KOGELO, August 29 – An ebullient Sarah Obama Friday said she was confident her grandson Barack would make history as she tracked the latest news of the first major-party White House pick from her village home in Kogelo.
Senator Obama accepted the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination before 84,000 delirious supporters in Denver, setting course for November’s presidential elections as the first African-American with a real shot at the top job.
"I am confident he will make it through now that Hillary Clinton firmly stood up and declared support for his candidature," Sarah Obama told AFP moments after waking up to follow news of her grandson’s rapturous speech.
"It is about give and take if you want to win a battle," the 86-year-old said in her native Luo language. "I stayed up late last night watching clips of the convention.
"I slept late and was unable to watch the speech this morning because I was feeling a bit sick, but I would have wished to stay up and watch it," she said, sipping tea and waiting for her solar-powered batteries to charge for her to watch the television again.
As Obama made his speech in Denver, this rural village in western Kenya was still engulfed in darkness and most were unable to watch his crowning moment because there was no electricity.
"This moment, this election, is our chance to keep in the 21st century the American promise alive," Senator Obama said, 45 years to the day since Martin Luther King laid out his iconic "I have a dream" vision of racial unity.
Prospects of Obama’s presidency have stirred excitement in Kenya, with Prime Minister Raila Odinga saying his ascent was good for Africa. Odinga is an ethnic Luo, as was Obama’s late father.
Sarah Obama was the third wife of Obama’s paternal grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama. Although not a blood relation, Obama often refers to her as his grandmother. Barack Obama, who was born in the United States, barely knew his Kenyan father who returned to his homeland when Barack was a young boy.
But Obama was given a hero’s welcome during his last visit to the rural village in 2006 when he visited his grandmother.
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