[ By: Charles Onyango-Obbo ]
I think we are in danger of getting carried away by Obama and forgetting to do one of the things that has enabled Africans survive all sorts of hardships — have a good laugh.

Over the last two weeks, we read serious stuff from clever men and women discussing what US President Barack Obama’s visit to Africa (Ghana, that is) means.

Would he make some earth-shaking announcement that would open a whole new chapter in US-Africa relations?

What was the significance of his decision not to visit his fatherland, Kenya?

Then, while he is in Ghana and after, the commentators and pundits continued to dissect. Oh, they said, Obama went to great length to appeal to the African youth and try and inspire them to seize the future and save our long-suffering continent from corrupt and thieving leaders.

I think we are in danger of getting carried away by Obama and forgetting to do one of the things that has enabled Africans survive all sorts of hardships — have a good laugh.

I asked myself what my maternal great grandfather, from the comfort of his grave, was thinking of Obama.

He was a warrior and a dedicated cattle keeper, who took great pride in his herd. Even by the standards of his times, the early 20th Century, my great grandfather was considered to have quite unusual views.

For example, he took intellectual property rights too seriously. As a result, whenever he saw an animal that resembled any of his bulls anywhere in nearby villages, he would consider them to have been fathered by one of his champion bulls.

So, claiming copyright, he would seize it and take it to his kraal.

Clearly he would have been scandalised by Obama. As the world’s most powerful man, and because he has roots in Kogelo, in Kenya’s Nyanza, the US president is also the biggest African chief ever. But there was nothing African about Obama in Ghana.

First, African chiefs never travel empty-handed. People know that you are a chief going by what you left in their mouths. I watched carefully, and Obama was greeting Ghanaians “like that” without leaving anything in any of the outstretched palms.

A modern African chief would travel with suitcases full of money, which he would “pour” wherever he went. Let us look at a case from Uganda.

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986, after a five-year war based in an area called Luwero Triangle, about an hour’s drive from Kampala.

In 1985 the Museveni rebels set out on a long trek toward the west, from where they regrouped and begun the big push eastward that eventually handed them victory.

Some years ago, Museveni went on a highly sentimental pilgrimage with some of his comrades in the war to retrace that journey.

Peasants, some of who had given the rebels food and other support back then, turned out and stood on the roadside to greet the pilgrims.

Museveni was aware that he was returning as a chief, not a penniless rebel leader, so he carried sacks of money.

Everywhere he stopped to greet the people, he showered them with envelopes stuffed with money. That is the African way. By those standards, Obama was a failure.

Then, and this was the definitive one, he went back to America without a Ghanaian wife. My great grandfather would have been appalled.

The elders would have either accused his wife Michelle of having “bewitched” him so that he could not look at another beauty, or they would have complained that “Michelle was the one wearing the trousers in the house.”

In the good old days when we had real African chiefs and kings, wherever they travelled, the tribes along their path gave them brides.

This served many purposes. First, it helped keep the peace, because a powerful chief was less likely to attack his in-law tribe.

Secondly, it was an instrument for redistributing wealth. Since land, fishes, forests, name it, belonged to the king, there were two ways of getting to share the wealth.

You either joined the king’s army and rose to be a great general, and he would reward you with land and forests; or you ensured that your daughter got married into the palace.

If the king were happy with her, he would give her clan or tribe goodies. Otherwise, there was no fair system for distributing the kingdom’s wealth.

However, Obama did not escape my great grandfather’s Africa altogether. He (and many Africans for that matter) might not have realised it, but those female traditional dancers who put on a show for him — and entertain the VIPs on big national days — are a rather embarrassing relic of this past.

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Kenyans’ inaugural trip to USA riles some at home — NAIROBI, Kenya – As the new U.S. president takes center stage today amid celebrations around the globe, an uproar is brewing in the birthplace of Barack Obama’s father.

Eight high-level Kenyans, led by Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetang’ula, flew to Washington at government expense while their nation faces one of its worst famines in years – and even though they weren’t invited to Obama’s inauguration.

