OBAMA FEVER BIG IN EAST AFRICA!

‘’Ever since you moved to Europe you hate America!”

My teen-aged grandson hurled the accusation three years ago as we argued politics in my kitchen outside Stockholm. Obama was not yet the hope heard ‘round the world.

In fact, so many American ex-pats held little hope then. Bush had been re-elected despite our efforts, and all we wanted was for the embarrassment and shame to end. Living outside what my Swedish husband once called “the American bubble” put us on the front-line for criticism of our government’s actions at home and around the world. The empathy heaped on us after 9/11 was squandered; some of us actually lied while traveling, claiming to be Canadian.

Today, there’s no need. My “Obama in ‘08” button is a giveaway during yet another visit to Tanzania, East Africa to visit my school and orphanage at Bibi Jann Children’s Care Trust near Dar es Salaam. I haven’t experienced such an international ice-breaker since trading JFK coins with Peruvians in 1977.

Obama frenzy is hotter than the Dar days.

In the warren of crafts stalls at Mwenge, one store sports a new sign: The Barack Obama We Hope Shop. At the police station where I report my stolen bag, the cop begs for my button (but I’ve already lost enough!).

On the ferry to Zanzibar, a young man confides he actually met the Big Man in Muncie, Indiana while visiting there. “Yes, my country needs him,” I reply.

“The WORLD needs Obama,” corrects another passenger.

“I’m Canadian, and we’d all vote for him if we could,” offers a balding man with a seasick bag at the ready.

In the marketplace, a man smiles in recognition and follows me, calling, “Mrs. Obama, Mrs. Obama!” A tall Masaii tribesman beams brightly above the colorful beadwork at his neck, hails me with his spear and delivers an unlikely campaign speech in English.

I’d once explained to my grandson that patriotism wasn’t automatically swallowing whatever the President said. Rather, it was ensuring that the U.S. Constitution was upheld, respected. Now, I wished I could convey to Americans back home that their votes affect not only us, but the world.


Standing in our embassy in Dar awaiting my emergency replacement passport, I joined two Tanzanian guards watching the vice presidential debates on an overhead television. The pair was rapt, glancing from the screen only when I snorted disagreement or cheered approval.
I suddenly wished all Americans were as interested in the campaign, as well-informed as people half a world away.

Back home in Sweden, I’m visiting my step-children in Old Stockholm when I overhear a American accent. “Have you voted?” I interrupt in passing. “Already have,” the young man answers, not even breaking his stride.” Without having to ask, I know for whom. Outside the military, ex-pat Republicans are as rare as a smiling security official.

And in Goteborg on the west coast, my friend Beth and I commiserate in disbelief about our brothers – hers in North Carolina, mine in Alabama. Both have swallowed the propaganda that Obama is actually a Muslim, funded by terrorists intent on taking over the U.S. Government from the inside. “Have aliens stolen his brain?” Beth muses.

Yet in Holland, two Americans abroad for their first time wonder whether I fear my Muslim friends in Tanzania. They were the first to comfort me after 9/11, I explain patiently, the first to lend me money recently when I was robbed. The “M word” does not automatically translate to the “T word”, I long to shout at people like them and my brother.

Today, there’s more than my Obama button drawing nods. I sport a gray, Tanzanians For Obama T-shirt, his face tri-colored in green, yellow and black like the Tanzanian flag.

But my sentiment – my patriotic HOPE – is strictly red, white and blue.

DOCUMENTARY FINISHES FILMING!

A long-planned dream is coming true: A documentary film about the school and GRANDMA-2-GRANDMA program of Bibi Jann Children's Care Trust!

I was in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania late Sept.29-Oct. 7 to be interviewed and filmed by Anne Macksoud, John Ankele and Nick Blair of Old Dog Documentaries. They specialize in films on social issues. We also welcomed African-Americans from a similar program in The Bronx, also featured in the film.

