OBAMA Wins Hearts of KENYANS

[liberalpragmatist]

NYANG'OMA JOURNAL
Illinois Democrat Wins Kenyan Hearts, in a Landslide

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/international/africa/25obama.html?hp


Students in a dilapidated classroom at the local high school, whose name officials plan to change to the Barack Obama Secondary School.


Barack Obama traces his roots to Nyang'oma, a small town in western Kenya. Sarah Ogwel Onyango, 83, his stepgrandmother, still lives there.

...It is not a free-loading attitude that people here are expressing when they speak of largess coming their way after Mr. Obama takes office. It is a feeling of extended family: those who make it help those left behind. Mr. Obama may have never lived in Nyang'oma, or elsewhere in Kenya for that matter, but he is one of them in the popular imagination and surely, relatives say, he will want to share his great success with his kin.

"He is Kenyan," Ms. Onyango insisted, prompting the other relatives to nod. She showed photographs of a young Mr. Obama climbing aboard a matatu, the crowded minibuses that local people use to get around. Another photograph in her stash featured Mr. Obama hugging Ms. Onyango, and she held up one that had the baby-faced politician beaming beside his other Kenyan relatives.

<snip>

The pride and excitement surrounding Mr. Obama's candidacy extends far beyond the Obama homestead. Kenyan newspapers run regular dispatches on the campaign, in which the heavily favored Mr. Obama is pitted against a token Republican candidate, Alan Keyes. Local people say that numerous baby boys have been named Barack in recent months, a tribute to their favorite son.

At the Nyang'oma-Kogello Secondary School, near the Obama family home, students are fairly well versed on Mr. Obama's Senate race and full of pride that a man they consider a local appears on the verge of victory. They know that Mr. Obama is a Democrat, that he lives in a place called Illinois and that he is the favorite to triumph on Election Day.

[goclark]

1. Wish we could see her pictures with Barack

[bklyncowgirl]

2. Sweet article. Obama's Grandma sounded so proud. n/t