2008 Letter from Malawi
posted by on November 3 at 23:20 PM
Hi Eli,I’m an education volunteer in a rural area of southern Malawi.
Throughout this election - during the primary and the general - almost everyone here in the village of Namitembo has been paying close attention to Obama’s progress. Often times, when I go out for a morning walk, I’ll hear the latest election news from a teacher, one of my students, the local tailor, or one of the many, many subsistence farmers that lives around here. Just this morning, a shoesmith from the nearby trading centre stopped me to ask if I thought Obama could win McCain’s home state of Arizona.
I filled out my ballot in the 7th grade classroom where I teach part-time, and all the students (along with the headmaster and a teacher from the class next door) huddled around to watch. The BBC World Service will be issuing regular updates on the radio as the polls close tonight; I know quite a few people here who’ll be staying up late to listen.
—John
Send me a letter about your voting experience here.
Yes, Obama brings huge goodwill and immediate, immense and important symbolic change, but hell no, we don't settle for that, we want real change, too, esp. toward and in Africa with the many cases of genocide, starvation, mass rape and, I hear, about 50,000 cases of actual slavery (!!!!) in Niger.
Hopefully under Pres. Obama (a) Africa will get a lot more world attention and (b) this kind of fucking shit will fucking stop. Or the rest of the world should make it stop.
There's no "excepting Africa" exception to "never again"-- right??
Unity--
My nearby trading center charged me way too much for a lemon, a frozen pizza and a couple of beers! highway robbery! I hate QFC...
TTN:
Dear Sir/M,
I am Mr.David Mark. an Auditor of a BANK OF THE NORTH
INTERNATIONAL,ABUJA
(FCT). I have the courage to Crave indulgence for
this important business
believing that you will never let me down
either now or in the future. Some
years ago, an American Mining
consultant/ contractor with the Nigeria National
Petroleum Corporation,
made a numbered time (fixed)deposit for twelve calendar
months, valued
$12M.USD (TWELVE MILLION US DOLLARS) in an account. On maturity,
The
bank sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no
reply.
After a month, The bank sent another reminder and finally his
contract
employers, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation wrote
to inform the bank
that he died without MAKING A WILL, and all attempts
by the American Embassy to
trace his next of kin was fruitless. I
therefore, made further investigation and
discovered that the
beneficiary was an immigrant from Jamaica and only recently
obtained
American citizenship. He did not decla re any kin or relations in all
his official documents, including his Bank deposit paper work. This
money total
amount$12M.USD ( TWELVE MILLION US DOLLARS)is still sitting
in my bank as
dormant Account. No one will ever come forward to claim
it, and according to
Nigerian Banking policy, after some years, the
money will revert to the
ownership of the igerian Government if the
account owner is certified dead. This
is the situation, and my proposal
is that I am looking for a foreigner who will
stand in as the next of
kin to beneficiary, and OPEN a Bank Account abroad to
facilitate the
transfer of this money. This is simple, all you have to do is to
OPEN
an account anywhere in the world and send me its detail for me to
arrange
the proper money transfer paperwork, and facilitate the
transfer.The money will
then be paid into this Account for us to share
in the ratio of 60% for me, 35 %
for you and 5% for expenses that might
come up during transfer process. There is
no risk at all, and all the
paper work for this transaction will be done by me
using my position
and connections in the banks in Nigeria. This business
transaction is
guaranteed.And the first phase of the transfer will be ($4M.USD)
FOUR
MILLION DOLLARS as advised by our insider in the bank.If you are
interested, please reply immediately through my personal email sending
the
following details: (1) Your Full Name/Address (2) Your Private
Telephone/fax
Number. Please observe the utmost confidentiality, and be
rest assured that this
transaction would be most profitable for both of
us because I shall require your
assistance to invest some of my share
in your country. I look forward to your
earliest reply.
Yours,
Mr.David
Mark.
This meme, out of your election memes (jewbicil?) is the one that is amazing. It deserves attention and, dare I say, its very own website/paper/book. The antidote to Sorry Everybody perhaps.
As hard on you as this aNONymous commenter has been in the last year, I'd like to relent that overall your coverage has been thoughtful, insightful, challenging, provocative, and new. A job well done, Eli!! Sincerely.
The 21st century starts today.
This one made me weepy. Thanks for writing, John, and good luck with your work.
People have been pretty excited in Ghana, when I was there, as well. But now I'm in Cotonou, Benin and nobody seems to understand why I'm so panicked about getting a hotel room with CNN and WiFi. They'll probably be puzzled when I order a coffee at 11pm, too (not that I need caffeine stimulation tonight).
John, your seattle family was so glad to see this note! I remember when I was there in the summer of 2004 and the election was also a hot topic. It really brought home the realization of how disconnected we are in the US to world politics. It is amazing how a remote, rual area of malawi knows more about america's politics than most americans know about canada's or mexico's. thanks so much for your post!!! we can't wait to see you!
I would love to read an update from John.
I would love to read an update from John.
Thanks for the note, John! It truly is amazing that Obama has inspired this kind of interest around the world, and the hope and good will that I am certain goes with it. Now that he's elected, we can all roll up our sleeves and get back to work, trying to make a better world -- and feel there's a little more momentum going for us all.