– Pilgrimage site –
Rajula believes the spotlight Obama’s presidency has shone on Kogelo will outlast his term in office. “Everybody still goes to Jerusalem to see where Jesus was born, so Kogelo, long after Obama will have left the presidency, people will be coming here,” he said.
Obama is a source of pride and profit for many, but for the Kenyan Obamas he is family.
“He calls me uncle; I call him Barry,” Said laughed. “That’s not to say I don’t see him as a president, only that our relationship started much earlier than his presidency.”
Sarah Obama, the president’s 94-year old step-grandmother, is the matriarch of the family. She is “Mama Sarah” to Kenyans, and “granny” to Obama.
Sitting on a plastic chair beneath a mango tree just a few metres from the newly refurbished graves of her husband and son in the family compound in Kogelo, Sarah said Obama is learning the local Luo language that she speaks.
“I will greet him and he will greet me in the language he knows. He’ll ask me: ‘Idhi nade, dani?’” which means ‘How are you, granny?’
“And I will tell him: ‘Adhi maber, nyakwara,” she said, meaning, ‘I’m fine, my grandson.’
Seven years ago local expectations of material benefits from the Obama presidency were high in western Kenya because of the country’s political culture of nepotism and corruption, whereby politicians enrich themselves and their communities first.
“He is answering to the people of the US but some of us here thought that he was going to use the resources at his disposal to develop this place, which was not realistic,” said Said.
Hopes of a windfall have faded but still, Obama continues to inspire.
“What he has proved to many Kenyans (is) that despite his humble background he could rise to become one of the most powerful people in the world,” said Said.
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