11.05.2008 3:30 PM

As I write this, I’m sitting in a sea of wild flowers, gentle washes of yellow and purple, high on a cliff top in the Ethiopian highlands looking down on the tiny villages thousands of feet below. With a cheek full of chat, I’m listening to Nick Cave’s “No More Shall We Part,” my hands and face caked with dirt and grime and streaked crimson from this damned plant I smeared all over to relieve my equatorial sunburns. Falcons circle over my head. It’s beautiful here.

Behind me is my rag-tag hired caravan of marauders: my two Kalashnikov wielding Muslim gunmen (One of them, Zeudu, is missing three fingers on his trigger hand); my guide Bego; two mules and a local villager who is the acting muleman. It is the afternoon of the 5th. You are all probably snug in your beds fast asleep. I think it’s 6 a.m. there, I’m not sure.

Last night was bittersweet for me. I found a hotel in Gonder that had a room with a TV. I think it cost me $10.  After some convincing, I got the man downstairs to switch their one satellite channel from some crap international wrestling network to CNN International. The returns started coming in around 3 a.m., my time. I stayed up all night watching them. I already knew the outcome. I was happy, but at the same time was overwhelmed with some of the deepest sadness that I have felt in a long time.

I was supposed to be there with you. It broke my heart.

Through all of the debate dates; “Our children’s lives are at stake”; arguing with friends who aren’t as “enlightened”; evenings at bars, in cars, on couches and rooftops; getting excited and nervous about voting; making donations; cancelling out our parents; countless hours wasted at work sending emails, links, and messages back and forth, I was supposed to be there with you all.

I was supposed to be there with you toasting red wine, fancy single malt scotch, and cheap Mexican beer. I was supposed to be there to dance in the street, to hug and kiss and cheer. To take part in one of the most important evenings of our collective lives to this point. And here I was, half a world away, alone and horribly depressed in this flea infested shoe box of a room trying to make out the numbers and analysis in between bursts of static and noise.

At 5 a.m. there was a knock at my door. It was time for me to leave with my men, still unaware of the final outcome and returns. As the sun came up over the hills and bathed an endless sea of wheat and barley in early morning sunlight, we set forth. Through thatched roofed villages that felt like they were straight out of 10th century England or at least some fantasy novel. I half expected to see a dwarf or elf pop out from behind a tree with bow or axe in hand. And as we made our way a funny thing began to happen. One by one, people in the fields with a sickle in one hand and a bale of wheat over their shoulder would see me, stop what they were doing, and shout “Obama!”

By 8:30 we entered a small town of maybe a thousand people, more huts, and a really nice open market where we were planning on getting some eggs and a few other supplies for our trek. As I made my way across the market, I heard a familiar voice off in the distance. I pushed my way through a crowd of people towards a blue dilapidated building. A few horses and mules were tied out front. Slowly, more and more people stopped what they were doing and headed towards the door. As I got closer it registered who it was and what was going on. Barack was beginning to speak at Grant Park.

By the time I shoved my way inside I found about 20 people standing around a 20 inch Samsung television in the corner that was set on top of a refrigerator. I stood against the back wall and listened. The room was electric. Every other line would send chatters of Amharic around the room and men would gesture at the screen. The only other word that I recognized other than “Obama” was when one of the cameras cut to the crowd and I heard a man in the back exclaim “Oprah!”

More and more people crowded into the room. Shepards left their flocks unattended outside, village elders struggled to get a better view, women with Coptic symbols tattooed on their foreheads and little babies clinging to their backs put down their baskets and made their way inside. An ox-drawn cart pulled up depositing more folks. We were packed in like sardines. Barefoot children pressed their faces up against the window trying to see inside. A few goats and sheep wandered in looking for their master. Men put down their guns. Outside the crowd grew and grew and strained to make out the words coming from the TV inside. Anybody within any vicinity of the building had stopped what they were doing and made their way over.

The man next to me kept eyeing me (I was the only white guy around for miles I’m sure) and finally said, “You Italia?” and for the first time in my international travels I turned and looked him in the eyes and said, “No, I’m from the U.S.”

His face lit up, “You’re American? Do you support Obama?”

“I voted for him.”

He started yelling in Amharic at the other people around us and suddenly all eyes were on me. There was a buzz going around the room and everyone looked and nodded with big toothy grins. The shepards started beating their staffs on the ground and everyone began chanting “O-ba-ma O-ba-ma” drowning out the TV. Then one by one each person in the room came over, put their arm around me, and gave me a fist bump. The woman in the back roasted coffee beans and we all had coffee on the house in traditional ceremony.

My new friend next to me grabbed me by the shoulders and with tears streaming down his face pulled me close. “Now I truly believe that black people and white people are no different,” he whispered.

Here I was, the reluctant ambassador. In everyone’s eyes around me, I had cast the vote that they were unable to, and for that they were eternally grateful. Perhaps I was supposed to be here after all.

I love you all and I’ll see you real soon.

Lee