It’s Saturday, and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is on his trip to Africa, sitting in the back seat of a UN plane flying from near the Chad-Sudan border — he visited a camp housing Sudanese refugees who fled violence in Darfur — to the airport at Abeche, Chad.

There, Obama will switch to a U.S. military aircraft to return to the capital, N’Djamena, the last stop on his first solo try at diplomacy.

Codel Obama, as the trip is officially called, is a congressional delegation of one, authorized by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Last year, freshman Obama traveled with Lugar to Russia and other former Soviet republics on his first codel and then in another trip flew to Iraq, Israel and Kuwait.

Most congressional visitors come and go with little notice. But the combination of a compelling personal and political storyline — a return to Kenya of an almost native son and the possibility that the Illinois Democrat could have a White House run in his future — attracted a traveling press corps of U.S. writers, photographers and videographers that swelled to more than 20 when Obama toured his father’s homeland in August.

Codel Obama touched down in South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. Obama met two presidents — Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki and Chad’s Idriss Déby — and two Nobel Peace Prize winners, both Kenyans — retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and environmentalist and democratization champion Wangari Maathai.

Even though Obama only saw his Kenyan father once — his white mother raised him in Hawaii and Indonesia — he was lionized when he returned to his father’s homestead in western Kenya on a day when he was met with songs featuring his name wherever he went.

To hear the Obama music video that I shot go to http://www.suntimes.com/special_sections/africa_obama_sweet/popups/082706.html.

 Obama all-out criticized the Kibaki government for corruption. Chicago TV crews complained that they had to pay bribes at the Nairobi airport to get their equipment into the country. Obama took their complaint to Kibaki, who ordered a “refund,’’ sending envelopes stuffed with dollars and Kenyan shillings back to the crews. A few days later, Kibaki’s spokesman ran an ad in a Kenyan newspaper saying Obama didn’t understand the system and later suggested he may have been the tool of Kenyan partisan political interests.

On the plane, the senator was asked if Codel Obama had any impact on his development as a senator.
He responded that last time he traveled, he ``was very much under Sen. Lugar’s wing,’’ adding that he was not a central figure on that trip.

This trip was all his.

``I was responsible, I think, for carrying the message to the countries we visited. But it was a good growth experience for me.’’

Next year he wants to go to India, China and Indonesia, ``where, ironically, I actually have more of a childhood that I do in Kenya.’’

Obama was treated as a head of state in Kenya. He said there was no adjustment necessary; ``I think I have it pretty good’’ in Illinois and Washington.

Next: Obama launches the tour for his second book Oct. 17 in Chicago.

Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it