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Washington awakens with inauguration buzz: WASHINGTON (CNN) — Washington awoke Tuesday crowded and excited with the inauguration of a new president that’s only a few hours away.

As many as 2 million people are expected to crowd into the area between the Capitol, the White House and the Lincoln Memorial as Barack Obama takes the oath of office at noon.

Some will be more than a mile from the swearing-in ceremony, watching on giant TV screens erected along the National Mall.

But just being among the crowd is good enough for many…. [MORE]

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An earlier visit to Kogelo Village — By Andrea Moorehead of WTHR TV – Indianapolis, IN. Andrea visited Barack Obama’s 87-year-old grandmother at her home in Kenya to talk about her hopes for her grandson’s future.

By PHILIP OCHIENG

On Tuesday, a “Luo” individual will become the most powerful man in the world. A Luo? Of course. Why else would Kenya’s lakeland community which goes by that name be so electrified by Barack Obama’s impending anointment as the commander-in-chief of the world’s only superpower?

Yet the question is stark: Is Obama a Luo? To answer “yes” or “no,” one would first have to define a Luo. There are at least two possibilities. There is, first, what the Luo themselves may imagine as their blood heritage.

There is, secondly, what Paul Mboya called Luo Kitgi Gi Timbegi, a book in Dholuo which describes the character and customs of “Jokowiny.” For the character and customs of a tribal community need not coincide with its blood composition.

Language and culture

We should stress the term “Jokowiny” because, although it is almost forgotten now, that is the correct name of the Luo of Kenya and Tanzania, a people whose language and culture are almost uniform from the Luhya border to Tanzania’s Mara.

The attitude by Jokowiny that we are the Luo alienates many pedigree Luo communities, such as the Padhola, Lang’o, Kumam, Acholi and Karamojong of Uganda, the Alur of Congo, and the Nuer, Anuak Nuer, Dinka and Shilluk of the Sudan.

Indeed, the Sudanese and northern Ugandan Luo are more genuinely Luo than we because they are less removed from the original home of dispersal and, therefore, less influenced by non-Nilotic elements.

But yes, by a certain definition, the 44th President of the United States is JAKOWINY – JAKOWINY (with an “A”) being the singular form of JOKOWINY (with an “O”). It means “descendant of Owiny.”

Owiny was a brother of Adhola, the eponymous ancestor of Charles Onyango Obbo’s Jopadhola. The PA in “JOPADHOLA” and in other Ugandan and Sudanese Luo languages is their equivalent of KA among Jokowiny (and means “of,” or “offspring of” or “homestead of“).

The celebrated name OKOT P’BITEK is really “Okot PA Bitek” (“Okot of Bitek” or “Okot son of Bitek“). In both pronunciation and writing, the “a” in PA and KA is usually dropped when the next word begins with a vowel. That is why we say JAKOWINY, and not JA-KA-OWINY.

The PA in Padhola means the same thing as the KA in such Kowiny place names as KARACHUONYO (“home of Rachuonyo“), KAMAGAMBO (“land of Magambo“) and KANYIDOTO (“where the daughters of Doto are married“).

The word element KA was common to all Nilotes, including the ancient Egyptians. The word “EGYPT” itself is only a European corruption of HEKAPTAH (“home of the god Ptah“). The KAPTAH part of HEKAPTAH is what has come down to us as “COPT.”

The same word appears in such place-names among the Kalenjin – a Nilotic people – as Kabartonjo (“land of Bartonjo“), Kabianga (“dwelling place of Bianga“) and Kabarnet (“Barnet’s base” – named after a colonial Anglo-Saxon missionary).

For the Luo belong to the culturo-linguistic super-community that anthropologists call Nilotic or Nilo-Saharan – which includes the Maasai, Kalenjin and Teso – and who now spread from Tanzania to Egypt and from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Darfur and Nigeria.

Barack Obama Senior belonged to KOGELO (“homestead of Ogelo“). He was Jakogelo (“offspring of Ogelo’s home“). Jokogelo (“people of Ogelo“) are a clan of the Alego. That is significant.

