WASHINGTON POST — When Anna Mulli heard that President Obama was planning to visit Africa, she expected him to visit her homeland. Like many of her countrymen, she considers the president a son of Kenya. Obama’s father was Kenyan; many of his relatives, including his grandmother, still live here. During both the 2008 and 2012 elections, Mulli said she went to church to pray that Obama would win.
“But now he has neglected us,” said Mulli, sighing with disappointment as she entered a downtown Nairobi church for Sunday mass.
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As Obama embarks on his first substantial visit to Africa this week, Kenyans are venting a sense of anger and frustration — on social media, in newspaper editorials, on the streets — that their nation is not in his itinerary. Many had long expected Obama to pay a visit to his father’s ancestral home and allow Kenyans to embrace him, just like the Irish did during his emotional 2011 trip to Ireland, from where his mother’s ancestors hailed. Instead, Obama will visit Senegal, South Africa and neighboring Tanzania, whose capital, Dar es Salaam, is less than an hour’s flight from Nairobi.
Read more at The Washington Post.
