Flashback

Obama’s Kenyan grandma attending inauguration, wants to meet Hillary Clinton

Hello! Magazine has a new interview with Barack Obama’s step-grandmother in Kenya. 87 year-old Sarah Onyango Obama raised Obama’s now-deceased father, Barack Sr., after his mother left. The President Elect calls her “Granny Sarah,” and she is known as “Mama Sarah” in her small village in Kenya. Things have changed for Mama Sarah since Barack won the election. The road leading up to her village has been fixed by order of the Kenyan Prime Minister and she now has a security team and a fence around her house.
Sarah has met Obama several times and is excited to be going to the inauguration in the US along with members of her family. She’s kept in touch with her step grandson over the years and says she has some advice for him about working for peace in the world. She was last in the US for Obama’s inauguration to the Senate in 2004 and met his daughters, Sasha and Malia, at that time and again when they visited Kenya in 2006 with their family.
Mama Sarah is blessed to have the future US President in her family, but she says there’s still one person she wants to meet - US Senator and Barack’s former rival, Hillary Clinton. Sarah spoke to Hello! through an interpreter:
Click below to read an extract of the interview!!!

There have been a lot of changes since I visited you last March. You have a fence, police protection - you are like an African queen…
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
So you are going to the inauguration?
“Yes, we are leaving for Washington soon. We received one invitation for every member of the family who is going. It is a very important inauguration. We know people are going to be happy.”
How long will you stay?
“More than four to five days. Our stay is being coordinated by Barack’s office in Washington.’
What would you like to see in Washington?
“I like the statues. But I would just like to walk around and see many places.”
Are you going to stay at the White House?
“We don’t have final details. I will stay in the White House or at a place nearby, that’s what I was told.”
But would you like Barack to give you a private tour of the White House?
“Of course! I expect both of them, Barack and Michelle, to give me a tour of the White House.”
What about their daughters, Malia (ten) and Sasha (eight)? When did you last meet them?
“I met my great-granddaughters when I went to Barack’s inauguration when he became the senator of Illinois. Then I met them again when they came to visit me here at my home.”
When you next see your grandson, the President-elect, what are you going to tell him?
“I am going to ask him to work hard to achieve world peace and to stop all the fighting in many places around the world. We need peace!
“I am also going to ask him to work hard for a better economy around the world…
Who is one person you would like to meet in the US beside your grandson and his family?
“Hillary! I want to meet Hillary. I would like to thank her for helping Barack to win the elections. Then, I would ask her to continue to help him and to work with Barack to ensure that he will not disappoint the people who elected him. I think Hillary and I will get along very well.”