Obama loves our mustard

Obama sightings overseas:

While in Dijon, France, as part of our European tour, we kept seeing signs that said, “Obama aime notre moutarde,” “Obama loves our mustard.” It wasn’t until after the third or fourth sighting of one of these signs that we realized we were in the home of Dijon mustard. And I vaguely remembered something on the news about Obama going out for hamburgers and asking for one with Dijon mustard on it. (I’m sure what was a human interest blip on the international news was all-day coverage on Fox and CNN at home.) Of course! Obama aime notre moutarde!

On a walk last weekend through a rural area just outside of town we saw some chalk drawings on the road. I don’t know why I always find kids’ chalk drawings so charming, especially a hopscotch-like game board that I’ve seen several times here in Bujumbura. One of the drawings was a man in a suit with a hat and high-heeled boots. “Obama” was written in big letters above the hat.

I pulled a pair of wedge sandals from the closet the other day and noticed a scrap of paper stuck to the bottom. Gross. What did I step in to make it stick? It turned out to be a wrapper for Obama Strawberry Bubblegum, a product of Nairobi. And like just about every product coming out of Kenya these days, the wrapper featured a smiling Obama photo.