Cook has been in the tourist industry in Kenya for forty years and has seen it go through some dramatic ups and downs. Following the bombing of the United States Embassy in Nairobi in 1998, and then the terrible riots after the December 2007 elections, American tourists stopped coming to Kenya. With Barack Obama's very strong connection to Kenya (his father is from the Luo tribe from the Kisumu area of Lake Victoria) there is great optimism there that he will become the next President of the United States and that this will have a beneficial effect on the country. “Here in Kenya there is great excitement at the prospect of the son of a Kenyan becoming President of the USA. Suddenly everyone from within 100 miles of Kisumu has discovered they are related to Obama's father and President Obama will discover that he now has a very huge “extended family” in the African tradition who will all be expecting support from their kinsman who has made it to the top! Seriously though, we expect that the US State Dept is likely to revise its travel warning which currently puts off many Americans from coming here on safari. And we expect President Obama to be just about the first US President since Teddy Rooseveldt's hunting trip to make a visit to Kenya, which could help to encourage many more US citizens to follow his example.” Henrietta Block is from Atlanta, Georgia, but now lives in Kenya. Her concern is that an attempt will be made on Obama's life, should he become the next President. “There have been several attempts by white supremicists that have been thwarted - it has been in the press in the US and in Kenya. I think here there is great excitement that one of the locals could be US president, as you might imagine. I personally would vote for McCain (if I had registered). I am not happy about either candidate actually. I just don't know what Obama really is about!” Roger Sylvester is a businessman in Kenya's tourist industry. He said: “The Bush Administration has actually given more money to Africa than any other US administration. So we should be happy with him. However, most of Africa can't stand Bush. They are very excited at the prospect of Barack Obama becoming President because his grandmother lives here, just outside Kisumu. She is being so harassed by the media that they have had to barricade her compound to keep them away! We have had 8 years of an administration which has made US relations with other countries steadily worse; we are all ready for change and Obama can only be good for tourism in Kenya.” Representing the younger generation of Americans living in the Middle East, Rhiannon Kelso is firmly pro Obama and has no doubt at all that he will win. “Initially, I was with Hillary, but that was more because I simply wanted to see a woman be the President of the United States. We lead the world in so many things, but in this category, we have fallen behind. I want Barak Obama to be the next President of the United States because I think it is a wonderful and scary thing at the same time to, by all rational accounts, elect a President who is NOT ready for the job. We haven't seen a leader like him for a long time and nothing less than a leader could have waltzed through a national election and usurp Hillary Clinton and John McCain, (as the polls now tell us) at the same time. And he will win by a landslide. He is a leader, and he is also a thinker. A president needs to know how to hire great people and dissect the information those people give him/her to make decisions, and the US is desperate for young blood. On Tuesday, 4th November 2008, Barak Obama will make history, and America, and indeed the world, will look forward to brighter days!” Jim Bristol is from Florida and has been in Jeddah working for Saudia since 1978. His sentiments on the Bush administration bring back memories of the Vietnam era when Americans were divided into pro-war and anti-war factions who despised each other. “Now it seems like we're going through the same thing again. We Americans are divided into pro-war and anti-war groups who despise each other. Many of us feel sheer revulsion at the Bush administration. Here is Obama, representing everything that is good about America, a man of warmth and decency, and I feel a kind of warm glow of pride in my fellow Americans for supporting him. I was terribly disappointed at the American people for reelecting Bush in 2004, and now it looks like they will elect a candidate we can be proud of to be our president. To make it even more exciting, Obama represents the possibility that we Americans can get over our single biggest flaw, our history of racism. If we actually elect a Black person as President, we send a message to everyone, to Black Americans, to the world and to ourselves, that we can move beyond this terrible flaw that has been a part of who we are, from the earliest days of slavery right up to the present. However, although I also fully expect to be terribly disappointed. Obama doesn't have the Washington connections and advisors who can pull the strings and make the government work the way it needs to. I expect him to flounder. In fact, I'm dreading the possibility of seeing him fail miserably.” Naomi, Jim's wife, doesn't share his concerns. “His running mate, Joe Biden, has spent many years in the Senate and can give valuable advice. I want Obama to win because to me his life and philosophy represent the American Dream and the true American values. His father abandoned the family when he was young and for many years he was raised by his single mother and grandparents. His family instilled in him the ideals of hard work and perseverance which led him to Harvard Law school. On graduation, rather than accept a job with any number of prestigious law firms, he chose to become a community organizer in Chicago. I am proud of the way he has conducted his campaign. His political ads focus on who he is and what he stands for rather than one attacking his opponent. I hope that this election shows that America is ready for a black President, but I am concerned about his safety. Another American living in Jeddah is Sam Pugh; he is a Procurement specialist in the Aviation Industry and also supports the democrats. “I voted about 3 weeks ago by absentee ballot. Like a lot of other people, I am looking for change. The Republicans have run these things for the past eight years and there are many countries in the world who don't think highly of the US right now so we need to see something a little bit different. I don't think the man himself can make these changes; it is his surrounding cast that is going to be the key to advising the president on what he should and should not be doing. I wanted to see a different party and different people giving advice to the future President. Because right now, how goes the US, goes the rest of the world - so everybody is suffering now. So something has to be done, something has to be changed.” Howell from Pennsylvania is currently working with the Saudi Royal Air Force and also supports the Democratic Party. He is especially concerned about the bad opinion that other countries in the world have of the United States. “I have been in the Kingdom for 26 years and when I first got here in 1982, I was living in the City and I could jog everywhere, and when the people found out you were from America they would say “Welcome, welcome”. You kind of hesitate to run around the city now, you don't what they are feeling, or who you might run into, that might want to make an example out of an American. Overall, we need a change in the US and I think Obama and the Democrat party can bring about a change for the best and improve the opinion that other countries, including those such as Britain and France, have of America.” There are rumours that if Barack Obama doesn't win the presidential election, there will be riots in Kenya again. But, judging by opinion polls, Kenya can look forward to an era of prosperity with one of their sons in charge of the United States. __
