Jubilation!

My Program Officer was joking around with a Kenyan colleague and me last week, saying that we'd now been in Ganyliel long enough to be allowed to vote in the Referendum. We just had to change our names, he announced, and we'd be in. The name he settled on for me is Nyakume ("nya" meaning female and "kume" meaning governor), and if the past week is any indication, I think this nickname might stick. It makes us both laugh, and I can only imagine the kick that the (mostly female) community volunteers who work for our program would get out of it.

My Program Officer's also technically on leave at the moment, but he's a bit of a workaholic (plus, there's really not all that much to do in Ganyliel, even when you're from Ganyliel ...), so I wasn't at all surprised to hear him calling out "Nyakume!" while walking into the office this evening. I was (very pleasantly) surprised though to discover that he'd come to take me & my camera out to see the dancing. The whole village, as it turned out, had come out to celebrate. I couldn't understand the words being sung, but I didn't need a translator to see the joy and hope on the faces all around me. The final results from the Referendum aren't due to be announced until the 14th, but for tonight they hardly even matter. The voting has started - on time and peacefully - and that alone is cause enough for celebration.