And Then Life Happens: A Memoir

by Auma Obama

  * * *

  In my own family, a lot happened in that period. In 1990, Karl and I had flown to Abongo’s wedding in the United States. He had been living for several years near Washington, D.C., where he had met Sheree, an African American. A few days after the celebration, Karl and I drove a rental car to New York to meet up with Ann and Maya, who had also been at the wedding but had left earlier. Maya was still a student and lived with her mother.

  * * *

  New York did not disappoint us. The metropolis entirely lived up to its reputation; it was loud, fast, exciting, and truly never slept. We strolled along Fifth Avenue and looked at the display windows of the expensive shops. From the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building we viewed the city, and one evening we ate dinner in a high-rise restaurant. In Times Square, we admired the colorful scene of the neon advertisements that lit up the city as bright as day. A trip to the Guggenheim Museum was a must, and, of course, we also paid the obligatory visit to the old lady: the Statue of Liberty.

  Our days were completely filled with activities. And when Maya celebrated her birthday at one of the many clubs in downtown Manhattan, we also got to experience New York nightlife.

  After that trip, Bayreuth struck me as even more sedate, and despite my brief absence it took a while before I had accustomed myself again to the leisurely rhythm of the small city.

  * * *

  But there was one exciting development: Before Karl and I flew to the United States, I had applied to the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin (Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin, known as DFFB). The solitary work buried in books had become more and more difficult for me. That is why I had recently done a three-month internship with WDR, the West German broadcasting company. The media experiences I gained at that Cologne station fostered a desire in me: I wanted to tell people more about the life of Africans, though no longer in seminars and lectures, but in visual images.

  I was thrilled to find out that I was among the few selected to take the entrance exam for the DFFB. The first hurdle was cleared. The exam process took four days—and in the end I could hardly believe it: Among the roughly five hundred people who applied to the academy in 1990, I was accepted with nine other candidates to the three-year film and television program. I’m in! I’m in! I kept thinking, as I read my name on the bulletin board of the academy. Now I will finally learn how to tell my stories in image and sound and will receive professional support for it.

  Karl, who was done with his studies, was now even farther away from me geographically. He had moved to Lake Constance, where he had gotten a job in Koblenz. I really liked the area, especially the fact that the winter months there were relatively warm in comparison to other German regions.

  But due to the many miles that separated us, we saw each other even less than before. Increasingly, I had the feeling that we each led our own lives and were not necessarily willing to make compromises for each other. I vaguely sensed that the end of our relationship was approaching.

  In this state of various emotions I flew to Kenya again. Wanjiru, a fellow student at the DFFB and also a Kenyan, was shooting her graduation film there and had asked for my assistance.

  And there was another reason for the trip: Barack and I had arranged to meet again in my native country. Since our brother Abongo’s wedding, things had gotten more and more serious between Barack and his girlfriend, Michelle. Now she was his fiancée, and he was eager to introduce her to his Kenyan family. Because I still didn’t know Michelle very well, I was really looking forward to the time with her. She exuded a calm and composure that made it very easy to talk to her.

  In accordance with Luo tradition, Abongo planned at that time to move the immediate Obama family, meaning my mother, out of our grandfather’s compound (Konyango) and to establish our own homestead (Kobama) directly adjacent to it. For this custom, particular rites had to be performed. Among them was the requirement that the oldest members of the Obama family be present—that meant my grandfather’s brothers, who still lived in Karachuonyo. We, too, wanted to take part in the ceremony.

  Due to complicated flight connections, Barack, Michelle, and I unfortunately did not arrive in Alego until a day after the end of the ritual and found there only a few of the relatives who had come. The new homestead was bare; there were only two hastily erected mud huts, one for my mother and one for her oldest son, Abongo. So I was glad that my grandfather’s compound was not many yards away. There, I could—as always since my childhood—spend the night at my grandmother’s, this time with Barack and Michelle.

  During the few days of our stay in Alego, we shuttled back and forth between the compounds. Since Abongo lived in America, he had become very traditional. In contrast to what I had known of him previously, he now seemed to attach great value to following the Luo ways and customs. And so he also wished for us to spend as much time as possible on the new homestead of the Obama family.

  Against the background of the inauguration of the compound, Barack introduced Michelle to the family as his wife-to-be. Everyone welcomed her warmly, and our grandmother insisted on serving only the best food to celebrate her visit.

  Michelle’s visit upcountry to our ancestral home meant a lot to the family. As I watched her interact comfortably with everyone, eating with her hands—as is customary for our traditional dish of ugali, fish, and greens—I was filled with fondness for her. I imagined that many Americans would have found it difficult to fit into our rural routine, which included sleeping in a thatched hut with no running water, electricity, or modern comforts.

  The general feeling in the family was that Barack had chosen well. Our grandmother, who could speak only the most rudimentary English, firmly shook Barack’s hand in a congratulatory gesture as she pointed at Michelle and happily uttered the words, “Is good! Is very good!” She proceeded to give him a big hug, which he returned, laughing.

  * * *

  From Alego we returned to Nairobi. Through friends I had rented an apartment for us, which must have struck Michelle as very “alternative,” because it was completely unfurnished. Barack had already been with me in Kenya and better understood my circumstances. Everything we needed we had to borrow or buy. Another option would have been a hotel, but none of us could have afforded that for four weeks, which was to be the length of our stay.

  While Barack and Michelle calmly accepted all this, there was, however, an experience both of them would have gladly done without.

  I had sold my old Beetle to Aunt Zeituni when I returned to Germany after my one-year stint teaching at the University of Nairobi. Now she lent me the car so that Barack, Michelle, and I could get around on our own without public transportation. There was only one problem: The car was in need of a lot of maintenance.

