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Barack Obama Visits Kenya For The First Time Since Leaving Office

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July 17, 2018

Photo credit: Tony Karumba/ Getty Images 

For the first time since leaving office, the 44th U.S. President, Barack Obama, visited Africa on Sunday and Monday. His first stop? His father’s birthplace of Kenya.

During his two-day visit, Obama met with the Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga, who according to the Washington Post, “have recently made peace with each other after a contentious election that led to violence earlier this year.” 

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Then he helped his half-sister Auma Obama launch a sports and training center for youth through her charitable foundation called Sauti Kuu. The center is named after their late father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr.

“It’s a joy to be here with family,” Obama said to those attending the launch of the vocational center. “And to be here with so many who claim to be my family.”

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He ended his visit with playing basketball on the vocational center’s new court and dancing along to traditional music with his 96-year-old step-grandmother Sarah Obama.  

Obama announced his visit via social media last Friday, writing on Facebook, “I was proud to visit sub-Saharan Africa more times than any other sitting President, and I’ll return this week to visit Kenya and South Africa. In South Africa, the Obama Foundation will convene 200 extraordinary young leaders from across the continent and I’ll deliver a speech to mark the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth. Kenya, of course, is the Obama ancestral home. I visited for the first time when I was in my twenties and I was profoundly influenced by my experiences – a journey I wrote about in my first book, Dreams from My Father.” 

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Today, Obama delivered the 16th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

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