it’s a star struck Idul Fitri holiday this year as Indonesia warmly welcomes an honored guest — former Jakarta schoolboy and 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. The former US president is also joined by his wife Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha and Malia.

Visiting Indonesia for the first time after leaving the White House, the former first family arrived in the country on June 23 and enjoyed the cool picturesque village of Ubud before continuing on to Yogyakarta and Central Java — a few places where the girls can get a glimpse of the great cultural diversity of the country where their father spent a few years as a boy.

In a way, Obama can also claim he is taking part in a famed Indonesian homecoming, locally known as mudik. When he was a young boy, the president studied at a public elementary school in Menteng, Central Jakarta, from 1969 to 1971. Today, there is a statue of “Barry,” — as he was called back then — at the school, erected by former schoolmates ahead of his first visit as president in 2010.

Among others, the Obamas have relaxed in the famed Hindu-majority island, with its popular rice field terraces and artistic life in Ubud.

Yogyakarta is equally famous as the heartland of Javanese culture, a rural setting that is partly similar to the environment that hosted the research activities of Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.

In the villages of Central Java, the anthropologist studied local blacksmiths and female artisans for her thesis at the University of Hawaii, part of a research that later helped inform the microfinance program to empower the poor under the nationwide Bank Rakyat Indonesia.

As recalled by his sister Maya from his Indonesian step-father Lolo Soetoro when she tagged along with her mother, she became familiar with finely made keris (Javanese dagger) by highly skilled blacksmiths compared to crude products, reports said.

On Saturday, Obama is scheduled to address the fourth Diaspora Congress in South Jakarta, where tickets have sold out for the free event. Attendants who are first, second or third generation Indonesian migrants may relate to his experience of being exposed to diverse surroundings, uprooted as a youngster, forced to adapt rather suddenly to new schools, friends, cultures and languages — and taunted for being different.

Even after his eight-year term as president, Obama’s story remains improbable and inspiring; not only the untypical story of a child of Kenyan ancestry who lived in Indonesia and became America’s president — just as his late mother reportedly mused that he would — but also that of how exposure to different environments and supportive elders seemed to help shape Obama’s empathy and determination to serve his country.

The family is now determined to enjoy a trip down memory lane, complete with all the enticing dishes.

Reports say Obama will also be meeting President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo who invited him to the Bogor Presidential Palace apart from visiting his childhood haunts. We wish the Obamas a happy mudik vacation.