Obama's half-brother to Vanity Fair: 'No one knows I exist'
NAIROBI, KENYA | Obama's half-brother calls a shack home and lives on less than $1 a month
August 21, 2008
BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter/sesposito@suntimes.com
George Hussein Onyango Obama, son of Barack Obama Sr. and his fourth wife, half brother of Barack Obama (inset) stands in front of his house in the poor neighborhood of Kibera outside Kenya's capital Nairobi.
(Nick Pisa/Vanity Fair Italy)
He survives on less than $1 a month.
He says he is Barack Obama's half-brother.
"I live like a recluse," George Hussein Onyango Obama says in an article published in the latest edition of the Italian-language Vanity Fair. "No one knows I exist."
While the junior Illinois senator is plotting a course for the White House, his half brother lives in an African shanty, the article says.
Barack Obama has written and spoken often about his Kenyan roots and his half-siblings.
In the book Dreams from My Father, Obama identified eight half-brothers and sisters from four other marriages or relationships of his parents. George was the youngest, the only child of Obama's father and a woman not named in the book.
Barack Obama wrote of a brief meeting with George during a trip to Kenya in the late 1980s. The visit outside the boy's school "turned out be a painful affair, arranged hastily and without the mother's knowledge." Barack Obama described a "handsome, round-headed boy with a wary gaze."
George Obama says he was that 5-year-old boy, according to the Vanity Fair piece. George Obama says he remembers little of the meeting.
George Obama says he again saw his famous half-brother two years ago, when Obama traveled to Africa with his wife and daughters.
"It was a short meeting," George Obama recalled. "We spoke to each other. It was odd -- like meeting a stranger."
Barack Obama's campaign had no comment on the Vanity Fair piece.
Based on the article, it appears George Obama has more pressing concerns than his half-brother's presidential bid.
George Obama showed the Vanity Fair reporter the inside of his tiny shack, which contains -- among other things -- two Italian soccer posters, an old beach-scene calendar and the front page of a local newspaper with a photograph of Barack Obama on it.
George Obama says he leads a hard life in a community rife with violence. He talks of people being hacked to death with machetes. He says the police don't bother to arrest people -- they just shoot them instead.
He says he's seen two of his friends killed. He says he has scars on his skin from fighting.
"I am good with my fists," he says.
NAIROBI, KENYA | Obama's half-brother calls a shack home and lives on less than $1 a month
August 21, 2008
BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter/sesposito@suntimes.com
George Hussein Onyango Obama, son of Barack Obama Sr. and his fourth wife, half brother of Barack Obama (inset) stands in front of his house in the poor neighborhood of Kibera outside Kenya's capital Nairobi.
(Nick Pisa/Vanity Fair Italy)
He survives on less than $1 a month.
He says he is Barack Obama's half-brother.
"I live like a recluse," George Hussein Onyango Obama says in an article published in the latest edition of the Italian-language Vanity Fair. "No one knows I exist."
While the junior Illinois senator is plotting a course for the White House, his half brother lives in an African shanty, the article says.
Barack Obama has written and spoken often about his Kenyan roots and his half-siblings.
In the book Dreams from My Father, Obama identified eight half-brothers and sisters from four other marriages or relationships of his parents. George was the youngest, the only child of Obama's father and a woman not named in the book.
Barack Obama wrote of a brief meeting with George during a trip to Kenya in the late 1980s. The visit outside the boy's school "turned out be a painful affair, arranged hastily and without the mother's knowledge." Barack Obama described a "handsome, round-headed boy with a wary gaze."
George Obama says he was that 5-year-old boy, according to the Vanity Fair piece. George Obama says he remembers little of the meeting.
George Obama says he again saw his famous half-brother two years ago, when Obama traveled to Africa with his wife and daughters.
"It was a short meeting," George Obama recalled. "We spoke to each other. It was odd -- like meeting a stranger."
Barack Obama's campaign had no comment on the Vanity Fair piece.
Based on the article, it appears George Obama has more pressing concerns than his half-brother's presidential bid.
George Obama showed the Vanity Fair reporter the inside of his tiny shack, which contains -- among other things -- two Italian soccer posters, an old beach-scene calendar and the front page of a local newspaper with a photograph of Barack Obama on it.
George Obama says he leads a hard life in a community rife with violence. He talks of people being hacked to death with machetes. He says the police don't bother to arrest people -- they just shoot them instead.
He says he's seen two of his friends killed. He says he has scars on his skin from fighting.
"I am good with my fists," he says.
