Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

Tweets welcoming #ObamaInEthiopia

President Barack Obama receives flowers upon his arrival on Air Force One upon at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, on July 26, 2015.
SAUL LOEB AFP/Getty Images
President Barack Obama receives flowers upon his arrival on Air Force One upon at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, on July 26, 2015.

President Obama made history this week as the first sitting U.S. president to visit Ethiopia. He was welcomed with flowers, flags and plenty of tweets.

How many tweets exactly? The #ObamaInEthiopia hashtag in particular has been used over 10,000 times and counting in the last seven days. That's a lot, but it pales next to the 85,000 tweets for #ObamaInKenya.

If you're wondering why Ethiopian tweeters seem a bit behind the Kenyan Twitterati, who were paid a visit by the president over the weekend, maybe it's a question of access.

Advertisement

According to the World Bank, the internet penetration rate in Ethiopia is just 1.9 percent compared to Kenya's 39 percent — that's the percentage of internet users out of the total population.

Here's a round-up of what tweeters are saying about #ObamaInEthiopia:

A few tweeters took note of the stark difference between the Twitter reaction in Kenya versus that in Ethiopia:

And, of course, Ethiopians weren't going to let the President off the hook after he attempted to speak Amharic, the country's official language, during a joint press conference with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

What President Obama was trying to say was "ameseginalehu," which is thank you in Amharic.

Advertisement

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.