Obama's Village in Kenya

Barack Obama's mother is from Kansas, but his father was from Kenya. Here is a video from one of the times when he has gone to visit them.

Our time has come. Our movement is real and change is coming to America.

Senator Barack Obama's campaign for the American presidency has generated excitement the world over.

What began as a whisper in Springfield has swelled to a chorus of millions calling for change. It's a chorus that cannot be ignored. A chorus that cannot be deterred. This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different.

So different in fact that candidates close family members are not watching in New England or in Texas, but from here in the west of Kenya.

He's a beacon of hope. He's got all that it takes to become the president of the United States. "Yes we can!"

Sahid Obama is the presidential hopeful's uncle. He's been watching his famous nephew's progress from the town of Kazumu and he has nothing but pride for Barack's achievements.

I feel so great. It was a wonderful speech.

To show me Obama's roots, Sahid takes me to the Obama family home just across the equator. It's in this sleepy rural village of Kagelo that some of the presidential candidate's closest family still live.

You are heading into Mama Sara's house. A family picture taken in 1992. That's when he visit for the second time. And there as well you can see me standing next to the senator. The senator? The presidential candidate. There we are.

Senator Obama didn't grow up here but it was the home of his father: Barack Obama Sr., a graduate of Harvard University and a respected economist. They became estranged early in his son's life.

Now we are approaching the grave of senator Barack Obama's father. This is where the remains of Senator Barack Obama's father were buried.

Can you tell me just a little bit about him?

Yeah, Barack was a very loving person, very intelligent. Though he died when I was still very young, but my memory of him is that he was a very intelligent person.

Barack Obama first came to visit his father's grave back in 1987.

It was his first time in Kenya. I can say it was kind of happiness mixed with some sadness because he was person who was coming to see this side of his family and at the same time he was coming to see where his father was buried.

Another Obama still living in the village is Barack's grandmother, known as Mama Sara. She too has poignant memories from Barack's first visit. In her house, one photo has pride of place: a young Barack Obama carrying a large sack of vegetables that Mama Sara was bringing home.

(Subtitles on video)

Since then, Senator Barack Obama, has been back only a few times. Mama Sara doesn't speak English and her grandson's knowledge of the local language is limited to masawa, or "how are you?" Even so, there is a strong attachment between the two of them.

(Subtitles on video)

The presidential candidate's grandmother leads a simple life, tending this small plot of land, feeding her cows and chickens, and raising a handful of adopted children. But even though she is a world away from the pressure cooker of Washington politics, Mama Sara has had the inside running on Senator Obama's lofty ambitions.

(Subtitles on video)

While we're talking a group of international journalists arrive and Mama Sara becomes the star of an inpromptu photo shoot. She's hoping that if Barack wins the presidency, the focus will move away from her and what her grandson might be able to do for Kenya.

(Subtitles on video)

A president Obama may or may not be able to deliver on his grandmother's wish list, but even so he is already being commemorated. Behind the Obama's plot is the local school, renamed in the Senator's honor after his last visit. Education facilities here are primitive, but it provides these children with their best shot at a better life. Isaac Kenya wants to become a doctor overseas. He knows that won't come easily, but he's been inspired by Barack Obama.

I think that if Senator Obama will win the presidency, then when I am going to sit for my examination this year, I know that I'm going to excel in my exams and if possible I will study abroad.

The tiny town of Kagelo offers few opportunities. Many people here are idle from lack of employment. It's so quiet that the sound of a sewing machine drives me over to Leonard Ladier, the town tailor. Leonard met Obama at the local church and he has a high opinion of the Senator as well as high hopes.

(Subtitles on video)

God's will and Barack Obama are two things that come up a lot in conversation's around Kagelo.

(Subtitles on video)

The family's devout Christianity is no small irony given that one of the dirtiest tricks of the election campaign so far has been the attempt to depict Barack Obama as a closet Muslim. Despite the innuendo, Obama's campaign is still growing strong.

We will put a college education within the reach of anyone who wants to go.

