KENYA:George Hussein Onyango Obama is furious over media reports claiming he was abandoned by the Obama family, he tells Rob Crillyin Nairobi
THE MUDDY lanes and rickety shacks of Huruma slum are notorious for their poverty, disease and outbreaks of gang violence. But for Barack Obama's lost half-brother it is the place he calls home.
Yesterday, as Obama continued his push for the White House, George Hussein Onyango Obama, the youngest of his half-siblings, said he was content with life in a simple wooden hut at the heart of one of Kenya's sprawling shanty towns.
"Life in Huruma is good. In other places you must lock yourself in to keep yourself safe," he said.
"Here I am surrounded by friends and family and feel safe and secure."
His home stands beside a dirt road that had turned to mud after a night of rain.
Women fried spicy potato bhajis in huge vats of bubbling oil as the smell of rubbish wafted through the streets.
It was not far from here that six people were hacked to death by the shadowy Mungiki gang during the political violence that rocked Kenya earlier this year.
George had been living a quiet life, studying to become a car mechanic, until earlier this week when Vanity Fair magazine tracked him down to Huruma, which stands on the outskirts Nairobi.
He said he was furious at reports he had been abandoned by the Obama family and that he was filled with shame about living in a slum.
"It seems there are people who want to destroy me and my family," he said.
"They say I live on a dollar a month but this is all lies by people who don't want my brother to win."
He said he was supported by his mother, Jael, who now lives in the US, and by a cousin who also lives in Huruma.
The Obama family in Kenya has watched with a growing sense of dismay as their most famous son deals with a campaign in the US that has turned increasingly negative.
Reporters have tried to prove that Obama is a secret Muslim and have tracked down friends of his father, known as a drunk and abusive husband.
Now they are worried that any careless comment in Kenya could have repercussions thousands of miles away in the presidential campaign.
George (26) is the youngest of Barack Obama Snr's seven children, and was born just six months before his father died in a car crash.
He said he had learned what sort of man his father was only by reading his brother's first memoir, Dreams From My Father.
Yesterday, over a simple lunch of nyama choma - barbecued goat - and fistfuls of thick maize porridge, George said he was reluctant to let people know about his famous brother.
"Many people don't know about my connection," he said, dipping a hunk of greasy goat in salt before popping it into his mouth.
"If people ask about my name I tell them we are not related. The problem here is that people have expectations and think I would look after them."
Kenyan politics is synonymous with corruption and MPs are expected to shower cash and development projects on their home villages.
George said he expected no favours and wanted to work for a living, even though he was confident that his brother would defeat John McCain and move into the White House. "He has already done so many firsts, as black president of the Harvard Law Review and getting the nomination, so we believe he will win," he said.