Being in Sudan for the Referendum is such a gift! All day I have had colleagues walk into my office finger first (not that finger) to show me the ink that means they voted. They voted! Everyone seems to just be in awe or total disbelief that they voted. And that it might matter.
One of my colleagues told me he got to a polling station at 3 am so that he could be first in line... only to find that hundreds of people had beat him. Another reported that in his home town, small camps began building up around the polling stations days ahead of time as people from remote areas journeyed to their voting place and waited to exercise their right. Yet another told of seeing a man cast his vote and then begin weeping.
I have to admit, I have cried more than once today and this is not my struggle. But to see this... It's beyond words.
All this joy and hope and ink is not contained within Sudan either! Check out this New York Times article about Sudanese expatriates voting in the United States. Many of them traveled a long way too, but as one voter put it, "With no car, we would have even made it by foot, you know." Beautiful.
-Stephanie
Photo courtesy of the Buffalo News
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