Nairobi News

NewsWhat's Hot

Michelle Obama recounts her horrible first visit to Kenya


Former US First Lady Michelle Obama, has revealed the intrigues of her first visit to Kenya in 1992, a trip riddled with endless troubles and inconveniences right from the onset.

In her newly released memoir titled, Becoming, Mrs Obama narrates how she, alongside Barack, struggled to move around in the latter’s half sister, Auma’s jalopy.

“Auma’s sky-blue VW was so old that it often needed to be pushed in order to get the engine into gear. I’d ill-advisedly bought new white sneakers to wear on the trip, and within a day, after all the pushing we did, they’d turned reddish brown, stained with the cinnamon-hued dust of Nairobi,” Michelle says in the book.

“SO ANGRY AT BARACK”

At the time, Michelle and Barack were not yet married and she admits that what she encountered made her angry at the man who would later become the President of the United States.

Former US First Lady Michelle Obama attends a roundtable discussion at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago, November 12, 2018. AFP PHOTO
Former US First Lady Michelle Obama attends a roundtable discussion at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago, November 12, 2018. AFP PHOTO

“For every bit of awe we felt in Kenya, we were also tired, which led to quibbling, which led finally, for whatever reason, to rage. ‘I’m so angry at Barack’, I wrote in my journal.”

OBAMA’S SUBSEQUENT VISITS

“I don’t think we have anything in common. My thoughts trailed off there. As a measure of my frustration, I drew a long emphatic gash across the rest of the page,” she writes in the memoir.

She, however, notes that she enjoyed every moment with Obama’s relatives, now her in-laws.

Obama has since toured Kenya on three occasions; in 2006 when he was Senator for Illinois, in 2015, as the President of the United States of America, and then again in July, 2018 after retiring from office.

His wife and children did not accompany him during the visits.