Politics from Abroad

I hadn't been putting forth much effort to keep up with the election news. I spent my whole weekend camping on a beautiful beach a two-hour walk from Horcon. The fields were entirely full of wild flowers, horses and cows graised in wide open pastures, and a little forest nesteled into the hills foiled the steep ocean cliffs, prickly with cactus and full of sea gull nests. My camping buddy and I did nothing but lay on the beach, a little hiking, and swim a little (despite the fact that it was overcast the whole time). There was also a spectacular tide pool filled with numerous species of shell fish, starfish, algae, and crabs. The fresh air and scenery kept my head clear of the intensity of the election in the news forefront.

The amount of election coverage in the news here there shocks me. Last night i was in a pizza place at midnight and all the TVs were turned to a news channel doing a constant coverage of the poll results, just like the TV stations back home surely were, but in Spanish. I was scared because it looked neck and neck at first. The pizza place was full of people watching the noise on TV. Then i got home and all my roommates were watching it too and when Obama won at about 1 a.m. (here time) everyone started screaming, woke me up out of my bed, and we all jumped up and down for joy. The worlds eye really is focused on the US politics.

This morning election headlines were all over the Chilean newspapers and radios, then in my volunteer work at the high school, several students asked me questions about the election and if I was happy that Obama won. I can hardly go down the street with out hearing the words Obama or McCain.

Another strange thing, I have only heard one single person say they supported McCain since Ive been abroad (epescially Americans). And I also saw in the news that one of the only international organizations that supported McCain was Al Qaida because it would be good for recruitement. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081022/ap_on_el_pr/al_qaida_us_election_2) So anyway, the sentiments of all of the exchange students and all of the politically concerned Chileans i have encountered has been of immense relief.

Its hard to be extremely involved with the political race from abroad. I feel really disconected from it all, but at the same time, I have hopes for possitive changes, and I am certain that a lot of things will change by the time I get back to the states, whether I will like it or not.

Oh, It also really shocked me to see Idaho go democrat on the presidential elections after so many years as republican, but on the local elections most everything turned out republican once again.