In Kenya, a hero's welcome awaits

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Streets leading from the Jomo Kenyatta airport closed Thursday for Barack Obama's motorcade in a visit to his father's homeland, where the Illinois senator is being treated as a head of state.

Hundreds of people greeted Obama at the airport, where he arrived from Johannesburg, South Africa, aboard a U.S. Army C-20 aircraft. Obama stepped into a Land Cruiser amid visible local security and a heavy local media presence.

A little later, Obama's wife, Michelle, received flowers as she arrived at the Nairobi Serena Hotel, flying from Chicago with their two daughters, Malia, 8, and Sasha, 5, and other friends and family, to be greeted by U.S. embassy officials at the door of the hotel.

Signifying the importance of the trip to the Kenyan government, Obama starts his almost weeklong visit here meeting with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. Mindful of potential minefields awaiting him if he becomes enmeshed in Kenyan politics, Obama's next stop is a visit to the Kenyan parliament building for a meeting with the official opposition leader.

After a lunch with members of parliament, Obama visits the site of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy. After the bombing, the United States moved its embassy complex out of the center of the city.

The press corps covering Obama's African visit swelled from a vanful to a bus with seats for 25, with the numbers increasing because of the appeal of his story: The son of a Kenyan father and Kansan mother, Obama, who twice before has visited his father's Nyyang'oma village in the Siaya District, comes home for a third time -- as a U.S. senator, the only African American in the Senate and one who is being mentioned as a possible White House candidate, if not in 2008, then in 2012.

The African press has been reporting on the extensive preparations being made in the western area of Kenya where Obama has many members of his extended family.

Obama, his wife and daughters visit the Obama family home on Saturday, after he takes an HIV test in the western Kenyan city of Kisumu to dramatize the need for men to take responsibility in the prevention and treatment of AIDS, which is ravishing Kenya along with much of sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa, Obama criticized administration officials for being in "denial'' in advancing policies favoring vegetable diet cures for AIDS over modern anti-viral medicines.

Obama's packed schedule allows him only about 2½ hours at his family home before he flies back to Nairobi.

Kenya's The Nation reported on Thursday, "Here in Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya's often trash-strewn third city, perhaps best known for its languishing fishing industry, high HIV/AIDS rates and grinding poverty, anticipation is at fever pitch.

"Local authorities have ordered a massive clean-up operation ahead of the Illinois senator's tour of the city on Saturday, during which Obama, 45, will take an AIDS test and see his paternal grandmother at her nearby home village.

"Vendors have flooded the streets with Obama T-shirts and other merchandise while sales of Kenya's low-cost 'Senator' beer, dubbed 'Obama' after his 2004 election, have skyrocketed.''

The Kenyan visit also includes an overnight Tuesday at the famous Masai Mara Game Reserve for an up-close exposure to ecotourism.

Obama holds a press conference for local and U.S. press today.