Yes We Can

This night was nothing less than spiritual.
Equipped with two large bottles of caffeinated cola, I tuned into CNN and prepared for a long night. It began with the anticipation of the coming elections, but soon gave way to jittery excitement. By the time Kentucky was projected and results for Virginia and Indiana announced, I began to harbor a slow dread that ignored the low reporting rate. The ride was just beginning.

This was a night that I hope to remember for as long as I am. At 5AM, when Virginia was projected in favor of the blue, and Obama was soon declared the next president of the United States of America, I was in a daze. I whooped and hollered. I didn’t know what to do with myself. The Cameroonians who had risen to see the results faded away into the muffled periphery as I absorbed what I was seeing: the screaming crowds; Jesse Jackson’s tears; “hold on… help is on the way.” When John McCain delivered his concession speech, I was moved by his graciousness, and the sincerity that he revealed when speaking about his love for his country. I felt for him, but even more, I felt relief: it was over.

But as Barack Obama began to speak, every part of me listened and heard and shuttered with the wonder of it all. As the speech came to a close, it left me overwhelmed in its wake. My hands around my mouth, eyes fixed upon the screen, I wept uncontrollably. It hit me like a truck. Hot tears swelled in my eyes, then spilled down my face and past my fingers, unstoppable. I felt excited and freed and victorious and so goddamned hopeful it hurt. It felt like I had been exorcised, that great burdens had been pulled out by the salt of my tears.

From behind the guesthouse television, the sun rose over the Wouri river and daylight streamed in through the wrought-iron bars of the window. It’s a new day. Yes we can.