Barack Obama’s Kenyan family erupted in cheers Wednesday, singing “we are going to the White House,” as he became the first African-American elected president.

In the western village of Kogelo, where the Democratic candidate’s late father was born, police had tightened security to prevent hordes of media and others from entering the rural homestead of Obama’s step-grandmother, Sarah.

But the elderly woman and several other relatives came outside Wednesday to cheer for Obama in a country where the Democrat is seen as a “son of the soil.”