“It’s time for me to go home,” said Atieno Kombe, for now, the owner and operator of the Africa Mama shop in Bothell Landing.

For Kombe, 50, home is the village of Malanga in the Nyanza province of Kenya. Kombe first left there at 11, moving to Nairobi. She came here at 21 eventually earning a degree in finance from the University of Washington.

“It’s tough to uproot myself,” Kombe admitted. “I’ve lived here a long time.”

Still, in her quiet voice, Kombe lays claim to numerous passionate reasons for wanting to head back to Kenya, detailing various unexpected aspects of her life without blinking.

Firstly, Kombe hopes the liquidation of her stock of all things African will raise enough money to buy a homestead in her native village. In a country plagued by AIDS, orphans are all too common, Kombe said and she hopes to house 50 to 100 of them.

“I want to offer shelter and love to as many people as possible,” she says, adding she hopes especially to be able to offer help to a very specific few.

According to Kombe, who has returned to Kenya numerous times, AIDS has claimed most of her peer group in Malanga. When she was young, she remembers vowing with her girlfriends to always take care of each other and their children.

“I’m going back to look for the children of my girlfriends,” Kombe said. There may only be a few left, perhaps even only one, due to AIDS and other social and health problems. She described the child mortality rate in Kenya and most of Africa as astronomically high.

“And for absolutely the most silly reasons,” Kombe added, stating that educating parents to even a fourth-grade level increases the survival rate of their children exponentially.

Even while still in this country, Kombe tries to lend a hand overseas. She established Urgent Africa, a formal 501c(3) charity that helps orphans and others in Kenya. Kombe figures she has aided about 100 children or so, ranging in age from newborns to teens. Of those, two are now living here, attending college. But Kombe makes a point of mentioning none of the children touched by Urgent Africa have contracted AIDS, in her mind apparently an important outcome of her efforts to date.

“All they really needed was love,” she said of the children she has helped.

In addition to helping youngsters, Kombe said there is another important reason for her to head home.

“Africa is suffering from a brain drain,” she said, stating that too often children who leave the villages and gain an education never return.

“The No. 1 asset in Africa is its children, not diamonds or agriculture,” she said.

As she talks about her family, Kombe makes one statement you definitely don’t hear every day.

“My grandfather was a king,” she said, adding that Odara Sande, who died in the 1930s, was the last king of his section of Kenya prior to the British taking control. According to Kombe, Sande had 78 wives and may have fathered up to 300 children. Only a handful have survived, including Kombe’s parents, both of whom were teachers in Kenya.

Kombe also proudly notes she is apparently a cousin of President Barrack Obama. Obama’s father is from the same area as Kombe’s grandmother. And, no, she has never met the president, but is a strong supporter.

As for her store, Kombe started Africa Mama on Capitol Hill in 1988. She stayed in her original location until 2007 when she lost her lease. She came to Bothell essentially to liquidate her stock, vowing to head home.

“I’ve been singing this song for a long time,” she admits.

Kombe chose Bothell Landing knowing the city had targeted the strip for demolition as part of the official plan to revamp Bothell’s downtown. She initially intended to close her store in March.

“The economy played the same trick on me it played on everybody else,” she said. Slow sales forced her to reopen and try once more to sell off her stock.

The store obviously reflects Kombe’s background and interests, featuring everything from African masks to clothing, jewelry and carvings, most of it imported and at least some of it from small companies in Kenya that directly benefit charities there.

Africa Mama must close by the end of the year and Kombe plans her last day to be Dec. 24. In the meantime, the shop is open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week.

“The community is different here, very loving,” Kombe said. “I’m surprised at how much I’ve been welcomed.”

For more information on Kombe’s charity, go to www.urgentafrica.org.