Obama's ancestral village cheers on its favourite son

[jefferson_dem]

Obama's ancestral village cheers on its favourite son
Like his grandmother says: 'To be president of the U.S. is like being president of the whole world'
TIA GOLDENBERG

From Friday's Globe and Mail

December 7, 2007 at 4:29 AM EST

KOGELO, KENYA — Sarah Obama wouldn't want to live in the United States. A few visits there were enough to affirm that she's comfortable in a tiny, impoverished village in western Kenya, where she tills her fields and tends to her avocado and papaya trees.

"I don't like that place. It's too cold," Mrs. Obama says, speaking in her tribal tongue, Dholuo, as her small, weathered hands waved dismissively in the air.

But she doesn't have any problems with the ambitions of her grandson Barack Obama, who's running for the U.S. presidency.

"To be the president of the U.S. is like being the president of the whole world," the 85-year-old says. "I am very happy."

As Mrs. Obama's renowned grandson scaled the ladder from minor politician to senator and now potential presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, Mrs. Obama has remained here, in the house she has lived in most of her life in Kogelo, Mr. Obama's ancestral village.

Except nowadays, everybody knows her. Visitors from near and far swing by just to say hello and catch a glimpse of the place to which Mr. Obama traces his roots.

Mrs. Obama is actually the stepmother of Barack Obama's father. But she raised Barack Sr., and as the matriarch of the extended Obama family she's the woman Mr. Obama calls grandma.

Evidence of their closeness is all over her one-storey, three-room house.

A shrine to Mr. Obama - both father and son - adorns the cream walls. A signed Senate campaign poster bears a large photo of Mr. Obama with his finely tuned politician's smile. It reads "Mama Sarah. Habari! And love." Habari is a Swahili greeting.

Family portraits taken during Mr. Obama's first visit to Kogelo in 1987, five years after his father died in a road accident, show a beaming young man, with slightly larger hair fit for the decade.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071207.wobama07/BNStory/International/home

[BeyondGeography]

1. Great piece

Thanks for posting.

[babylonsister]

2. Thanks! Lovely. nt

[Progress And Change]

3. Will they be caucusing in Iowa too?

[jefferson_dem]

4. Thanks for the kick.

and...lighten up. This is a nice story. Sorry you felt the need to piss all over it.

[babylonsister]

5. kickety! nt