Obama sits beside half-sister Auma (right) during a gathering of family at his hotel in Nairobi on Friday night.
US President Barack Obama started a four-day visit to East Africa by dining late on Friday in Nairobi with his Kenyan-born father’s relatives.
While his substantive agenda in Kenya and Ethiopia includes terrorism, economic recovery and human rights, family came first in a meeting with dozens of Obama’s relations.
The matriarch of the Kenyan family, Obama’s step-grandmother, Sarah Obama, arrived with daughter Masart Obama and a handcrafted, wooden stool as a present for her grandson.
The second wife of Barack Obama’s grandfather, she came from the family’s home village, Kogelo, where his father is buried.
The president sat at the family dinner between Sarah and his half-sister, Auma Obama, who had earlier greeted him at the airport along with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and other officials.
It is Obama’s first visit to Kenya and Ethiopia since he became the first African-American president in 2009, but his fourth visit to the continent.
Sarah Obama has invited him to visit Kogelo, but the White House said his schedule left no room for the family village.