Sitting down with Sahid to watch his nephew on television, I can't help but be a bit
amazed at how far Barack Obama has come. For Barack's relatives, his success is clearly the result of a humble ancestry.

I think about one to some extent has made him what he is today. He is somebody who has had to fight to become what he is. He coming from a multicultural background, multireligious, multiracial, and I think that one has done quite a lot to put him where he is today.

Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!
Thank you Chicago. Let's go get to work. I love you.

Read more!

Musical Warm-up: Images of Myanmar

Click below to read the text of the video.

The whole total external environment.
We treat it as an enemy. We try to beat it into submission.
And if we do that, comes Disaster.

-Alan Watts (influenced by Asian Buddhist Philosophy)

Help me somebody.
There's no escape from it.
He so low, you can't get under him; he's so wide you can't get around him; he's everywhere!
Help me somebody.

-Anonymous black preacher
Read more!

Natural Disasters

MB talks with Matthew about working with Habitat for Humanity, an organization committed to stopping poverty housing all over the world. The cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China destroyed millions of homes. Habitat for Humanity is taking action to organize teams to rebuild homes and lives. Lack of housing, lack of food, and lack of clean drinking water is in Myanmar is turning out to be more devastating than the cyclone. Take the quiz below to learn why...



This is the end of the post. Don't click below.
Read more!

Pumping Iron

In case you haven't seen it yet, this week's ELLLO content features an article about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Click here to see it.

And here is a clip from one of his early movies that launched him into the spotlight:
Double click on any word to see the meaning.



Ok Lou. No, no. Listen, when you come out here and you are out here, alright, they're all waiting for you, they want to see what you've got, they've never seen you before. You tense your legs, right?
You look at the crowd, they are all looking at you Lou, flash bulbs are going to go off and everything. Then you put your arms like this - you look at your arms, like you are admiring, right? You are admiring what you are going to show them and then you go, "Boom!" Like you are saying, "take a look at this hunk of man." Ok? You try it.

Look up, that's right. That's it. No, no, down here Lou. I told you, look at your arms. Both arms. That's it. 'At a boy! Now hold that pose because remember, your arms are bigger than Arnold's and they want to see them, right? These people have never seen your arms before - they have seen Arnold's. So hold that pose awhile and I say in this pose, just tilt your body a little because there's people on this side of the theatre and this side of the theatre. They want to see you. So just tilt your body just slightly like this, right? Try that Lou. 'At a boy.

You have to do everything possible to win, you know, no matter what. At the day of the contest if he comes in his best shape and he is equally as good as I am of if, let's say, he's a few percent better than I am. I spend together with him one night. I go downstairs and I book us together in a room, you know, to "help him" for tomorrow to "help him for tomorrow's contest". And that night, he will never forget. I will mix him up. He will come so ready to South Africa, so strong, but by the time the night is over, the next morning, he will be ready to lose. I mean I will just talk him into that. It's no problem to do, you know. And so all those things, you know, are available. So if they are available you might as well use them. That's why it doesn't matter if he comes in shape or out of shape. If he comes out of shape then it's less hassle for me, you know. And if he's in shape...fine. I hope he is.

But you couldn't pull this with Franco, could you? Franco is pretty smart.

Franco is pretty smart, but Franco is a child. And when it comes to the day of the contest, I am his father. He comes to me for advice so it's not that hard for me to give him the wrong advice.

Prothais South Africa - Probably in an hour or two we have a chance to see our room.

Can I just ask you one question that usually we ask. What was...must your...special woman look like and your favorite...?

It really doesn't matter, you know, I like them with black hair, with brown hair, with red hair, with big breasts, with little breasts, big ass, little ass, you know, if the personality is great and if they are charming...

I can't wait to get out in the sun. Look at that sun out there.

We ordered it for you.

Watch out now Lou. Get ready. Holy cow! Hold them up. 'At a boy Lou. That's a good shot. Tense your muscles Louie. Pull in your stomach.

Sometimes people ask you advice, if you think they are being arrogant or misusing the sport of bodybuilding, you give them kind of pranksterish advice and that once happened in a Mr. Munich contest I believe?

