Family Comes First As Obama Lands In Kenya.

By Arthur M. M. Katabalwa.

Barack Obama being welcomed by Family in Nairobi last night. Auma Obama is on his left (Getty Images)

All talk around here in Uganda is the visit to Kenya by the US President, Barack Obama. I hear that Zambian President is in town but who cares? There is the usual excitement of all that surrounds Obama. The beast his car. Somehow everyone seems to know all the details about this car. The security in Nairobi is nothing like anyone has seen before. We love big planes and nothing comes more magnificent than the 24 year old "White House in the sky", Air Force One. Its blue and white fuselage sat on the tarmac sat at the airport in Nairobi is nice to see. I was travelling pillion on a motor bike in Mulago last evening en route to gate crashing a posh dinner and I could swear I saw it fly over Kampala. Vapor contrails over Kampala are rare but yesterday I saw a four engine plane flying high in the direction of Kenya at about  1910. One might say I was dreaming but he landed at 2010....

But my interest is not mainly about Obama in Nairobi. It is the symbolism of his return to his ancestral home. Many of my friends in Europe and elsewhere may not really appreciate this but let me try and explain the joy that is returning to a place where everyone is like you. Obama is American as they come but looking at the joy on his face when he saw Auma is a tear jerker.

Let us remember that to Auma Obama is big brother! Yes, he is POTUS but that will come secondary to him being her big brother that is why she did away with protocol and went in for a big bear hug. And to Obama, this is his little sister. In an interview earlier to the media he said that it is more meaningful to him personally returning as a private citizen not as a POTUS. And therein lies the message.

Going back home from abroad to ones' ancestral home is always momentous. I had a friend when I lived in Bristol, United Kingdom in the mid 2000's whose mother is Scottish and her father came from the Caribbean somewhere. At 44, she had never been to visit where her father came from. I can almost remember the conversation we had standing at Stroud train station. I convinced her to visit at least once. A few months later we met in Cardiff, South Wales and she told me that she had been. What struck her most was that when she walked through the arrivals lounge the people who came to welcome her felt like she had known all her life. Although she was mixed race, lighter skinned than all of them, she said that they all looked like her in many subtle ways. Even the little things that irritated them! Since then every once so often she goes back to see all of them.

On a personal note when my children, who are both mixed race, have returned from the UK to come and visit me in Uganda, I have noticed an instant connection between them and their cousins. My children are being brought up extremely well. They are quintessentially English and their outlook to life is being shaped that way. But when they came and visited last Easter, I was amazed at how, when I took them to rural Uganda, rather than recoil at things that are alien to them, they were unfazed. After all this was home too. This is where daddy comes from. It is not England. It looks different. Feels different but it is home!

Ugandans have The Archbishop of York, The Rt Hon Rev John Sentamu who, when he returns to Uganda the media hardly mention him. He is the second most high primate in the world wide Anglican communion after The Archbishop of Canterbury. I have seen him at a Kalerwe, a local suburb which is known for severe deprivation. Yet he was at home talking to the locals with no fan fare.

The look in Obamas eyes as he smiles to Auma at that dining table in that photo above is absolute genuine. They will always be family. They look at him as their elder brother and indeed in tribal and cultural terms Obama is the first born and a male at that. The importance to that position in a family in African tradition can not be understated. So in this little group he has a lot of genuine unconditional love. Yes, they are proud of what he has done but to them, he is the head of that family. And I hope that Michelle and his daughters can see that joy in his eyes and celebrate with him.

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