Thursday, July 31, 2008

'But we still have hope'

In August 2006, Obama visited his father's hometown in Kenya, and promised assistance to Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School -- built on land donated by his grandfather and renamed in his honor in 2005. Michelle Malkin updates the narrative with this story from the Evening Standard of London:
After addressing the pupils, a third of whom are orphans, and dancing with them as they sang songs in his honour, he was shown a school with four dilapidated classrooms that lacked even basic resources such as water, sanitation and electricity. . . .
[Principal Yuanita] Obiero was not the only one to think that the US Senator from Illinois, who had recently acquired a $1.65 million house in Chicago, would cough up. Obama's own grandmother Sarah confidently told reporters before his visit: "When he comes down here, he will change the face of the school and, believe me, our poverty in Kogelo will be a thing of the past." . . .
Yet there is disappointment and hurt here, too. Granting us access to the school and its records, Principal Obiero, 48, tells us: "Senator Obama has not honoured the promises he gave me when we met in 2006 and in his earlier letter to the school. He has not given us even one shilling. But we still have hope."
A charity to help fund the school has been set up by conservative blogger Baldilocks, and you can send money online via credit card.

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