I think it was 8 years ago. Some fella came to me in the gym and said, "I want to win Mr. Munich, you know, and I am a perfect poser and I have a fantastic body and I just want to learn a new posing routine, something way out, which nobody expects." So I said, "Well let me see the posing routine you have right now." Well when the guy took his clothes off and posed for me, he looked like nothing number one, and his posing was bad so I mean I think he was just crazy, you know? So I thought, well ok, if he thinks that he is the best poser I'm going to pull a little trick on him. And so that's what I did. I told him, I said, "Listen, I have a new posing routine from America," I said, "I have correspondence with all the top athletes in America and so on." And I told him that the new thing is that he has to scream while he is posing." And he looked and me and he says, "Wow! That's a new idea." He says, "They will really come out impressive when you go out on stage and you scream, people can't miss you. They will look at screaming, you know, that's it." So I taught him how to scream. At first, you know, I was with him, I oiled him up, with really heavy oil and everything. So I was standing there in the shower room and I taught him how to do it, you know, the higher your arms go up, the higher you make a screaming noise. The lower your arms come down when you are posing, the lower your voice, like, "Ahhh! Ohhh!" You know, this kind of a thing. Well, I practiced with him for around two hours - spent of lot of time on developing his new posing routine. He mastered it very well. He was screaming really loud and, you know, high and low. And he went to the Mr. Munich contest. And I told him when he walks out he has to scream loud too, you know, run out, "Ahhh!" And so he did and obviously people weren't ready for that at all. You know, so he went out there, he screamed loudly, went through three or four poses with some loud screaming and they carried him off the stage. They threw him out. They thought the guy was totally nuts.

I'm shaking really but I think when I get there I'll forget about it.

When I get there, I'll be even more nervous.

I'm not nervous at all. Thank you. Jesus Christ.

Take it easy Arnie.

What can I say? You guys are psyching me out here early in the morning.

We're trying to calm you down. Lay down in the bus in the back.

Hey Lou. Is this the master plan here this morning?

Be on guard.

Hey, I'm here now for six days and nobody invited me for breakfast. This morning they say, "Come for breakfast with us Arnold. Come. Have nice breakfast." He's talking about pumping up, he's talking about psyching me out. She's talking about my mother.

You're the king of kings Arnold.

He's rubbing it in. How are you doing Lou? How are you doing?

Good.

You look kind of (????) today?

I'm a little tired - trying to wake up.

They don't come nicer than you Arnold.

I'm a nice guy.

I wouldn't turn my back on you within 500 yards.

He doesn't trust me, why is that?

...early on so we could relax and enjoy the country.

Oh, we should have it in a month for him. He not even in shape yet. I mean, he didn't get the timing right I'm telling you. A month from now would have been perfect for you. But then I get bigger too so you know...What the hell, let's get it over with and if you retire this year, you just never head to Olympia or you head twice to Mr. Universe, what the hell.

That's amazing, can you imagine the feeling I have. Six times Mr. Olympia.

You could go on forever.

It blows my mind when I think about it. I called my mother yesterday already and I said, "I won." She said, "Congratulations Arnold." Why don't we go and you go help him pump up.
Read more!

Uncensored Cuba

Changes in Cuba since Raul Castro has taken over for his brother Fidel:

Double click on any word to see the meaning.

Only a month has passed since ordinary Cubans won the right to own computers, and the government still keeps a rigid grip on Internet access.

But that hasn't stopped thousands from finding their way into cyberspace. And a daring few post candid blogs about life in the communist-run country that have garnered international audiences.

Yoani Sanchez writes the "Generacion Y" blog and gets more than a million hits a month, mostly from abroad - though she has begun to strike a chord in Cuba. On her site and others, anonymous Cubans offer stinging criticisms of their government.

But it isn't simple. To post her blog, Sanchez dresses like a tourist and slips into Havana hotels with Web access for foreigners. It costs about $6 an hour and she can't afford to stay long given the price and the possibility someone might catch her connecting without permission.

