The Roots That Clutch .

The Roots That Clutch . 

Some years ago, Barack Obama made a trip to his ancestral land of Kenya in his capacity as President of the United States. On that visit, he did not go to his parental village, a place he had been to earlier as United States senator. On that presidential visit, with all those worries about such murderous outfits as al Shabab flying around, there were proper security concerns related to the visiting US President. But note that on his first evening in Nairobi, Obama spent a cheerful bit of time with his Kenyan relatives, all of whom had turned up from his father’s village to have dinner with him. Among those relatives were his step-grandmother Sarah Obama and his step-sister Uma Obama. There was much laughter and banter at dinner. You could sense the sheer joy, in both the American leader and his father’s family, at the knowledge that a child of the clan had come home, even if for a couple of days. Here was the Luo tribe in all its heritage, proud in the knowledge that one of its own happened to be the most powerful man in the world.