In his book History of the Southern Luo, B.A. Ogot – the eminent Luo historian – suggests that the Alego (and the professor’s own Gem people) are the quintessence of Jokowiny.

They were the first to arrive in what is now Kenya. Adhola and Owiny were leaders of an advance detachment of the Luo as they drifted along the Nile – fish being their staple. On hitting Lake Victoria, they exchanged words, and Owiny was forced to move ahead.

It was after wandering through what are now Manyala, Samia, Imbo and Sakwa – driving the autochthonous Luhya (a Bantu cluster) from their homes – that Owiny and his followers finally settled in what we now call Alego.

It was from Alego that Jokowiny spread out, northwards to Gem and Ugenya, eastwards to Seme, Kisumu and Winam and southwards to Asembo, Uyoma and across the string of water – Nyanza Gulf ? which intrudes into and divides Kowiny-land into two parts.

   LuoLand – Kenya | Click Here For MAP of KENYA |

Yet it is appropriate that the term “Jokowiny” is now in disuse, except among Adhola’s people. They retain in folk memory the bitter quarrel that forced their brother Owiny eastwards. So they know all the Luo to the east of them as Jokowiny.

Completely swallowed

But since then other Luo and even non-Luo branches have arrived to commingle with Jokowiny. Among these are my own group – Abasuba – who, although completely swallowed by the Luo, were originally not even Nilo-Saharan, but a composite of Bantu refugees, mostly from Buganda.

A culturally imperious community, its ethnic arrogance has been heightened manifold by the colonially created ethnic rivalry that characterises Kenya’s politics. But I repeat that the arrogance cannot be explained by any “ethnic purity.”

The Kenya Luo are so influenced by other communities that they are a mind-boggling heterogeneity of blood, culture and language. One reason is that they adopted exogamy (the taking of wives from other tribes) very early in their Southward Ho.

They shared with the ancient Hellenes the habit of waylaying foreign women and literally pulling them into bed as wives. So for Senior to grab wives from as far away as Hawaii and Massachusetts – and Caucasian ones to boot – was no big deal.

Given time, he might even have grabbed an Afghan, a Cherokee, an Eskimo, a Fijian, an Iraqi, a Lithuanian, a Mongolian, a Pole, a Shona, a Vietnamese, a Wolof, a Yoruba and a Zaramo – not to mention hundreds from Luoland, apart from Kezia.

The Luo would have noted his “he-man-ship” with complete approval. That is what makes them such a “bloody” heterogeneity. But that, too, is why, in their view, Senior’s son, the 44th President of the United States, cannot be anything but a Luo.

They are fiercely patriarchal, thus the offspring belong strictly to the father’s tribe, clan or what the Luo call THUR and DHOOT. THUR refers to the ridge that rises between two streams and is often identified with a clan.

DHOOT (the two “o”s pronounced separately) is the word for “door.” It literally means “mouth of the house” – from DHOK, “mouth,” and OT, “house.” The “mouth” element can be seen also in the term DHOLUO, the name of Jokowiny’s language, literally: “mouth of the Luo.”

Jokowiny assume that people speak with their mouths. But not all Luo communities think so. The Acholi know their language as LEPLUO (“tongue of the Luo“). However, used away from real doors, the word DHOOT refers to the immediate genealogical “house,” namely, the gentile clan.

Person of my house

All Nilotes had the habit of calling a spouse a “house.” In polite society, a Luo speaks of JAODA (“my wife” or “my husband“), a word which translates literally as “person of my house.” When, in Genesis, Joseph says he has found favour in “Pharaoh’s house,” he is resorting to the Nilotic euphemism for “wife,” here the queen.

Barack Obama is 50 per cent Caucasian, but as far as the Luo are concerned, only a Luo is capable of deeds as heroic as Barack’s. In tradition, the Luo divided humanity into three categories ? Joluo (the noblest), Jolang’o and Jomwa. The rest of mankind were Mwa, worse than useless.

But, of course, a shameless Mwa people called Britons punctured gaping holes into this bloated arrogance just by hurling a magical spear known as the gun.

