The US Presidential Election Live from Nigeria

I can't actually live blog because the internet connection comes and goes, but here's my pseudo-live blog.

9:35pm local time - Daddy Bunny and I are at the US Embassy sponsored Election Watch at the Cultural Center in Abuja, Nigeria.  We arrived almost 4 hours ago.   There was a mock election for non-US citizens.  The results will be announced later.  There is also a photo-op corner with cardboard cutouts of McCain and Obama.  The Obama one has been in the center of the re carpet most of the night; The McCain one has been standing in the corner.

I'm a nervous wreck, hence Daddy Bunny being here.  Luckily, some of my friends have been around to cause diversion and introduce me to more people.  For awhile I was just sitting and watching the screens, but that was getting me too many phone numbers from random people who would sit down next to me.

We have three big screens, currently showing BBC, CNN and NTA.  The NTA screen was earlier showing Aljabeezer.  The sound goes with whichever screen is providing election coverage at the time.  It provides us with a neat global perspective on the elections.

 

10:02pm local time - First polls close in about 2 hours!  The mock election poll already closed.  Only Nigerian's voted - 500 ballots.  McCain received 24 votes.  When that was announced people clapped and yelled "who voted for them?"  Obama got 432 votes.  More cheering, very loud.  The announcer couldn't go on for awhile.  Other contestants had 5 votes split.  Again, questions from the crowd of "who voted for them?"  Time for more Jeopardy.

CNN keeps showing a weather map and I can't figure out if the temperatures are in C or F.  20 C seems far too hot for WI in November, but 30F seems too cold for FL!

 

 

Tuesday, November Fourth

This is probably the most historic day of my life, of many of our lives, depending on how young we are. I'm sure there's election stuff on plenty of blogs. That's nice. I have something more important, something else momentous: Mommy's out of teenagers!

Happy Birthday Munchkinhead!!!

(Pictures aren't working; I'll fix it later)
Part Pirate,

Part Vampire,



All Fun!



I love you little munchkinhead. Happy Second 19th Birthday ;)



P.S. And a special birthday shout out to Ba Tim!

Happy Couple Days After All Hallow's Day?

Dara, Feyi and I carved our pumpkin on Saturday.  And we finally got to light it tonight!  Their mom liked it so much she brought out her camera and took pictures of the girls with it after they had their baths!

Dara and Feyi each drew an eye, and luckily, they both wanted the same type of mouth.  I did the nose because that part of the pumpkin was bad and had to come out.

The pumpkins here are shaped a little differently than back home, so we actually did it sideways.  That gave the pumpkin the best base to stand on its own.  It's also more of a peachy color than orange, but that doesn't surprise me.  None of the food here is the same color as at home.  Makes me wonder what we do to our fruits and veggies! 

The girls had more fun playing with the insides of the pumpkin than anything else.  But that's probably because I wouldn't let them do any of the cutting.  (And I only had a big knife, which made those circles in the eyes rather difficult.)  Dara mashed a whole bunch of pumpkin guts into a ball and was playing catch with it.  Luckily, we were carving the pumpkin outside.

So far it hasn't melted, but we're in the dry season here, so that might have something to do with it.

Vote for President of Goldenrail!

I have heard so often, "I am going to vote for candidate X, because candidate Y will raise my taxes."  Or, "I'm going to vote for candidate X, because candidate Y thinks my quarter of a million dollar income makes me rich."  (I've got news for you, it does.)  People, we are voting for President of the United States, not President of You!

Yes, we all have a right to vote for the candidate we think will do the best job.  And, if you haven't already, please make sure you go out Tuesday to exercise that right.  But, remember, we need the person who will best represent the interests of our country, not the person who's going to look after your interests the best.  That's your job.

There's a lot to be concerned about right now, the economy, the war, the environment.  The best weapon we can have in the war on terror is a leader the rest of the world respects.  That leader will represent our country, will represent all of us collectively.  If he is respected, our country will be too.

So, go out and vote, for President of the United States, not for President of You.

A Horse of a Different Color

It's interesting how things can be so similar and yet so different.

Back home, we have this saying about how one rotten apple will spoil the whole barrel.  Well, here they talk about the barrel of rotten apples spoiling the one good one.  Guess that says something about the level of corruption...

 

photo credit:

multi-colored zorses cc from www.spotsnstripes.com/ZorseInfo.htm