President-elect Barack Obama’s election is not just changing the international opinion of America. It’s changing internationals’ opinions of themselves.

Geoffrey Githaiga, a graduate student at Northwest Missouri State University, is from Kenya, home of Mr. Obama’s father. He said Mr. Obama has been a “motivator” to his friends and family.

“They even had to take a day off to celebrate,” Mr. Githaiga said, mentioning that Nov. 6 is now Barack Obama Day in Kenya. “I’m very excited for him and for myself, too. Not just the fact that he’s black ... It’s a big deal for everybody.”

Mr. Githaiga said nobody that he’s spoken to in Kenya expects Mr. Obama as president to do anything, directly, for Kenya.

“I think there is so much going on right here,” he said, referring to the economic crisis and wars.

A survey of the 27 European Union nations showed that they supported Mr. Obama over John McCain by 30 percentage points. Joseph Lampel, a professor of strategy at a university in London, told Business Week recently that the “Bush Presidency was a perfect pretext not to engage with the Americans.”

Alock Shrestha and Shrwan Pokuarel, both seniors at Northwest, are from Nepal. They said the entire country was interested in the election, especially in areas where there is a higher population of black people. They said the perception back home is that Mr. Obama will end the war in Iraq and that excites them.

“We don’t like that, mainly,” Mr. Shrestha said of the war.

With all the expectation, Mr. Githaiga said many people are already judging Mr. Obama. He said he thinks the real victory will be in three or four years when everything Mr. Obama has promised will be delivered.

“We’ll wait and see how it pans out,” Mr. Githaiga said.

Jimmy Myers can be reached at jimmym@npgco.com.