8.25.2006
Kenya 'Beats the Drums' for Sen. Obama (CNN.com)
He'll take public HIV test to counter stigma, visit ancestral village
Thursday, August 24, 2006; Posted: 3:04 p.m. EDT (19:04 GMT)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Barack Obama may have only landed Thursday for his latest visit to his father's homeland, but the U.S. senator is already become the country's most prominent "citizen."
People drinking a Kenyan beer called Senator are ordering "Obama" instead. Obama's photograph is popping up on T-shirts, and the once knee-high grass in his ancestral village was cut in advance of his arrival.
As the only African-American in the U.S. Senate, Obama is seen as an inspiration in this east African country where more than half its 33 million people eke out a living on less than $1 a day.
Obama arrived Thursday for a six-day visit, and planned to meet with President Mwai Kibaki and stop at the site where Nairobi's U.S. Embassy was bombed in 1998, killing 248 people.
The Illinois Democrat, his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia, 8, and Sasha, 4, were greeted at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi by U.S. Ambassador Michael E. Ranneberger, the embassy said.
(More ... CNN.com - Kenya 'beats the drums' for Sen. Obama - Aug 24, 2006) ¶ 08:22
Thursday, August 24, 2006; Posted: 3:04 p.m. EDT (19:04 GMT)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Barack Obama may have only landed Thursday for his latest visit to his father's homeland, but the U.S. senator is already become the country's most prominent "citizen."
People drinking a Kenyan beer called Senator are ordering "Obama" instead. Obama's photograph is popping up on T-shirts, and the once knee-high grass in his ancestral village was cut in advance of his arrival.
As the only African-American in the U.S. Senate, Obama is seen as an inspiration in this east African country where more than half its 33 million people eke out a living on less than $1 a day.
Obama arrived Thursday for a six-day visit, and planned to meet with President Mwai Kibaki and stop at the site where Nairobi's U.S. Embassy was bombed in 1998, killing 248 people.
The Illinois Democrat, his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia, 8, and Sasha, 4, were greeted at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi by U.S. Ambassador Michael E. Ranneberger, the embassy said.
(More ... CNN.com - Kenya 'beats the drums' for Sen. Obama - Aug 24, 2006) ¶ 08:22