What a shock Dar and the village of Mbagala were for these street-savvy city folk: big bugs, squat toilets, different foods. But they loved meeting our grandmas and kids, dinner at the American Ambassador's home, and a safari through Mikumi Wildlife Park. Groups of our "bibis" and kids came along for the various outings, including the ferry boat ride to Zanzibar, which the Americans missed when they decided to return home early.

The documentarians are enthusiastic about the upcoming film, and are graciously cutting a smaller version for us to show for fund-raising. Hopefully, you'll soon be able to see us on TV - or at one of the premieres we hope to hold in New York City, Dar, Portland OR and Stockholm.

Our American visitors were so touched by the poverty yet goodness that they found among the Africans, that they left clothes behind and are now gathering goods to ship to Tanzania. Enjoy some photos below.

PREPARING FOR AMERICAN VISITORS

The excitement is growing, as Americans around the world prepare to descend on Dar es Salaam and our GRANDMA-2-GRANDMA program.

The first week of October, we'll welcome several African-American grandmothers and their grandchildren from the Presbyterian Senior Services grandma apartment project in New York City. They are visiting - and perhaps even discovering their roots - as part of the documentary film project mentioned below. They'll spend at least two days with their counterparts, as well as tour Dar and even take a safari to an animal park.

Black Americans often think they will blend right in visiting African countries, but many I know have been surprised at how it takes more than skin color to blend in. Why? We Americans - no matter what our ethnic heritage - give ourselves away with our openness, style of dress (tennis shoes, shorts, logo T-shirts, baseball caps) and our tendency to be a little loud!

Here in Sweden, where I live, it's fun to pick out the Americans among the many tourists sightseeing in Stockholm. And I'm usually right - tho sometimes I encounter a Canadian.

The first two weeks of February, Americans who lives overseas - as well as some from Oregon - will join us to open the new bibi house, tour Dar, visit the same Mikumi park, and ferry to Zanzibar.

Get ready for a life-changing trip, friends!

COME ON SAFARI WITH BIBI JANN!

Don't miss this unique, personal, inexpensive travel opportunity to see the best of Africa as you've always wanted to! All Bibi Jann sponsors and supporters are invited. See information at bottom.

YOU OUTTA BE IN PICTURES...

Cameras were rolling in early March as orphans and bibis chronicled their sad stories of loss to AIDS.

But children singing, dancing, studying and playing were also captured by Old Dog Documentaries, Inc., an American film production company, at our project in Mbagala outside Dar es Salaam.

“The Grandmother to Grandmother Documentary Film Project” is a collaboration involving Dartmouth Medical School, Dartmouth College’s John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Bibi Jann Children’s Care Trust, The Grandparent Family Apartments Project (New York City), and the documentarians.

In late August, several African-American grandmothers and their grandchildren will travel from the Bronx to to Dar to meet their counterparts. I'll be there too, welcoming sister Americans and being interviewed myself.

The documentary - to be shown on television and in universities - will show the commonalties of grandmothers who have taken over the raising of their grandchildren because the young parents are on drugs, in prison or victims of the AIDS epidemic.

"We were all inspired by the positive images of the trip which are filling 15 hours of video tape," documentarian Anne Macksoud said after four and a half days of filming.

She continues: "When we got to Mbagala and met the grandmothers, we realized that our idea of bringing them back to NYC was not realistic - we had not imagined the conditions of poverty that we would see. Resources spent for a trip to NYC could better be spent on food."

Instead, they hope to film the Americans joining the African bibis in their Saturday craft-making sessions - and taking some lessons in batik-making and weaving. We may also take everyone on a field trip to a nearby animal park, the beach, etc.

How exciting! My hope is the Americans will "discover their roots" and feel a sense of kinship, and the Africans will realize even further what a caring and friendly nation we are.

Old Dog has graciously offered to cut a shorter version of the film for us to use for fundraising-purposes for GRANDMA-2-GRANDMA (known locally as BIBI-2-BIBI).