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Barack Obama reunites with father's family in Kenya

By :  DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-07-25 09:00 GMT
Obama's first trip to Kenya nearly 30 years ago was a quest to fill in the gaps in the story of his father's life. In his memoir "Dreams From My Father," Obama wrote that at the time of his death, "my father remained a mystery to me, both more and
Students at the Obama University wash their hands in Conakry, Guinea. (Photo: AP)
A woman sits in the restaurant of a hotel named after U.S. President Barak Obama in Accra, Ghana. (Photo: AP)
In perhaps one of the greatest honors Africa can bestow, Obama's picture is side by side with that of former South African president and renowned activist Nelson Mandela outside a Pretoria clinic where the South African leader was treated. (Photo:
At the seaside in Conakry, Guinea in West Africa, a thatched hut boasts to be the Obama restaurant. Not to be outdone, Accra, the capital of Ghana, has a hotel restaurant named for the president. (Photo: AP)
In the Kenyan town where his grandmother still lives, near Lake Victoria, the local high school has been named "Senator Obama," a legacy of his visit there in 2006 before he became president. (Photo: AP)
With his African ancestry, locals have been quick to claim the president as one of their own and his name turns up in surprising places, such as emblazoned across mobile phones in Bujumbura, Burundi. (Photo: AP)
A Rwandan man wears a shirt showing the face of U.S. President Barack Obama, at a public ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, in Kigali, Rwanda. (Photo: AP)
Wherever he goes, large crowds are expected to gather and cheer him. (Photo: AP)
This week Obama will be visiting Kenya, where his father was born, for a summit on entrepreneurship before heading to Ethiopia to address leaders at the African Union headquarters. (Photo: AP)
Barack Obama, the United States' first African-American president, has captured the imagination of people across the continent where his face shows up on billboards, backpacks, T-shirts and restaurants. (Photo: AP)
Fulfilling the hopes of millions of Kenyans, Barack Obama returned to his father's homeland on Friday for the first time as US president, a long sought visit by a country that considers him a local son. (Photo: AP)
The president spent the evening reuniting with his Kenyan family, including his elderly step-grandmother who made the trip to the capital of Nairobi from her rural village. (Photo: AP)
Obama's link to Kenya is a father he barely knew, but whose influence can nonetheless be seen in his son's presidency. Obama has spoken candidly about growing up without his Kenyan-born father and feeling 'the weight of that absence.' (Photo: AP)
The president's father, Barack Obama, Sr., left Kenya as a young man to study at the University of Hawaii. There, he met Stanley Ann Dunham, a white woman from Kansas. They would soon marry and have a son, who was named after his father. (Photo: AP)
<p>Nairobi: Fulfilling the hopes of millions of Kenyans, Barack Obama returned to his father's homeland on Friday for the first time as US president, a long sought visit by a country that considers him a local son.</p><p>The president spent the evening reuniting with his Kenyan family, including his elderly step-grandmother who made the trip to the capital of Nairobi from her rural village.</p><p>U.S. and Kenyan flags lined the main road from Nairobi's airport, and billboards heralding Obama's trip dotted the city.</p><p>"I don't think that Kenyans think of Obama as African-American. They think of him as Kenyan-American," said EJ Hogendoorn, deputy program director for Africa at the</p><p>International Crisis Group.</p><p>Obama's link to Kenya is a father he barely knew, but whose influence can nonetheless be seen in his son's presidency.</p><p>Obama has spoken candidly about growing up without his Kenyan-born father and feeling "the weight of that absence."&nbsp;</p>

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