Obama

Barrack Obama

By JOSEPH OJWANG.

As Barrack Obama, the recent landslide winner of an Illinois State senate seat, prepares to assume office, members of his father's family back in Kenya are "building castles in the air," as some have dismissed them for doing, in the belief that Obama will only serve those who elected him.

The son of a Kenyan father and an American mother, Obama has to play his cards carefully. His constituency in Illinois expect him to tackle issues in that state, while in his father's native home in Nyanza, residents babble with hope that their native son's victory means at long last they will say goodbye to poverty.

Local and foreign journalists camped at the home of the late Barrack Obama senior on the shores of Lake Victoria the day the US went to polls for the purpose of interviewing local residents and the family of Obama.

These uninvited guests set out to explore the roots of Obama junior. The local journalist enjoyed a warm welcome from the family of Obama who put him up in a guesthouse next to another house built for his father's first wife, Keziah Obama.

They expressed their optimism that the senator is a future candidate for the White House, and they toasted him as one of the most brilliant and popular black politicians in the United States in recent times.

The villagers are wondering when their son will fly home with bags of dollars to renovate schools, to tarmac the rocky and dusty roads leading to their homes, to improve the health facilities in the region and to send their children to the US for further studies at his own expense.

Newly born children, oxen, and schools are being named after Obama. There are even rumors that a village path leading to a local market, a stone's throw from his father's home, will be named after him. And villagers are floating an idea of upgrading the market to a big town complete with an air strip for his chopper in case he intends to visit his native home.

Though it is not widely known, Obama junior has visited Kenya twice: once in 1983 when he came to pay his last respects to his late father, Barack Hussein Obama, who died in Nairobi in 1982 in a grisly car accident. He also returned in 1995 accompanied by his fianc‚e to show her his roots. Interestingly, the villagers paid no attention, then, as the would-be senator slipped into the village and flew back to the US after spending almost one week sleeping in a tiny room in his foster grandmother's old brick house and munching traditional foods.

Now everyone is now eager to see him home, and most of the villagers are claiming some association either with Obama Junior, his father or even distant relatives for their own interest.

When he does return home, the 43 year old Obama is expected to build a hut, as the Luo tradition - his father's community - requires. A young man must erect a house in his father's compound before moving with his family to establish a home elsewhere. The family are Muslims in the area dominated by Christianity.

But the step grandmother of Obama junior, Mama Sarah, who nursed his father after the death of Obama's grandmother, said that the two trips by his grandson from US were mainly for the purpose of tracing his roots in Kenya. That from this research he authored a novel entitled Dreams from my Father. The story revolves around the senator's quest to find out more about his father, known to many as a brilliant economist who returned from his studies in the United States to take a civil service job in Kenya.

According to family sources, Barack Obama senior traveled to America to study at the University of Hawaii in 1959 where he worked for an oil company and married his second wife, a white woman, named Anna Toot, and their union led to the birth of Barack Obama Junior.

Anna's father was furious about the marriage between her daughter and Obama, and frequently threatened to pull his son-in-law out from the university. Reliable sources further revealed that Obama wrote numerous letters home pleading with his parents to intervene and salvage his marriage without success.

Winning a scholarship to study at the University of Harvard, Obama senior left his family in Hawaii, thus bringing the marriage to a standstill. His son, only two years old when his father left, is now an Illinois state senator.

Living up to the old proverb, "Blood is thicker than water," Obama junior never shunned his native home and is still expected to receive a rousing welcome after his victory in the November US elections.

Joseph Ojwang is Change Links correspondent in Kenya.