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created 10 months ago | Tagged: |
Byron
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Mama Sarah Obama, 90, is Kisumu's biggest tourist attraction, even bigger than Lake Victoria, the world's second largest freshwater lake that hugs this town in western Kenya.
Since her step-grandson Barack Obama became President and a Very Important Person, the road to her house has been named after her, her neighbourhood has got its own police station and a levelled road, and her home has a high fence, armed guards and a civil servant to "take care of her". A board at the gate lists the visiting hours: Mon-Fri 10-5 pm, Saturdays 10-4 pm.
Other signs of recent prosperity include a larger house under construction and several cows in her home in Kogelo, an hour's drive from Kisumu.
Mama Sarah turns out to be far less intimidating than the road leading up to her home. Dressed in a traditional Luo -- the tribe she belongs to -- dress with coordinated beads, she spends over an hour with us under a mango tree, surrounded by chicken, turkeys, rabbits, sheep and a cat
Has life changed for her since her step-grandson -- she is the third wife of President Obama's paternal grandfather -- became the US President? "Nothing has changed, except I get a lot more visitors from foreign lands," says Mama Sarah, speaking in Luo.
"In some ways it is good, it helps me raise money for orphans and widows," she says. She runs the Mama Sarah Children's Foundation, which pays for the care and education of orphans who've lost their parents to AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Mama Sarah is an odd mix of progression and tradition. Though she never went to school and got married at 19 -- her father got a dozen cows from President Obama's grandpa for her as bride price -- she believes everyone, including all girls, should go to school and be independent. A practising Muslim, she says she prays at home mostly because the mosque is too far away. She is a conservative and against abortion, women using contraception to plan their families, and women having equal inheritance rights as men.
And her views on painting her house white to have a White House in Kenya? "Send me the paint and I'll do it," she laughs.
