Election night in Freetown

With every passing year, I find myself more and more interested in politics and this past year I've been seduced by the American election like so many others (though I still watched the Canadian debate instead of Palin-Biden 'cause my priorities aren't whack, yo). The allure of what I would contest was the most important election of my lifetime to date is unmistakable, but you've all heard about that ad infinitum so let's not go there.

That said, watching the election night coverage live was a must. The plan all along was to show up to work no earlier than noon on Wednesday to ensure that I could adequately party on this momentous night, as I was anticipating an Obama win that would make partying the only reasonable course of action.

And so, just after 5 p.m., I hopped in my most expensive taxi to date (Le 12,000 or $4) and made my way up the hilly roads to the American Embassy, a sprawling piece of real estate fairly well removed from the rest of the city, and met up with Marie-Jo, JHR's lead trainer in Sierra Leone. After surrendering my camera and cell phone, it was time to hob-knob with a who's who of the Freetown scene.

Frankly, I'm not very good at networking, so I made a beeline for the free wine. But while I was grabbing that, a well-dressed man approached me and initiated a conversation.

"Nice to meet you," I said. "And what do you do?"

Leaning in, the cheery fellow whose name now escapes me replied, "I'm actually the newest FBI detail in Sierra Leone. Only been on the ground ten days."

"Oh, cool," I replied, and meant it, though I imagine the intimidation I felt was noticeable as I quickly replayed the last 60 seconds to recall whether I'd done anything that could be construed as suspicious. I had not.

Our conversation continued quite pleasantly, and I learned that Mr. FBI had four postings previous to Freetown. This was the calmest one yet, he added.

He'd just come from Baghdad, so I imagine most things seem great when they involve leaving an active war zone. The first three were all in Africa, though one of them slips my mind. The others were Lagos (Nigeria) and Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), the latter being right around the car bombing of the American Embassy in Tanzania in 1998. I assume after his relative vacation in Freetown, he'll be headed to Mogadishu and the DRC.

Anyway, the two hours I spent at the Embassy were enjoyable. I voted in the mock election that was open only to non-Americans, which Obama won almost unanimously, highlighting the fact that the election wouldn't have likely been that close in so many of the world's countries. I later learned that there were actually more spoiled ballots than votes for McCain.

I even had my photo taken with the cardboard cut-outs of McCain and Obama, and reveled in the pro-America sentiment on display all around me. And I felt good for them. They've has so little reason for national pride in recent years that it has almost felt unnatural.

Two hours was enough at the Embassy, however, and with my goal of securing an invite to another party realized, Marie-Jo and I hopped on a bus normally reserved for Embassy security for an entertaining ride home.

We listened as the 20 or so Sierra Leoneans discussed the election, vilifying the lone guard that professed his support for McCain. Though I couldn't coax a discernible reason out of the young guy, his peers assured me it was because he wanted to fight in Iraq and he knew Obama was trying to put an end to that.

Save for this one poor misguided soul, the level of discourse was impressive, with a clearer understanding of the electoral college system than I would typically experience in Canada.

After some groundnut soup and a couple Star beers from a local food joint, I picked up a few Heineken and made my way to the house of an American couple who work for the Embassy, along with Marie-Jo, a pair of my American neighbours (Rebecca and Bremen), and an Irishman named Gearoid that was staying with us for the night.

They opened the door and we stepped into another world. The three-bedroom apartment (remember how there's only a married couple living here, and I assume they sleep in the same room) was air-conditioned, with a stove, fridge, TV, Internet, etc. They never received city power, because their fully-funded generator runs 24 hours a day.

We watched The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and Late Night with Conan O'Brien to while away the hour and a half before the first polls closed in the States and exit numbers would commence. Danna, our hostess, told me that she'd just found out her 94-year-old grandma, a life-long Republican who voted against FDR and JFK, had cast her ballot for Obama. I liked humanity just a little bit more.

Since Danna and her husband, Joachim, had to be up early, we departed with Pennsylvania leaning towards the Democrats; Marie-Jo and Gearoid called it a night while the youth contingent of Bremen, Rebecca and I headed to a larger, younger party at another insanely lavish house. In fact, I spent a good hour upon my arrival chatting with an interesting German biochemistry student named Annika about the absurd dichotomy of the living situations in Sierra Leone, whilst downing liberally poured Red Bull and Indian whiskey concoctions.

Though not a palace, my place is not that humble, so I was especially interested in Annika's perspective, as she lives with a local family while doing some sort of quality testing at a local brewery. We concluded that while it was good to have connections to people in these relative mansions for nights like historic elections, it's preferable to live somewhere where you might actually interact with Sierra Leoneans on occasion.

Overall, the third stop of the night was by far my favourite, a coming together of about 16 or 17 young people of different nationalities. Looking around the room, I felt a touch of the surreal, as I noted four laptops were online, adding to the coverage at our disposal with various websites. I even got a preview of Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma's congratulatory message to Obama, as it was written by a New York native that appeared younger than me.

Finally, we were treated to the good news that the Republican regime had toppled, and took the celebratory picture seen at the beginning of this post, which we sent to the New York Times' photo contest with the pithy caption: "Freetown, Sierra Leone. 5 a.m." (My neighbours, Bremen and Rebecca, are the girls in the white and navy t-shirts respectively, and Koroma's speech-writer, Justin, is the dude with his eyes closed.)

I later received word from a colleague that he'd come across the photo on Gawker, a political website that posted a photo gallery of various election parties. Ours was more exotic than the rest.

We listened to McCain's classy concession speech and we fell silent when it was time for Obama's victory speech. As he delivered yet another of his inspiring messages, we all sat rapt with attention, tears in the eyes of a few.

And as I surveyed the scene in front of me, as the only Canadian in a group of nearly 20 virtual strangers, representing a handful of nations from across the globe, at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday morning in one of the world's least developed nations, I couldn't help but think it was precisely the type of scenario President Obama would love to see more of.

I can't imagine there would have been any better place to take in this moment in history than Grant Park in Chicago - but this was a pretty damn good alternative.