Mama Sarah, the most famous grandmother in Africa, died at the age of 99. Born in 1922, second wife of Barack Obama’s paternal grandfather “Granny”, as the former president affectionately called her, she left in silence, at 4 am, in Jaramogi Oginga Odinga hospital in Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya.
The scarf always tied on her hair, to remind Mamy of “Gone with the Wind”, Mama Sarah belonged to the Luo ethnic group, the third most populous in the country. She has dedicated her life to promoting that education she never had and supporting the rights of the weakest, from orphans (some she raised directly in her home) to young women. “Education is everything,” he repeated. “It makes you self-sufficient and gives you the right tools to face life”
This is also why Barack Obama loved her so much: after a first visit in 2006, when he was still a senator from Illinois in 2009, on the occasion of his first inauguration, he wanted her by his side and in 2015 he did not fail to go and embrace her. in what was the first trip of an American president to Kenya, the land of his roots.
“We didn’t talk much because granny doesn’t know English,” said Obama, who reserved a chapter for her in his book “Dreams of my father”, “between us a look and a hug were enough.” Mama Sarah was proud of him and his roots: because after all, Barry, as she called him, “is a Kenyan boy.”
“We are devastated,” his daughter told The Associated Press while the governor of Kisumu, Anyang Nyongo’o, wanted to offer his condolences in person to the inhabitants of Kongelo, the village where Mama Sarah spent her entire life. Of Muslim faith, the woman will have to be buried according to the practices of Islam, which include entombment within 24 hours of death.