Does anyone know why people say he was born in Mombasa as opposed to somewhere closer to the ancestral village? Nyang’oma Kogelo is a whole lot closer to Nairobi than Mombasa.
Slimy life forms originally crawled from the sea...
There’s been a lot of speculation on the Mombasa aspect. I suppose it’s possible that Daddy Obama had some reason to go to Mombasa - political party headquarters? maybe the university where he got an undergraduate degree? near the airport? It’s odd but not impossible.
There is the issue that Granny Obama says that she was present at his birth. She wouldn’t have been that old at the time (in her 40s, probably), so it wouldn’t have been impossible for her to get to Mombasa.
Why she’d go is another matter. Maybe Daddy Obama wanted her there, maybe he felt that he wanted it clear that Baby Obama was his and belonged to his clan, maybe she even intended to take the baby back to her village to be brought up there. Who knows?
They’re odd aspects, but don’t really make it impossible.
Stanley was into the “going native” thing but giving birth in a bucket in a mud hut (figuratively) may have been just a bit too much. British-trained hospital and staff would have looked much better to a western chick.
It seems plausible that after this rebel hippy chick “married” BO Sr in a “secret” wedding in Maui in Feb ‘61- she would be anxious to go native and meet the ‘rents in Africa and get her new MIL’s blessing and all that. (flip side of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”?) It’s also plausible what she found out when she got to Africa was not what she expected in her perfect world of liberated tolerant black people. Another BO sr wife and family, and racial prejudice against her westerness and white skin.
Airline schedules- I think Seattle could figure, since Mercer Island was her real home, and the place she showed up with a 3 week old baby whose diapers she didnt know how to change (anecdote of a friend). Was she coming to Seattle from Honolulu- or from overseas?
If Stanley Dunham/Anna Obama’s and BO sr’s 1961 passport records would become available, the speculation could be dropped- eh?
The only puzzling thing- a free spirit communist “traveler” like Stanley likely would have have been proud of traveling to Africa and giving birth there- if she did. She should have boasted about it. No record she ever did.