'Welcome home, Mr President': Obama's all smiles as he catches up with long-lost family on official visit to Kenya.

President Barack Obama was all smiles on Friday evening as he sat down for dinner with Kenyan relatives on a state visit to the country's capital. Not long after touching down in Nairobi, Obama was taken to a hotel where he met fellow Obamas including his half-sister and step-grandmother. The President was seen smiling at a table between Mama Sarah Obama, whom he calls 'granny', and Auma Obama, who was born to his father's first wife.

Beaming: A happy Barack Obama joined a family dinner with his step-grandmother Mama Sarah, to his left, and half-sister Auma, to his right, at a family meal in Nairobi, Kenya

Big meeting: Obama went to the meal in Nairobi at the hotel where he was staying soon after landing in the capital

Some three-dozen people were at the meal sitting round the President at the Villa Rosa Kempinski hotel, where he is staying on his brief visit to the country. The luxury property can accommodate some 500 diners and has a host of restaurants as well as a plush presidential suite on its tenth floor. He headed straight to the family occasion after disembarking from Air Force One late Friday night, where he was met by Auma as well as a group of high-ranking Kenyan officials. Included among them were president Uhuru Kenyatta, who joked with Obama as he sat at a desk rolled up in front of the presidential plane and signed a visitors' book for the nation. Crowds of excited citizens crowded as close as possible to his heavily-guarded route and welcome him to their country. Family reunion: Obama is pictured above at Bairobi's airport hugging Auma, who met him along with the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, right in a yellow tie

Family reunion: Obama is pictured above at Bairobi's airport hugging Auma, who met him along with the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, right in a yellow tie

Together: Obama and Auma met when the president was a young man living in Chicago

Shooting the breeze: Obama shares a joke with Kenyatta, as he signs a visitors' book on a desk set up in front of his plane

Gift: Obama was given a bouquet of flower by Joan Wamaitha, and eight-year-old Kenyan girl, on his arrival

Hours before Obama's arrival, police blocked major roads and emptied streets of traffic in the usually congested capital as part of a huge security operation.