Obama invalidates critics’ expectations by visiting father's land

When Barack Obama visited Kenya for the first time nearly 30 years ago, he was astonished that an airport worker recognised his last name.

It was a striking experience for a young man — and future American President — struggling to understand how a country he had never seen and a Kenyan family he barely knew had shaped his identity.

"My name belonged and so I belonged, drawn into a web of relationships, alliances and grudges I did not yet understand," Obama wrote about the airport encounter in his memoir, 'Dreams From My Father'.

This week, Obama will make his first visit to Kenya as US President, a trip that will bear little resemblance to the 1988 one, when he arrived aboard a commercial flight and his luggage went missing. Now, Air Force One will take Obama to a country where children, roads and schools now bear his name and the world leader is seen as a local son.

Yet traveling with the trappings of the presidency appears likely to diminish the fulfillment of a trip to his father's homeland.

"I'll be honest with you, visiting Kenya as a private citizen is probably more meaningful to me than visiting as President because I can actually get outside of a hotel room or a conference center," he said last week, adding that his trip still would be 'symbolically important.'

Security concerns and the logistics of presidential travel will keep Obama at a distance from most Kenyans. He will skip a visit to K'Ogelo, the rural village in Western Kenya where his father was born and buried, and where his step grandmother and other family members still live.

Obama's two days of events will be confined to Nairobi, where he will meet with President Uhuru Kenyatta, attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit and speak to Opposition and civil society leaders.

Despite the limits on Obama's movement and interactions with the Kenyan people, his visit is highly anticipated in the East African nation. Even when he made a visit to Kenya in 2006 as a US senator, he was greeted by cheering crowds.

Ahead of Obama's arrival Friday, some Kenyans had adopted a rousing segment of an Obama speech as their cellphone ringtone. US and Kenyan flags lined the road leading from Nairobi's main airport.

Before Obama's travel plans were announced, there had been some disappointment that the US president who has written and spoken emotionally of his Kenyan roots, had not returned since taking office. Analysts questioned whether America's first black president was missing an opportunity to give Africa more prominence in US foreign policy.

Much of Obama's international focus in his first term was on strengthening ties with Asia and trying to reset US policy in the Middle East. His only visit to sub-Saharan Africa during his first four years in office was a short stop in Ghana.

At the time, there was persistent and inaccurate speculation that he was born in Kenya, not in US. Some political opponents tried to use the rumors to undercut his eligibility for president. As late as 2011, a CBS/New York Times poll showed that one-quarter of all Americans believed Obama was not born in the US.

Obama's re-election raised renewed hopes for a visit to Kenya, but the political situation there complicated those plans. President Kenyatta was facing charges at the International Criminal Court.

"The timing is not right for me as the US president to be visiting Kenya when those issues are still being worked," Obama said of his decision to pass over Kenya in favour of South Africa, Tanzania and Senegal during a 2013 trip to Africa. The charges against President Kenyatta were ultimately dropped, clearing the way for Obama to finally visit his father's home country as president.