Barack Obama is visiting his father’s homeland for the first time as president of the United States, meeting his Kenyan family.

“Proud to be the 1st American president to visit Kenya. Happy to see family, and to talk with young Kenyans about the future,” the US president said in a tweet on Friday.

He arrived in the African country on Friday and spent the night with members of his father’s family at his hotel in Nairobi.

Obama also met with his half-sister Auma Obama and his step-grandmother, known as Mama Sarah.

The president’s father was born in Kogelo, which is the rural village six hours from Nairobi.

His father met Stanley Ann Dunham, a white woman from Kansas, after he left Kenya as a young man to study at the University of Hawaii.

The father returned to Kenya when the son was two years old. They see each other once more when the son was 10 years old. The father died at age 46 in a car crash in 1982.

During his two-day visit, Obama is scheduled to address a gathering of entrepreneurs from across the world.

Two dozen American lawmakers along with 200 US investors accompanied the president.

Obama is the first African-American president in the history of the United States.