'Bridge to the past': Obama mourns his 'beloved' Kenyan granny

Former United States president Barack Obama on Monday mourned the passing of his grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango Obama, who died in Kenya at the age of 99.

Local media portals reported that the deceased passed away after a short illness at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Referral Hospital in Kisumu.

As a staunch Muslim, she is to be buried tomorrow in line with Islamic traditions at her home Kogelo.

In his statement Obama described her as his "beloved" and a bridge to his past when he visited his father's birth place to find his roots.

Statement on passing of Sarah Ogwel Onyango Obama

My family and I are mourning the loss of our beloved grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango Obama, affectionately known to many as “Mama Sarah” but known to us as “Dani” or Granny.

Born in the first quarter of the last century, in Nyanza Province, on the shores of Lake Victoria, she had no formal schooling, and in the ways of her tribe, she was married off to a much older man while only a teen.

She would spend the rest of her life in the tiny village of Alego, in a small home built of mud-and thatch brick and without electricity or indoor plumbing.

There she raised eight children, tended to her goats and chickens, grew an assortment of crops, and took what the family didn’t use to sell at the local open-air market.

Although not his birth mother, Granny would raise my father as her own, and it was in part thanks to her love and encouragement that he was able to defy the odds and do well enough in school to get a scholarship to attend an American university.

When our family had difficulties, her homestead was a refuge for her children and grandchildren, and her presence was a constant, stabilizing force.

When I first traveled to Kenya to learn more about my heritage and father, who had passed away by then, it was Granny who served as a bridge to the past, and it was her stories that helped fill a void in my heart.

During the course of her life, Granny would witness epochal changes taking place around the globe: world war, liberation movements, moon landings, and the advent of the computer age.

We will miss her dearly, but celebrate with gratitude her long and remarkable life.