Nevertheless, because he has done those deeds a whole continent away from Luoland, Barack outshines Adhola, Aeneas, Ausonius, Cadmus, Cain, Danaos, Delphos, Hesy, Imhotep, Luanda Magere, Gor Mahia, Tom Mboya, Memnon, Menes, Nyikang’o, Jaramogi Odinga, Owiny and Pelasgus among other Nilotic heroes.

In short, his mother does not enter into the equation, even though she contributed 50 per cent of his biological make-up and almost 100 per cent of his cultural upbringing.

As far as the Luo are concerned, Barack Obama is 200 per cent Luo.

That is the point you miss by dismissing Barack Obama as a mere American who will not give priority to Kenya, Luoland and Nyangoma-Kogelo. A people does not live by bread alone. By pulling off a feat like that and boosting their pride to the utmost, Barack has already delivered.

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About The Author: Philip Ochieng — is a Kenyan Luo, and an Editor with the Nation Media Group. Like Obama Senior, he too went to the US on the famous Tom Mboya Airlift of 1959 [when hundreds of Kenyan students were given scholarships to American universities]. He first met Obama Senior in Tom Mboya’s Nairobi office [Mboya was then the secretary general of the Kenya Federation of Labour]. Obama and Ochieng met up again on returning to Nairobi and remained drinking buddies for many years.

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By George Olwenya, Kenya

Mama Sarah Obama has started her journey to the US to witness the swearing-in of her grandson Barack Obama as the 44th American President.

And she is not travelling empty-handed. As a grandmother, she is carrying special gifts for her grandson — a Luo traditional three-legged stool, a flywhisk and a shield, which are symbols of leadership. “I wanted to give him a spear too, but I have been told that due to security reasons, I will not be allowed to board a plane with it,” Mama Sarah told The Standard.

Mama Sarah was in a jubilant mood as she left Nyang’oma Kogelo village for Nairobi. There was a battery of foreign and local journalists to record the moment.

“The day I was waiting for has finally come… I cannot hide my joy,” she said, adding: “I am going to be Kenya’s ambassador during the occasion and I will live to the expectations.”

Mama Sarah will put up with relatives in Nairobi before departing to the US on Friday from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, only a day before the US President-elect kicks of his inaugural celebrations by taking the day-long journey to Washington DC.

Obama and his family will start their daylong journey with an event in Philadelphia before boarding the train and picking up Vice-President-elect Joe Biden and his family in Wilmington, Delaware. The group will then make a stop in Baltimore before making their way to Washington DC.

Mama Sarah Obama, the grandmother to US President-elect Barack Obama, arrives at Kisumu Airport on Sunday. She was to fly to Nairobi and then Washington DC to witness Obama’s inauguration on January 20. Mama Sarah Obama has started her journey to the US to witness the swearing-in of her grandson Barack Obama as the 44th American President.

Obama’s train trip evokes memories of US’s 16th President Abraham Lincoln who travelled the same route by train to get to Washington DC for his inauguration in 1861.

Lincoln left his home in Springfield for a 12-day journey to Washington DC and made 101 speeches during stopovers.

Among the relatives accompanying Mama Sarah are her son Said Obama and his wife Beatrice; Kogelo community spokesman Nicholas Rajula and his wife Nelly; Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School BOG chairman Charles Ochome and the Principal Eunita Obiero, as well as Lynn Yaya, a sister to Prime minister Raila Odinga’s wife Ida.

Mama Sarah said she was delighted as the big day (inauguration) nears and her going to America to attend the occasion means a lot to Kenya.

“We are going to install him so that he can serve the world,” she said in Dholuo. “When he sees me he will be very happy because he will have seen his blood,” she said amid prolonged laughter.

“I know Barack will be very happy to see me. My presence will mean a lot to him,” she added.

She added she would have wished to carry a spear to give Obama but was told that it will not be allowed through the airport.

“Rajula tried to carry a spear to give Barack when he won the Senate seat but he was blocked at the airport,” she recalled.

