Being an Obama Comes With Its Share of Burden

Nairobi — Mr Barack Obama's rise to the presidency of the most powerful nation in the world has catapulted his ageing grandmother into celebrity status.
But holding the Obama name has also had its share of burden and pressures locally.
Mama Sarah Obama, the dimpled ever-smiling octogenarian, has in the past year welcomed visitors from far and wide and landed more invites than ever before, but she is not complaining.
The family has also had strange requests such as assisting in visa searches, job placements in the US and facilitation of an appointment with the White House.
"My knees are weakening but I wake up every morning expecting many visitors. I no longer view any of them as more special than the other because all of them are attracted by the fame of this boy (President Obama)," she says.

Boy? I hope Limbaugh picks up on this.

From a stream of visitors, international travel, journalists and high expectations, the family has had it all.Authors seeking to retrace the US president's roots and others seeking to make documentaries have been making enquiries from near and far.
"On daily basis I welcome up to 100 people, from all over the world but I can't send them away because visitors are a blessing. It is God who brought the blessings into my home," she says.

That would be ACORN, not God.

She says some of the visitors travel from far and pressing them to make an appointment would not be realistic.

And it would stifle the flow of free stuff.

She has received so much publicity and has had so many photo shoots that she once joked that if camera flashes were electricity, she would have died of shock.
Barely a week after her grandson made history by becoming the first African American to win the country's presidency, Mama Sarah landed an international job as a goodwill ambassador against malnutrition. The Inter-governmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition said the 86-year-old would join its other ambassadors, who include former Argentine football star Diego Maradona. The African Union appointed her a goodwill ambassador to help in the eradication of tse tse fly, the insect that causes sleeping sickness.

I wonder how much that no-work job pays?

Billionaire Sulaiman al-Fahim -- the point man of mega-rich Abu Dhabi United Group -- sponsored Mama Sarah to Mecca for the annual pilgrimage.

Gee...the drive-bys didn't cover that?

Dr Al-Fahim is the ambassador at large of the group against malnutrition.The businessman was behind the takeover of English Premier League side Manchester City Football Club.
What followed was a five-day trip to Libya which culminated in a meeting with the country's leader Muammar Gaddafi.
International musician Kanda Bongoman led his band to the village to congratulate Mama Sarah following her grandson's victory in the US election.A police post was established inside the home and a patrol base put up in the village just to make sure that all was well.

Note the rest of Kenya....Don't expect the same level of protection....you're on your own.

She cites the solar panels at the Senator Obama Secondary School which were initially meant for her use but she passed them over because "the pupils needed them more for their studies".
Mr Obama's election victory literally brought light into the home. Within a few hours of the declaration of the victory, the Kenya Power Lighting Company staff were on the ground erecting poles.

Too the rest of Kenya....No light for you!

The villagers have been receiving goodies that come with the trappings of power.The charity has been flowing through Mama Sarah to them.

Anyone drop off any free stuff in Crawford TX besides a nut named Cindy Sheehan?

Kogello is set to benefit from two nursery schools, one named after the granny, with donations from the Netherlands.
Mama Sarah says people have also donated books, clothes and food, which she distributes to the villagers. The live hedges that once surrounded the home were brought down to give way to barbed wire.

Uncanny....we see that very same thing happening here in the U.S. because of that "boy".

Saidi Obama, her son, tells of the family's harassment by journalists. "There are publications we stumble upon on the internet and we are shocked. The contents are outrageous and the others claim to have interviewed us yet I have never met them. They are out to misrepresent facts," said Saidi.
He says people have had a lot of expectations from the family, from material things to US visa facilitation to fixing appointments with the White House.

That's funny, the villiagers here expect the very same thing.

Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate

Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.

The allegations that horrified fellow Republicans and caused his once-promising candidacy to implode in four short days have given Obama a clear lead as Republicans struggled to fetch an alternative.

Ryan’s campaign began to crumble on Monday following the release of embarrassing records from his divorce. In the records, his ex-wife, Boston Public actress Jeri Ryan, said her former husband took her to kinky sex clubs in Paris, New York and New Orleans.

“It’s clear to me that a vigorous debate on the issues most likely could not take place if I remain in the race,” Ryan, 44, said in a statement. “What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign – the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play.”

Although Ryan disputed the allegations, saying he and his wife went to one ‘avant-garde’ club in Paris and left because they felt uncomfortable, lashed out at the media and said it was “truly outrageous” that the Chicago Tribune got a judge to unseal the records.

The Republican choice will become an instant underdog in the campaign for the seat of retiring Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald, since Obama held a wide lead even before the scandal broke.

“I feel for him actually,” Obama told a Chicago TV station. “What he’s gone through over the last three days I think is something you wouldn’t wish on anybody.”

The Republican state committee must now choose a replacement for Ryan, who had won in the primaries against seven contenders. Its task is complicated by the fact that Obama holds a comfortable lead in the polls and is widely regarded as a rising Democratic star.

The chairwoman of the Illinois Republican Party, Judy Topinka, said at a news conference, after Ryan withdrew, that Republicans would probably take several weeks to settle on a new candidate.

“Obviously, this is a bad week for our party and our state,” she said.

As recently as Thursday, spokesmen for the Ryan campaign still insisted that Ryan would remain in the race. Ryan had defended himself saying, “There’s no breaking of any laws. There’s no breaking of any marriage laws. There’s no breaking of the Ten Commandments anywhere.”

http://web.archive.org/web/20040627142700/http://eastandard.net/headlines/news26060403.htm

I find it curious that unlike his white grandmother this ever smiling, dimpled African granny is never mentioned by the current resident... Nor does he ever speak of the aunt that taxpayers support who is living illegally in Boston, or NY or wherever. Ditto for the brother living in poverty in a shack somewhere on the Dark Continent. Moreover, they aren’t ever invited to jet around the world on extended luxury vacations with the resident. Nope, not part of his posse. It is puzzling since he does haul around his half sister, her husband and family plus a whole passel of his in-laws. Curious... or maybe not.

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