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Find out more about Aimee: Aimée Kligman was exiled from Egypt with her family through ethnic cleansing. The family moved to Paris and then came to the United States as refugees in 1962, a time when she barely spoke English. She became a foreign language teacher at the age of 18. Naturally endowed with speaking several languages, she realized the American dream by running her own company in 1991. She has traveled all over the world, and was always keenly interested in politics. She began her second career as a writer after she returned from Bali in 1999. As an ambassador for the J Street Lobby, she is very involved in promoting peace and a two-state solution in the Middle East. Through her bi-lingual blog, Women's Lens, she has managed to reunite many in the diaspora and was able to trace her own family's lineage all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition. She is able to assess the news with a very wide lens as she combs the web in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and other languages. |
The inauguration is one topic that is getting almost as much coverage as the war in the Middle East. For the United States, it is not only symbolic, but with it comes the voices of so many Americans that expect change. And yes, there have been controversies about who's coming, why are they coming, good pick, bad pick, etal..
One woman who will not need to have your approval is actually a foreigner. But she has the insider scoop on the President elect, and as foreign dignitaries go, she's on no one's list except Obama's.
Her name is Sara Obama, and she is Barack's Kenyan grandmother. She is the mother of Obama's father, the man Obama seemed to miss so much while he grew up.
You could say that this inauguration is as much an event for the nation of Kenya as it is for the United States. The roster includes Kenyan government officials, African diplomats, and the African Union who will join Mrs. Obama for an unofficial inaugural ball on January 20th.
At the invitation only event being held in a Washington DC hotel, Kenya's foreign minister and the Boys Choir of Kenya also plan to be in attendance.
Sarah Obama lives in a house in the western Kenya village of Kogelo without electricity and speaks only the local Luo language and some Swahili. She has visited the United States twice before. Communication was described as awkward between Mrs. Obama and her grandson, when he visited her in Kenya in 1988, as described in his book "Dreams of my Father".
Special Report: Inauguration Day 2009
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