President Obama''s homecoming: In pictures

Jul 24, 2015

US leader Barack Obama is coming back to his father''s birthplace, Kenya, this time as president.


US leader Barack Obama is coming back to his father's birthplace, Kenya, this time as president.
 

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The mood

 


An man rides a bicycle and a trailer with messages reading "welcome Kenya Obama" in Nairobi on Thursday, a day before the US President's visit. On the eve of his trip to Africa, US President Barack Obama said he was excited about the impending visit to his ancestral continent, which he said had great resilience and enormous potential for growth

 

 

 


US and Kenyan flags flutter in the wind along a street in Nairobi less than 48 hours ahead of the expected touch-down of the President of the United States, Barack Obama. Obama arrives in his ancestral homeland Kenya late on Friday, with a massive security operation underway to protect him from Al-Qaeda-linked Somali militants. Obama, making his first visit as president to his father's birthplace, will address an entrepreneurship summit and hold talks on trade and investment, security and counter-terrorism, and democracy and human rights

 

 

 


An armed police officer gestures as he patrols a street in Nairobi. US and Kenyan officials are fixated on making sure Al-Qaeda's Somali-led affiliate, the Shebab, cannot violently disrupt the US presidential visit

 

 
 

 


A truck full of police officers patrols along a street in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi

 

 

 
 


Here, a Kenyan policeman stands guard as a group of tourists walk past, outside the Pre-Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi. The main event will be opened by President Obama on July 25 as part of the first ever visit of a sitting US President to Kenya

 

 

 


A woman walks past a stall displaying T-shirts bearing an image of US President Barack Obama in Kibera, apparently Africa's largest slum

 

 
 

 


People walk past a billboard welcoming US President Barack Obama in Nairobi, ahead of his visit

 
 

 

 

The roots


Kenyan vendor Hosea displays his t-shirts with a depiction of US President Barack Obama at the Kogelo market in Kisumu. Excitement is growing in Kenya ahead of Barack Obama's first visit to his father's homeland since becoming president. Anticipation ahead of the late July trip is nowhere greater than in Kogelo, "a sleepy village" that was "put on the world map" by its association with the US president, according to his uncle Said Obama

 

 
 

 


Students play football outside of Senator Obama Kogelo primary school in Kogelo on July 13, 2015. The school was renamed after the US President Barack Obama's visit in 2006 to Kenya when he was a state senator. The Kenyan Obamas are related to the US president through his Kenyan-born father, Barack Hussein Obama Senior, who died in 1982

 

 

 

 


A worker digging next to the grave site of Barack Obama senior at the homestead of Sarah Onyango Obama, 94, US President Barack Obama step grandmother at her home in Kogelo, western Kenya. 'Mama Sarah', as she is known to all in the local community, was the third wife of President Obama's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, and still lives in the family compound where her husband and son, President Obama's father, are buried

 

 

 

 


Sarah Onyango Obama, 94, US President Barack Obama step grandmother, sits in the garden at her home in Kogelo, western Kenya

 

 

 

The art
 


People walk in the street near a graffito by artists Bankslave and Swift depicting US President Barack Obama at the Go Down Art Centre in Nairobi

 

 

 

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Kenyan artist Yegonizer (L) carries one of his paintings depicting US President Barack Obama at the Go Down Art Centre in Nairobi

 

 

 


Here, the Kenyan artist poses with his paintings depicting US President Barack Obama

 

 

 


A man takes a photo with his smartphone of painted artwork depicting US President Barack Obama (L) and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta at the Pre-Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, on the eve of Obama's visit to Kenya

 

 

 


Kenyan women pose for a photograph in front of a painted artwork depicting US President Barack Obama at the Pre-Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi

 

 

 

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People sit in a "matatu" minibus with a painting depicting US Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama and US scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin in Nairobi
 

 

 


The memories

 

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Members of the Kenya 7th August, 1998 Bomb Blast Victims Association, carry placards during a night vigil in Nairobi on July 23, 2015. Protesters gathered outside the August 7th Memorial Park - former US embassy, a day before the visit of US President Barack Obama to demand compensation from the US government for the 1998 bombing of the US embassy that killed over 200 people, including US nationals

 

 

 


A member of the Kenya 7th August 1998 Bomb Blast Victims Association lights a candle during a night vigil in Nairobi

 



The local press

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Meanwhile, Obama the family man

 


US President Barack Obama (L) walks his daughters Sasha Obama (3L), Malia Obama (4L back) and his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng (3R) and brother-in-law Konrad Ng (2R) and others in Central Park July 18, 2015 in New York

 



 


Obama (2R) walks to Air Force One with his daughter Sasha Obama (C) and two of her friends at Andrews Air Force Base July 17, 2015 in Maryland.

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