Obamaverse

  If Barak Obama doesn't win reelection in 2012, I'm pretty sure he could easily get elected President of Kenya. Obama is huge here. There are Obama Cafes everywhere, and we see him on hats, bags, shirts, etc. There is even a drink called "the Obama" (a large mug of fruit juice). I think it's safe to say that Obama is the most popular politician in Kenya, and is more popular there than he is in the U.S.
  This near universal love of Barak Obama is a surprising difference between the popular cultures of the U.S. and Eastern Africa. There are many others. One of the most obvious is the importance of religion. In the places we have travelled, there are churches everywhere, mostly Christian but also many Mosques. Christian music is extremely popular, and numerous television and radio stations are run by religious groups or devoted to playing Christian music. On Sunday you can hear loud music and singing emanating from simple churches, and throughout the day prayers are broadcast over loudspeakers from mosques.
  Another major difference that we quickly noticed is that people are generally more laid back here. People do not seem as busy, or in as much of a hurry. In addition to making it easier for us to find willing respondents to our survey, this has led to some interesting challenges. For example, when we ask villagers how much farther we have to walk or drive before we reach a respondent, they almost always tell us we are almost there, just a little farther. In many cases we will not reach our destination for over an hour after being assured that we are "almost there." We have had days where we have had to drive 3 or more hours to get to a village, but we have never heard anything other than "you are almost there, just a little farther."
  Family structures are also much different here than in the U.S. We rarely see young men at the houses we go to, although there are plenty of children and women of all ages. We are told that most girls are married around the ages of 13 to 15. Men must pay a bridal price in order to marry, and as a result most men do not get married until they are much older. Most young men leave the villages to find work in cities, while girls stay either in their village or the village of the man they are married to. It is not uncommon for a wealthy man to have multiple wives - one of the people we worked with said his father had 6 wives and 30 children. The families are also much larger than a typical American family. We are told that families of ten children or so are not uncommon, and this seems about right based on what we have seen.
  A few other differences include the popularity of soccer (every village has a pitch), and the number of bike riders. Most people don't have cars, so people will load belongings and people (we have seen up to four at a time) on their bikes. The most popular music seems to be raggae and rap, and while we recognize many songs as American, many others are clearly from Africa. One really nice thing about Africa is that they have channels that play just music videos - probably like what used to exist in the U.S. before someone decided it would be more interesting to videotape people living in a house together. People dress very similarly to how we dress in America. And I don't just mean this from a fashion standpoint - American university and sports apparell is extremely common (Bufallo swimming, Eastern Washington football, etc). I have also seen shirts with slogans such as "Girl Scouts of Colorado." I'm not exactly sure where these come from, but it definitely seems a bit strange.
  One other important difference: there is no comparison between the airlines here and those at home. The Kenyan and Tanzanian airlines are so much better. We have had no major delays, security is quick and service has been great. There are some things that I miss about home, but the airlines are not one of them.