UPDATE: Kenya has a new constitution! Obama approves! So does my dog!

So for all the hand-wringing that went into the preparations for the national referendum, it appears that all fears were completely unfounded: in a peaceful, efficient, transparent vote, Kenyans have approved the new constitution in a landslide (with 71% of eligible voters participating! US political parties pee their pants with joy at the thought of that kind of turnout.) In my district, the 'yes' bloc captured 84% of the vote; in Nyanza, just south of here, the approval rating was upwards of 92%. So people around here are understandably stoked--like Philip, the night guard at my house, who proudly showed off his black-dyed pinky finger (their anti-double-voting mechanism) to anything with a pulse, including our dog Mac. (Mac's response, going crazy and running several laps around the house, was praiseworthy but of ambiguous motivation, as he does the same thing whenever I come home from work. Or whenever a fly lands on his nose. Or whenever anything within a mile of the house makes any sound at all. But as a good Kenyan dog, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and attribute the outburst to his civic pride and hope for accountable and responsive government). It's been a good few days for Kenya.