US President’s sister Dr Auma Obama made history on Friday by becoming the first Kenyan to ride in the Beast, when she comfortably entered the car together with her little brother who happens to be the most powerful man on earth.
Well, some may argue that President Obama himself is a Kenyan – American: that’s fine, but Auma is a full Kenyan.
Dr Auma stole the show when she got a warm embrace from her smiling brother in what looked like a family reunion. Lest one forgets, in his Grammy award – winning book and New York Bestseller, Dreams From My Father, Barrack Obama talks passionately about his sister – the one who gave him a ride in her Volkswagen Beetle to Alego K’Ogelo when he came to Kenya searching for his roots.
And how things change! From a beetle to the most expensive and most sophisticated car ever made – brother and sister together from the same airport decades later!
Obama’s sister had earlier arrived in a diplomatic registered white car adorning red and white number plates accompanied by an aide.
When it was apparent that Air Force One was descending into the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Runway Terminal 2 at 8pm, Auma was seen rushing towards one of the Beasts that was set up as the one to carry the President.
She was accompanied by the US Ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec and the little flower girl who was to present a bouquet to President Obama, who also made history as the first ever sitting US President to visit Kenya.
At exactly 8pm, Air Force One touched the runway shaking the ground with its impact and making all alert and the battery of Press jostling for positions to take a shot of history.
Five minutes later, Dr Auma was in the queue of VIPs being introduced to President Obama by his host President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Her introduction was saved for the last – because it was ultimately the best!
A warm embrace and direct eye contact and mirth of people who certainly know each other well and are true friends. A hug and then the brother with his hands on her shoulder as President Kenyatta looked on – it was the longest chat at the airport between two people.
Dr Obama wore black pants with a white jacket, making her stand out from the crown and as she got done with the pleasantries, she moved to let her brother sign the visitor’s book – of course, with his left hand.
When that was done, Auma was at the window of the second Beast that the brother finally went into after an earlier indication to board the first one. And again another embrace in the car.
Well, whilst the West refers to Dr Auma as Obama’s half-sister and vice-versa, in Africa, and especially among the polygamous Luo of Nyanza, children of stepmothers and who share a father are actually siblings. There is nothing like half-this and half-that.
Family dinner
And to prove that, when they finally got to the Villa Rosa Kempiski, where the President was thought to be boarding, and a family dinner presented, Dr Auma and her grandmother Sarah sandwiched the American President at the table. That picture is so unique it is reminiscent to those days when the young Obama was searching for his identity.
He came to K’Ogelo twice – once to research on his book and on the second trip to introduce his then fiancée Michelle, to his brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles and the Wazees (elders) of K’Ogelo village before their wedding later back in the US.
It is also Auma who informs Obama by phone when their father dies in a road accident in Nairobi.
During his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States in 2008 on the Mall in Washington DC, Dr Auma was seated just an arm’s length away from the President elect.
In her book, originally written in German, Das Leben Kommt Immer Dazwischen - Stationen einer Reise and now with a translation in English, (Life Always Comes in Between Stations of a Journey), Dr Auma attempts to clear some misconceptions about her father.
For instance, she disputes the notion that her Harvard-educated father was polygamist at any stage of his life. “While my father had a number of wives in his life, there was only one at any one time,” Auma explained to this writer during a public reading of her book at the German School in Nairobi in March 2011.
She noted that while her younger brother Barack grew up in the US and Indonesia, her childhood was in Kenya where their father was born.
The two siblings met for the first time in the 1980s. In the years that followed, they travelled together through Kenya, exploring their family history.
Auma proceeded to study film production at the German Film and TV Academy in Berlin and later pursued graduate studies at the University of Bayreuth, which awarded her a doctorate in 1996.
Finally, love took her to England, where her daughter was born. But life in Europe was a constant challenge, and her longing for her homeland grew.
She travelled several times to the USA following the rise of her brother, and returned to Kenya in 2007.
She is the senior adviser at Care International in Nairobi, where she works with young people in the slums of Huruma, Kariobangi, Kibera and Mathare, guiding them to become confident enough to take control of their own future.
She is also the patron of the literary festival and movement Storymoja Festival.
