The media have descended on Barack Obama‘s Kenyan relatives, with the family becoming something of local celebrities, writes Slate.

“For Obama’s grandmother, the arrival of the Kenyan prime minister was another indication of how the phenomenal rise of an Obama child has changed the lives of the other Obama family half a world away.

“‘At the beginning, I thought it was something that would be short-lived, but it’s been getting bigger every day,’ Obama’s uncle Said had told me earlier that day on the drive from the provincial city in Kisumu for what I expected would be a quiet interview with the family matriarch.”

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