Obama clan in Kenya enjoys reflected glory
Barack Obama's extended family, already widely admired, gains celebrity status in Kenya. But some of the attention, especially commentary on their economic situation, is a little unwelcome.
Reporting from Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya — For about 400 people in western Kenya who can call the next U.S. president "part of the family," being an Obama has a whole new meaning.
The modest family compound here has been inundated by hordes of visitors, from reporters and local politicians to ordinary Kenyans looking for help in getting U.S. visas, scholarships, jobs or cash. Family matriarch Sarah Onyango, step-grandmother of President-elect Barack Obama, is treated like a rock star wherever she goes.
The Kenyan government, which once ostracized Obama's father, is falling over itself to attend to the family. There's a new road, 24-hour police security and an electricity line -- the first in the village. It was installed hours after U.S. election results were announced, bypassing neighbors who have been waiting years for a connection.
"Dealing with all this," Said Obama, the president-elect's uncle, said with a sigh, "it's been like a full-time job."
In U.S. politics, presidential relatives are always something of a wild card, often the subject of curiosity or controversy. But the Obamas of Kenya promise to be a First Family like none America has seen.
Here in sleepy Nyangoma-Kogelo, the Obamas are widely admired as the richest family in a town of about 2,000, successful farmers who have always helped neighbors in need, and flirted with the political elite when Obama's Harvard-educated father rose to a prominent government post.
But while they're at the top of the social ladder at home, the international spotlight has cast the family in an unfamiliar role: as poor relations who suddenly appear to have hit it big. Overnight, they've gone from Kennedys to Clampetts.
It's true, by U.S. standards many of the family members are relatively poor, living in mud-brick homes with no running water or, until recently, electricity. A few have tried to cash in on Obama's success by selling their stories.
One of Obama's half-brothers, who lives in a Nairobi slum, was thrust into the campaign after international media reports that said he was homeless, living on $1 a month. (His story was used in Republican ads attacking Obama's "family values," but the brother later insisted he was misquoted. Obama's campaign dismissed the issue without commenting.)
