Barack Obama, the United States’ first African-American president, has captured the imagination of people across the continent where his face shows up on billboards, backpacks, T-shirts and restaurants.
This week Obama will be visiting Kenya, where his father was born, for a summit on entrepreneurship before heading to Ethiopia to address leaders at the African Union headquarters. Wherever he goes, large crowds are expected to gather and cheer him.
With his African ancestry, locals have been quick to claim the president as one of their own and his name turns up in surprising places, such as emblazoned across mobile phones in Bujumbura, Burundi.
In the Kenyan town where his step-grandmother still lives, near Lake Victoria, the local high school has been named “Senator Obama,” a legacy of his visit there in 2006 before he became president.
At the seaside in Conakry, Guinea in West Africa, a thatched hut boasts to be the Obama restaurant. Not to be outdone, Accra, the capital of Ghana, has a hotel restaurant named for the president.
In perhaps one of the greatest honors Africa can bestow, Obama’s picture is side by side with that of former South African president and renowned activist Nelson Mandela outside a Pretoria clinic where the South African leader was treated.
Click on any image below to launch the gallery.
In this photo taken Tuesday, July 2, 2013, a woman from a welcoming group wears a shawl with the face of U.S. President Barack Obama, as she prepares for him to depart from the Julius Nyerere airport at the end of the final leg of his weeklong visit to Africa, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this photo taken Saturday, June 20, 2015, a portrait of U.S. President Barak Obama is displayed with other famous people in the National Cafe in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene)
In this Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008 photo, a boy pushes his bicycle past a sign for the Senator Obama secondary school in the village of Kogelo, Kenya where Barack Obama’s grandmother lives. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this Saturday June 29, 2013 photo, children squat to have their photograph taken by their parents next to paintings of President Barack Obama, center, and former South African President Nelson Mandela, left, outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa. Barack Obama, the United States’ first African-American president, has captured the imagination of people across the continent where his face shows up on billboards, backpacks, T-shirts and restaurants. On Friday, July 24, 2015, Obama will be visiting Kenya, where his father was born, for a summit on entrepreneurship before heading to Ethiopia to address leaders at the African Union headquarters. Wherever he goes, large crowds are expected to gather and cheer him. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this photo taken on Saturday, June 13, 2015, students at the Obama University wash their hands in Conakry, Guinea. (AP Photo/Youssouf Bah)
In this Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013 photo, youths attending a protest wear a t-shirt with the face of US President Barack Obama reading “My president is black, the dream comes true”, in downtown Bangui, Central African Republic. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this photo taken Thursday, June 18, 2015, Obama branded mobile phones are displayed in the Obama phone store in Bujumbura, Burundi. (AP Photo/Gildas Ngingo)
In this Monday, April 7, 2014 photo, a Rwandan man wears a shirt showing the face of U.S. President Barack Obama, at a public ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, in Kigali, Rwanda. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this photo taken Monday, May 11, 2015, a police officer keeping watch on demonstrators in Bujumbura, Burundi, carries a bag with the portrait of U.S. President Barak Obama. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
In this picture taken on Saturday, July 4, 2015, an ice cream vendor walks by a hotel named after U.S. President Barak Obama in Accra, Ghana. (AP Photo/Christian Thompson)
In this photo taken on Saturday, June 13, 2015, a street vendor walks past the Obama restaurant in Conakry, Guinea. (AP Photo/Youssouf Bah)
In this picture taken on Saturday, July 4, 2015, a woman sits in the restaurant of a hotel named after U.S. President Barak Obama in Accra, Ghana. (AP Photo/Christian Thompson)
In this photo taken Saturday, May 30, 2015, a man rides his bicycle wearing a T-shirt with the portrait of U.S. President Barak Obama in Bujumbura, Burundi. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
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