Dr. Auma Obama is the only Kenyan who has ever traveled in the United States presidential limousine popularly known as the 'Beast'.
She got the almost rare opportunity courtesy of her half-brother Barack Obama who visited Kenya in 2015 while he was a sitting US President.
When the Air Force One landed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on July 24, Obama was received by President Uhuru Kenyatta and Auma, with the latter traveling in the heavily armoured limousine to the hotel his brother was staying.
While introducing him to deliver his speech at the Safaricom Indoor Arena at Kasarani, Auma said Obama allowed her to travel in the Beast having picked him up from the same airport when he visited Kenya for the first time in 1988.
"That's why he owed me a ride. I picked him up in my beetle when he visited, and two decades later he paid back, gave me a ride in the Beast, but do I say," Auma recalled.
When he rose to speak, Obama vividly recalled that moment and he narrated to the cheering crowd:
"As she said, Auma picked me up in an old Volkswagen Bettle and I think the entire stay I was here, it broke down four or five times," he said.
"We'd be on the highway, we'd have to call the jua kali (mechanic)- he'd bring us tools. We'd be sitting there, waiting."
In his memoirs, "Dreams From My Father", the former US Head of State writes he traveled in a 'beat-up, baby-blue Volkswagen Bettle with a missing muffler'.
Obama, who arrives in Kenya on Sunday, is expected to inaugurate the Sauti Kuu Foundation Sports, Resource and Vocational Training Centre on Monday.
The multi-million facility, which is a brainchild of Auma, will serve an estimated 1,000 young Kenyans weekly in an effort to help them become self-reliant mentally, socially and financially.
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