President Barack Obama hit the ground running in Africa on Thursday, beginning his eight-day tour of the continent in Senegal.
Although President Obama's trip will focus on political, economic and historical issues, Nelson Mandela's fragile condition and potentially imminent death could change the POTUS' plans, according to the New York Times.
When President Obama landed in Africa late Wednesday night, South African President Jacob Zuma said he would not be making a trip to Mozambique due to Mandela's state-the former leader has been hospitalized for three weeks with a lung infection.
While making a speech in Dakar on Thursday, President Obama said that Mandela was a "hero for the world," according to local media outlets. Most citizens of South Africa have grown progressively more concerned for Mandela's health.
A South African spokesperson for the government said that in the 48-hour period prior to President Obama's arrival, Mandela's condition had "gone down."
The POTUS is scheduled to visit South Africa on Friday.
President Obama's trip will also pay homage to a grim portion of American history.
Nearly four hundred years after Africans were forcibly brought to North America and sold into slavery, the first United States president with African blood visited a transit hub used in the human trafficking trade, Reuters reported.
On the first day of his trip, he and his family visited the House of Slaves, a fort used as a jump-off point for slaves being moved through the Middle Passage. The building was constructed on Goree Island, off the coast of Senegal, in the late eighteenth century. It has since been converted into a museum.
Many Africans claim The President's revisiting his past-a past that applies on both governmental and personal levels-is long overdue.
President Obama has only made one trip to Africa in his presidency, during his first term. Since then, Africans have largely expressed disappointment over his lack of engagement with the continent.
But perhaps The President now has the opportunity to turn it around by paying proper homage to historical landmarks while connecting with African neighbors.
For Abdoul Aziz Signane, a tailor who was buying a t-shirt with President Obama's face on the front at a shop in Dakar, respect still stands for the POTUS.
"It's a real pleasure for us, that the world has advanced enough that a black man can be president of the United States," Signane told Reuters. "It makes us very proud. That's why I came to buy a t-shirt, so I can welcome him."
