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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Obama dances with his grandmother in Kenya

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Kogelo: Barack Obama visited his father’s ancestral village in Kenya’s south-western Siaya county on Monday and danced to some traditional music with his grandmother in his first visit to the country since leaving office.


Obama is in Kenya to launch a youth centre set up by his half sister Auma Obama. Kenyan television showed the former US leader pulling his grandmother Sarah Obama, clad in traditional garb, onto the dance floor and getting down to some music. Obama, America’s first black president and a favourite in Africa, was also shown touring the Sauti Kuu Centre, sporting a casual white shirt and a pair of shades.


Locals hoping to get a glimpse of Obama lined the roads near the centre, with one school girl telling Kenya’s NTV “I’m happy to see our elder brother come today.”


“It is a joy to be back with so many people who are family to me, and so many people who claim to be family. Everybody’s a cousin!” he joked, to hoots of laughter from the audience. After a visit to the home of his step-grandmother Sarah Obama in the village of Kogelo, where his father was born and is buried, Obama recalled his first trip to Kenya at the age of 27. From Nairobi he took first a “very slow train” and then a bus with “some chickens in my lap and some sweet potatoes digging into my side”. Then he had to pile into a matatu — a minibus taxi — “even more crowded than the bus”, before a long walk to “Mama” Sarah’s house.


He remembered having to catch a chicken for dinner, which he was “a little squeamish” to kill himself, visiting his father’s grave and bathing outdoors. “And I looked up at the stars and... it gave me a sense of satisfaction that no five-star hotel could ever provide,” he said.


Obama was speaking at the launch of the Sauti Kuu (Swahili for “Strong Voices”) centre set up by his half-sister Auma Obama. He said that looking back on those memories, he “couldn’t be prouder of what my sister has built”.


Auma said the state-of-the-art centre would give local youth access to books, Internet and sporting activities. They will also be able to benefit from classes on work ethics, civic education, environmental conservation and financial literacy.


Obama is linked to his Kenyan family via his father Barack senior, a pipe-smoking economist who Obama has admitted he “never truly” knew. He walked out when Obama was just two and died in a car crash in Nairobi in 1982, aged 46. — Agencies


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