Obama: Granny served as bridge to the past, and her stories helped fill a void in my heart

Barack Obama with his grandmother Mama Sarah Obama in Kogelo in 1987 [Courtesy]

My family and I are mourning the loss of our beloved grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango Obama, affectionately known to many as “Mama Sarah” but known to us as “Dani” or Granny.

Born in the first quarter of the last century, in Nyanza Province, on the shores of Lake Victoria, she had no formal schooling, and in the ways of her tribe, she was married off to a much older man while only a teen.