After the inauguration, Mama Sarah said it would now be upon Obama to work hard and ensure he helped those suffering across the world.

In Kogelo, among those who bid her farewell included senior official of Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organization in Siaya district, Mrs Patricia Apoli, and members of the Kogelo cultural committee who were putting final touches to a cultural festival that is set to start on January 16 at Kogelo Primary School to celebrate the installation of Obama as President of the United States.

The Mayor of Washington Mr Adrian Fenty estimates that up to five million people will attend the inauguration as it is the first time ever the US has an African-American president.

All hotels in Washington DC and surrounding suburbs were booked months ago, and tourists now have to make do with alternative accommodation with families willing to sub-let their houses.

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THE GIFTS Click Pics To Enlarge Three-Legged Stool Kom Nyaluo Flywhisk Orengo Spear (Tong) and Shield

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Reference: A Kenyan Transition to Power — Obama’s Relatives Find That ‘Change’ Is Their Watchword, Too — By Stephanie McCrummen — Washington Post Foreign Service. Sunday, January 18, 2009;
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By WALTER MENYA

Mama Sarah Obama, grandmother of American President-elect Barack Obama, was on Monday at the centre of World Aids Day activities in Kisumu where she flagged off an awareness marathon.

As soon as residents got wind that Mama Sarah was at the Jomo Kenyatta Grounds [Click To View Picture], a huge crowd converged.

A jovial Mama Sarah, who arrived in a two-car convoy escorted by female security personnel, waved cheerfully at the crowds. Her security detail had a torrid time trying to stop the excited crowd from shaking her hand.

‘Kogelo ber kata an be angima (DHOLUO for Kogelo is fine and am also doing well),’ she told the crowd.

She, however, sidestepped a question about her travel plans to the US for Mr Obama’s inauguration.

PICTURE: Ms Sarah Hussein Obama, grandmother of US President-elect Barack Obama, cuts a tape to officially open a children’s park during the World Aids Day marathon at Jomo Kenyatta sports ground in Kisumu on Monday. On her right is Ms Betty Okero, an Aids activist. World Aids Day celebrations were marked in various towns countrywide.

Earlier, the 86-year-old Mama Sarah, who slipped into Kisumu quietly on Sunday, had flagged off the World Aids Marathon at seven in the morning.

Organisers said that they had chosen Mama Sarah because of her high profile.

They also said the fact that President-elect Obama had undergone HIV counselling and testing in Kisumu on his 2006 trip was more reason to choose her.

‘There is a lot of interest in the Obama family,’ said Betty Okero of the Civil Society Network, one of the organisers.

‘If her presence here today will help reduce new infections and give hope, we welcome that,’ said Ms Okero.

Ms Alie Eleveld of Safe Water and Aids Project said Mr Obama’s involvement with the World Aids Marathon was the main reason for choosing Mama Sarah to flag it off.

‘Barack Obama has been a great supporter of the World Aids Marathon, so we thought it would be a good gesture to invite his granny,’ said Ms Eleveld.

Speaking to the Nation after the function, Mama Sarah said that she was happy to be part of the event.

‘I feel greatly privileged to be invited because my grandson is very concerned about the ravages of HIV,’ she said.

Pictures of President-elect Obama taken at the VCT clinic during his 2006 visit are extensively being used to drive the campaign against HIV and Aids.

Staff at the clinic began distributing the posters in the run-up to the US election.

On election night, the VCT clinic set up a temporary facility at the Kogelo dispensary where villagers kept up with events in the US on a giant TV screen.

A Liverpool VCT clinic official said the events were geared towards reducing HIV infections in Nyanza Province.

The province leads in HIV prevalence rates in the country at 15 per cent, double the national rate of 7.4 per cent, according to the latest Kenya Aids Index Survey by the National Aids/STI Control Programme.

The survey further found that 1.4 million adults in Kenya are living with the virus with Nyanza contributing the highest percentage.

‘She is very supportive because she knows HIV and Aids is a killer. She believes in prevention and giving hope to those who are living with the virus,’ said Ms Okero of Mama Sarah.