As President Obama completes the re-fueling ahead of the second leg aboard Air Force One on his way to Kenya to visit extended family (and we are sure to do some America-related business), concerns over security have been dismissed after the President's schedule was leaked this week by a Kenyan airline. However, as China Daily reports, [7] Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser said that Obama will not visit his family's ancestral village of Kogelo due to "time and logistical reasons."
US President Barack Obama is going to meet and visit with some members of his extended family who still live in Kenya during his forthcoming trip to the African country, the White House announced Wednesday.
"I do believe he'll have an opportunity to spend some time privately with members of his family," said Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser, while speaking of Obama's Kenya trip at a White House press briefing.
Other members of Obama's extended family will also be invited to some of the public events, Rice said.
However, Obama will not visit his family's ancestral village of Kogelo due to "time and logistical reasons," according to Rice.
Obama will be the first sitting president to visit Kenya and Ethiopia, and the first sitting president to address the African Union. While in Kenya, Obama will meet with Kenyan leaders and attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. In Ethiopia, the president will speak to a gathering of the African Union, Rice said.
Obama's four-day trip will kick off Thursday evening despite the fact the president's schedule was leaked this week by a Kenyan airline. Kenyan Airways reportedly sent out an email that detailed the scheduled arrival and departure times of Air Force One.
"It has, in no way, affected our approach to or plans for the trip," Rice said. "And it's also my understanding that oftentimes, some of this information turns out to be not entirely accurate. But I don't think it in any way is disturbing our plans."
Some lawmakers from both political parties will also join Obama on the trip.
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It’s the first time Obama will visit his father’s home country since he was elected president, and it will bring into sharp focus his relationship with Barack Obama, Sr. — a complicated man who Obama barely knew.
Obama’s father left his mother when the president was only two, and he has said that growing up without a father has driven him to be a better one himself.
“I know what it means to have an absent father,” Obama said during a 2008 Father’s Day speech in his hometown of Chicago. “I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle — that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my girls.”
Barack Obama, Sr., was an economist in Kenya, but he struggled with personal and professional problems that drove him to alcoholism. He died in 1982, at the age of 46, in a car crash.
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