Nairobi - Kenyan newspapers on Wednesday went Obama-crazy as they hailed the beginning of the reign of the United States' first black president, whose roots lie in Kenya.

Images of President Obama were plastered all over the Daily Nation and The Standard, Kenya's two leading newspapers.

While there was much praise for the man whose father grew up in the western Kenyan village of Kogelo, the newspapers also sounded a note of caution.

The Daily Nation's cartoonist showed Obama struggling under the weight of carrying a planet with fault lines running through it, a theme carried on in an editorial that warned of the great weight of expectation on his shoulders.

Many Kenyans were, however, were still basking in the afterglow - if not the hangovers - of parties organized the previous evening.

Tens of thousands celebrated the inauguration at parties across the East African nation as images of their favourite son were beamed onto big screens.

Thousands gathered at a public viewings in downtown Nairobi while locals joined tourists in the popular coastal town of Mombasa to dance the night away.

In Nairobi's many slums, people also crowded around neighbours homes to listen in to the inauguration.

"Those who had a television put up the volume so everyone in the neighbourhood could hear Obama's speech," Julius Savakaji, who lives in Nairobi's teeming Kawangware slum, said.

A huge crowd, including quite a few adventurous tourists, also gathered in Kogelo, the remote village where Obama's father grew up and where his grandmother still lives.

Kenyans are fiercely proud of Obama, and the celebrations allowed people to forget their woes, which include a food crisis threatening 10 million people with starvation, corruption scandals and memories of the ethnic clashes that killed over 1,500 people one year ago following disputed elections.

Many Kenyans, and indeed Africans, hope that Obama's Kenyan roots will help bring a new focus on the continent's myriad problems.

However, readers polled by newspapers on Wednesday said they felt that Obama may be too busy dealing with domestic problems to worry about Africa.

At the very least, however, many say they feel a new sense of self-respect since a black American with humble roots in Kenya can reach the White House. (dpa)