Since Obama's election as the 44th President of the United States (of America, not the World), and indeed in the months before that, there's been this refrain in certain predictable circles in Kenya and abroad: Don't expect anything from Obama.
It's been as if to say: He's American, you know -- not an African, not a Kenyan, and certainly not a Jaluo Jeuri! He's not one of us! You're hoping against hope! Get real!
But who says we're expecting anything from him? We're expecting everything!
Against the background of all the dysfunctional leadership we have around, bar none -- and after four decades plus of cruel acts of betrayal and selfish narrow-mindedness by our succession of leaders we elected to mind the store -- certainly we in Kenya will not allow ourselves to expect anything less. There's much time -- too much time, even -- to make up for with this sudden turn of Ebony Fortune.
The irony is that those who swear that we, "the people we've been waiting for", will get nothing are not embarrased to hear themselves complain why electric power and a graded road are only now reaching Kogelo. They can't stand a comedian's joke that Dholuo is going to be the language of choice at the US embassy in Nairobi. They can't stand the simple fact that Obama is not from somewhere else.
The point -- in all of this "Great Expectation", all of this "Audacity of Hope" -- is this: It's all right to hope again -- 'cause Obama, a citizen of the world, sez so! Human and fallible though he is, everyone expects everything from him -- and that's all right.
In the end, everyone will settle for whatever he, of the genuine heart, will deliver. That'll be all right too; for who said we, the very same pieces, can't pick up the pieces from there?
It's all right, once again, to be audacious. Obama says. And so do we!
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