John Oywa
15 August 2004
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Nairobi — His sudden rise to stardom has stunned many. Analysts toast him as one of the most brilliant and popular black politicians in the United States in recent times.
Others taunt him as a "skinny kid with a funny name," whose Kenyan father herded goats and lived in a remote village in Siaya, Nyanza province.
With his cousin Yusuf Okoth Obama, when he visited his father's home in Alego, Siaya, 10 years ago. e
But excited admirers both in Kenya and the US celebrate him as a political superstar and a beacon of hope for his people.
As a front runner in the United States Illinois Senate campaigns, Barack Obama Jr has raised a cloud of excitement in the international political arena.
After delivering a well received public speech at the National Democratic Convention in Boston last month, there are some Americans who now believe he is a future candidate for the White House.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, as it were, in the sleepy village of Alego-Kogello where Barack Obama Snr grew up, they call the prospective Senator "Wuod Sarah", Dholuo for "the son of Sarah", Sarah being his foster grandmother.
Obama's real grand mother - the late Habiba Akumu separated with his grandfather, thus forcing Sarah to step in to care for him.
Agitated villagers are waiting in awe. What if Obama wins the Senate seat in the November 2 elections? Will he return home with bags of dollars? Will the rocky road leading to their village be tarmacked? Will their mud-walled schools where Obama's father and cousins once schooled be improved?
As the US senate campaign hots up, Obama mania is sweeping through Alego.
Villagers here now buy newspapers to read every tid bit they can find about their American kin. The rest have their ears glued to battered transistor radios to keep abreast with the latest information about Obama Jr's political exploits.
Everyone you meet in the area wants to be associated either with Obama Jr, his father or even distant relatives.
Newly-born children and oxen, are being named after him. There are even suggestions that a village path leading to a local market be named after him.
With his father, the late Barack Obama senior (second left, in glasses), his step mother Keziah (seated, left) and step brothers Malik , Sadik and sister Auma.
To these simple villagers, news that Obama was causing a political stir in the world's most powerful country is a miracle. "Ma en hono maduong" (this is a big miracle), says 50-year-old Martin Onyango.
"Wamor kod wuod Sarah. Otingo' nying Kenya malo" (We are happy with Sarah's son, he has elevated Kenya' name)," says Onyango as he chews sugarcane.
Some of the people of Alego believe Obama's rising fortunes will translate into increased employment opportunities, better roads and education opportunities. A few are even optimistic that even the dusty Nyang'oma-Kogello market will be upgraded to a big town, complete with an airstrip.
"We don't expect a whole Senator to drive to his home village. We expect him to fly direct and land at Nyang'oma," says George Onyango, a 20-year-old barber.
The prospective Senator's sister-in-law Fauziah Anyango, wife to his step-brother Malik Obama, told the Sunday Nation that she was eager to meet her heroic in-law.
Said she: "I have not met him but I pray that he wins the Senate seat. His victory will not be for us, but for Kenya and Africa."
A Sunday Nation team that set out to trace Obama's roots was surprised to find that, unknown to many, Obama has actually been to this village twice. First in 1983, when he had come to mourn his late father, Barack Hussein Obama, who had died in Nairobi in 1982; and again in 1995 when he brought home his young bride to show her his roots.
During both visits, the villagers paid little or no attention to him. He managed to slip quietly into the village, pray at his father's graveyard and meet a few relatives and villagers.
Family members told the Sunday Nation that they taught his bride how to use traditional pots (Agulu) to fetch water from a nearby stream.
Obama Jr and his bride spent nearly a week sleeping in a tiny room in his foster grandmother's old brick house and ate traditional foods.
The ropes from which he hung a mosquito net at his grandmother's house still dangle in the bedroom.
Photographs taken during his visit to Alego and those taken during his wedding in America have filled three albums.
In one of the photos, a slender, young Obama is seen boarding a matatu (commuter taxi) to Kisumu, from where he and his fiancee would fly to Nairobi and then back to the US.
We were informed that Obama's foster grandmother, Mama Sarah Ogwel, who brought up his father, had actually travelled to the US to visit several times.
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