By Thomas Mukoya and Leon Malherbe KOGELO, Kenya, Jan 9 (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Barack Obama's Kenyan grandmother said her grandson is "full of surprises" and will come back from defeat in New Hampshire's primary to become the first black U.S. president. In Obama's ancestral village of Kogelo in western Kenya, 85-year-old Sara Hussein on Wednesday expressed the general feeling among locals intently focused on the U.S. presidential race amid the violent election turmoil in their own country. "I know my son will be number one because he is very bright," Obama's grandmother told Reuters as she dried maize cobs in her simple backyard amid grass-thatched farmsteads. "He keeps a lot of secrets and is full of surprises. I am very confident he will win the race and become president," Hussein, wrapped in brightly coloured clothes, said in a husky voice. Obama's uncle, Said Obama, said the family were praying for an election come-back after the Illinois senator lost Tuesday's Democratic primary in New Hampshire to rival Hillary Clinton despite going into the poll as favourite. Barack Obama defiantly told supporters there that together they could still win the White House and change the world. Born in Hawaii to a white American mother and Kenyan father, Obama is revered by many Kenyans the way the Irish idolised U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s -- as one of their own who succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Obama, who has worked as a civil rights lawyer and law professor, has said he is "deeply troubled" by violence that has killed 500 people since Kenya's disputed Dec. 27 polls. He last visited Kogelo, which boasts the Senator Obama Primary School, in 2006 and was received like royalty by thousands of cheering well-wishers. Obama's Kenyan family hail from the Luo tribe of opposition leader Raila Odinga, who accuses Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki of stealing re-election in a poll that has triggered ethnic bloodshed, especially between the Luo and Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe. Yet support for Obama, whose first name means "blessed" in east Africa's Swahili language, runs across Kenya's tribes. "I hope to see Obama as the first black president of America," Dan Chemotei, from the picturesque Rift Valley province, which has seen some of the worst violence, told Reuters in central Nairobi where he works as a guard. "If we get one of our own to lead the world's most powerful nation then we will get a lot of foreign aid and attention. Obama will definitely address the current political crisis in Kenya because he is ours," he said. Charles Odhiambo, who drives a bicycle taxi in Kogelo, said a President Obama would bring tarmac, water and hospitals to Kenya. "If he becomes president we will get all that. He will buy me a new motorbike to replace my old bicycle," the 30-year-old father of three said with a smile. (Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Nairobi, Writing by Guled Mohamed, edited by Alistair Thomson and Mary Gabriel)
Children stand at the door of a shelter for displaced people in Nairobi, January 9, 2008. African Union chief John Kufuor met Kenya's president and opposition leader on Wednesday to try ...
