the difficulty I have lately grown very appreciative).

As Obama spoke, Gillian and Lolo exchanged observations in their native tongue of Sepedi.  And I listened more intently to Obama than I anticipated I would listen to an inauguration speech (come to think of it – that seems to happen rather frequently with me upon hearing his speeches).  A magnanimous speech indeed, I was left again with that newly minted feeling of being proud of being an American. 

Nearly immediately upon the speech’s conclusion, Gillian turned to me and asked “did he talk about HIV and AIDS?”  The question caught me a bit off guard and I answered “no.  Well not directly but he did talk about health care.”  Gillian said “ahh, but he cares about it.  He cares about it.”

Several times during the evening, the two women said that the crowds reminded them of Mandela taking office in South Africa following apartheid in 1994.  Although they did not understand all of Obama’s speech or accompanying commentary (as I didn’t understand nearly all of their accompanying commentary), they were quite visibly excited.  Upon thanking Gillian for inviting me to accompany her to watch the inauguration, she said that “I couldn’t have missed it.”  I told her that I was a bit surprised that it aired on the regular, non-cable TV station and she said “Why is that?  Oh, America has done so many great things for South Africa.  It is very important to show.”

And then I felt that strangely novel nudge of being proud to be an American once more.      

 

~ by bernish on January 20, 2009.