Obama in Oslo

So after sufficiently avoiding reality for 30 minutes after waking up this morning (too cold, didn't want to leave fetal position), I had a glorious shower (ahem, bucket bath), and headed to the tv as it has finally been repaired! Our tilfeza was down for the count for a while there, but made a healthy comeback and bbc news was calling to me. I flipped it on just the moment before the Nobel Peace Prize was being presented, streaming live from Oslo. My host mom was like 'your friend! Our friend! Obama! What are they talking about?' I poorly, and I'm talking very poorly attempted to translate the general idea of what was happening: what the NPP is, the controversy, er debate, surrounding our president's receival of the prize, and where the hell Norway was in respect to Morocco, in shitty Darija. By some act of God, I think she got the general idea. Mental high-five to me!

During the event, a few cousins and kids dropped by from Marrakech and were providing amusing ambient noise behind me while I was of course glued to the screen. Comments included:
'Ahh, mratu zweena!' = 'Wow, Mrs Obama is beautiful!',
'Alash Obama nn3s? Dyalu, yak?' = 'Why is he sleeping, he's getting the award right?'
and, my personal favourite,
'Wesh ddo drrbha? Shuft shar dyalha!' = 'Did she stick her finger in a socket? Look at her hair!' - in reference to the chick playing the cello is the smokin' red dress and gold arm cuff.

This is not to mention the major boob flash I got while breast feeding commenced in the background. Good morning Vietnam!

Anyway, amongst the obvious over-dubbed commentary by the BBC presenter/know-it-all, he was blatently of the camp that Obama was not deserving, the bias exuding from every word coming out of is regionally-indistinct-and-thus-bbc-appropriate diction. What delighted me the most though, was his dialogue with the 2005 recipient of the NPP, in which he said: 'So, ultimately, he's getting this award for... not being George W. Bush?', in which the reply was 'Um, precisely.' (I may or not be paraphrasing.) Good enough reason for me.

No matter what your stance is: totally deservant, ambivolent, complete criticism, you can't deny the goosebumps that appear every time the man has an opportunity to speak. I could ramble on about how much I adore him speaking using far too many, probably food related, adjectives, but hot damn, two thumbs up. Themere fact that he can complete a sentence with less than three grammatical errors is a triumph over our last President. And shout-out to all of my fellow past IR students outta St Andrews, all that Just War talk, and Use of Force, and other rather typical, if not for his flair, political jargon threw me back to four in the morning revising of essays with the ringing of Ian Hall's, Tony Lang's, and Patrick Hayden's voices in my ears. I miss it. Parts of it. Most of it.

Moral of the story is, that little blip of my President receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, made me freaking proud of what I'm doing, have done, and am trying to do. Props to my fellow PCVs. We matter. We are part of a bigger picture. The fact we haven't showered in a week (yay for today!), have no idea what movies or music are popular, let alone relavent, back home and shamefully dream of sushi and corn dogs (wait, just me? shit.) pales in comparison to what we are doing. Maybe not even 'do'ing sometimes, but representing, embodying. Though riddled with nauseating cliché, naivité, and anything else ending in an accent ague, I do believe in peace. I enjoyed the appropriately selected quote Obama chose from Kennedy, in which he said: "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." We are a part of one of those institutions. Pat on backs, all around.