Click below to read the full article.

It's a testament to the ingenuity and black-market prowess Cubans have developed living on salaries averaging $20 a month, with constant restrictions and shortages.

The connections Cuban bloggers are making with the outside world via the Internet are irreversible, said Sanchez, who this month won the Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism, a top Spanish media award.

"With each step we take in that direction, it's harder for the government to push us back," she said.

On an island where many censor themselves to avoid trouble, Sanchez says Generacion Y holds nothing back.

"It's about how I live," she said. "I think that technically, there are no limits. I have talked about things like Fidel Castro, and you know how taboo that can be."

But she added that "there are some ethical limits. I would never call for violence, for instance."

Since taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in February, Raul Castro has lifted bans on Cubans buying consumer electronics, having cell phones and staying in luxury tourist hotels.

While the changes have bolstered the new president's popularity, most simply legalized what was common practice. In a typically frank recent posting, Sanchez noted that many Cubans already had PCs, cell phones and DVD players bought on the black market.

"Legally recognizing what were already facts prospering in the shadows is not the same as allowing or approving something," she wrote. Cuba's leaders are responding to the inevitable, "but they won't soothe our hunger for change."

Authorities have made no sustained effort to stop Sanchez's year-old blog, though pro-government sites accuse her of taking money from opposition groups.

Only foreigners and some government employees and academics are allowed Internet accounts and these are administered by the state.

Ordinary Cubans can join an island-wide network that allows them to send and receive international e-mail. Lines are long at youth clubs, post offices and the few Internet cafes that provide access, but the rest of the Web is blocked - a control far stricter than even China's or Saudi Arabia's.

Still, thousands of Cubans pay about $40 a month for black market dial-up Internet accounts bought through third parties overseas or stolen from foreign providers. Or they use passwords from authorized Cuban government accounts that hackers swipe or buy from corrupt officials.

Sanchez said so many Cubans read her blog that fans stop her on the street.

Generacion Y takes its title from a Cuban passion for names beginning in Y. It offers witty and biting accounts of Cubans' everyday struggles against government restrictions at every turn.

Some of the bloggers hew to the belief that openness is the best answer to official surveillance.

"By signing your name, giving your opinions out loud and not hiding anything, we disarm their efforts to watch us," Sanchez wrote on her blog.

On a blog called "Sin EVAsion" ("Without Evasion"), Eva Hernandez dared to mock "Granma," the official Communist Party newspaper, for taking its name from the American yacht that brought Castro and his rebels back to Cuba from Mexico to launch their armed rebellion in 1956.

"Cuba is the only country in the world whose principal newspaper, the official organ of the Communist Party and the official voice of the government, has the ridiculous name 'granny,'" she wrote. Piling on the heat, she added that the name "perpetuates the memory of that yacht that brought us so much that is bad."

Generacion Y is maintained by a server in Germany, and Sanchez says the Cuban government periodically attempts to block her site within Cuba, though the problem is always cleared up within hours.

Administrators of the "Petrosalvaje" site also claim to struggle with government-imposed limits. A recent post called uncensored Internet access a "virtual raft" - a reference to the rafts on which Cubans flee to the United States.

The government is also into blogging - maintaining dozens of sites dedicated to promoting the island's image overseas.

"Raul needs time," reads a post on Kaosenlared.net, a forum based in Spain. "We are confident, calm and staying united in favor of the direction of our revolution." It is signed Rogelio Sarforat and was apparently posted from Cuba.

Reynaldo Escobar, Sanchez' husband and a former journalist for official media, now uses his own blog to criticize the government. He said Cuba pays supporters to flood the Internet with positive opinions.

He says he knows of nobody who would spend money to go on the Web and defend the system. "Everyone who argues in favor of the government is paid to do so, or does so because they have been asked to," he said.

On the Net: (Spanish only)

Generacion Y: http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/

My Island at Midday: http://isla12pm.blogspot.com )

Potro Salvaje: http://www.desdecuba.com/potro/

Click here for the original article.
> Read more!