  One day, when we were driving along the three-lane Uhuru Highway, Barack next to me, Michelle in the backseat, I suddenly found myself forced to stop abruptly and get us all out of the Beetle.

  “Get out! Get out!” I shouted, as I flung open the driver’s door and jumped out of the car. Then I folded forward the driver’s seat so that Michelle could climb out. The two of them just stared at me uncomprehendingly.

  “Get out! It’s on fire!” I shouted.

  With the word “fire,” they immediately rushed out of the car. Together we ran to the roadside.

  “The car’s on fire,” I repeated. “I can smell it!” However, no smoke could be seen.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, two mechanics with tools were standing next to us.

  “Where’s the fire?” one of the two men asked in a friendly tone.

  “Under the hood,” I said, my heart still pounding.

  “We’ll fix it.”

  The two men went to the car, opened the hood, and looked at the engine. In my excitement I had left the key in the ignition.

  “What was that?” Barack asked in horror.

  “I don’t know,” I answered.

  Barack sat down somewhat apprehensively next to Michelle, wh
o had taken a seat on the curb.

  “These things happen,” said Michelle, who had long since regained her composure, and put her arm around my brother.

  “I have to go back to the car,” I said to Barack. “I don’t know what the two mechanics are doing there. If we don’t pay attention, they might steal car parts. Then we’ll really have a problem. Who knows whether they’re even mechanics!”

  Barack immediately stood up when he saw that I wanted to deal with the car. He was torn. He didn’t want me to be with the strangers unaccompanied, but he didn’t want to leave Michelle on the roadside either.

  “Go ahead. I’ll be fine,” she said calmly.

  The two mechanics who had appeared out of the blue were not thieves; they actually repaired the car. As soon as we were able to start it up again, I dropped off my two companions in front of our rented apartment and then drove to a repair shop. I would not feel at ease until it was checked out again there.

  “We shouldn’t get into a situation like that again, sis,” Barack said to me when I returned. “I’m trying to impress my bride here.”

  I couldn’t help laughing out loud. He was making a dead-serious face, but I could tell by looking at him as well as Michelle that in retrospect they actually found the experience funny.

  “Where did those mechanics come from so suddenly?” he asked in amazement.

  “No idea. Probably they’re unemployed, stand on the side of the road, and hope for people like us.”

  “There really was something surreal about it. If I tell the story at home, no one will believe me. I’ve never gotten out of a car that fast.” Barack shook his head with a laugh and reached for a pen and his notebook. I wondered whether he might be planning to record this event for his book. Barack, who at Harvard had been elected president of the renowned Harvard Law Review, had received an offer from a publisher to write a book about his life. It appeared in 1995 under the title Dreams from My Father.

  Together with Michelle, my brother and I visited other relatives who lived in Nairobi. And after Michelle had departed—she had to head back earlier—Barack and I went to visit our grandmother again. He wanted to ask her some more questions that had to do with his book. I acted as an interpreter. Afterward, he spent a lot of time sitting over his notes and writing.

  * * *

  When I returned from Kenya, Karl met me at the Frankfurt Airport with a huge bouquet and we drove from there to his place in Konstanz. While we ate and talked, we came around to the subject of my application for an extension of my residence permit, which was due. Every few months I had to reapply for it, and each time I came out of the office with the feeling that I was tolerated only temporarily. It had gone on like that for several years already, and gradually it was beginning to bother me.

  “Shouldn’t we get married?” I suddenly said. “Then I wouldn’t have to keep asking for an extension from the authorities.”

  His answer came promptly and knocked the wind out of me.

  “When I get married, it will only be for love.”

  For a moment I was speechless. Finally I asked slowly, “And us? What is between us?”

  Karl looked at me uncomprehendingly.

  “What do you mean?”

  I sensed panic gradually and unstoppably welling up in me.

  “You say you only want to get married for love—so what is this between us?” I asked, agitated.

  “Why are you getting worked up?” Karl still hadn’t grasped what I was driving at.

  “You only want to get married for love, right? So what is between us isn’t love. I came back to Germany because of you. Because of you I am repeatedly humiliated at the immigration office, and you’re telling me that you only want to get married for love!” Now I was really angry.

  Karl winced. Then he tried to limit the damage he had done.

  “I meant that we should plan it first, if we really want to do it. We…”

  But I was no longer listening. What he had said had sounded so conclusive that I knew: It was over between us.

  I wanted to cry, but no tears came. My eyes were so dry that it hurt.

  I had been with Karl for six years, and now our relationship was over with a few words! I had, as the song goes, “lost my heart in Heidelberg.” On Lake Constance, it broke.

  22.

  I GOT AN OPPORTUNITY through Mr. Odengo from the Kenyan embassy in Bonn to work as an interpreter for businesspeople from back home who had been invited to a trade fair in Frankfurt. I had met Mr. Odengo through my mother when she visited me a year after my father’s death. Subsequently, I received a trade fair translation job with the Philippine embassy. The work was very well paid, which enabled me in the period that followed to fly to Kenya at least once a year.

  One day, I got a phone call in the student residence hall in Bayreuth. “Hello?” Judging by the static on the line, someone was calling me from abroad. For a moment I thought that Aunty Jane was on the phone.

  “Hello, am I speaking with Auma Obama?” asked a voice, which could not have belonged to Aunty Jane, however, for it was clearly male.

  “Yes. With whom am I speaking, please?”

  “Ian Manners from Zenith Promotions. We’re a British company and are coming next month to a trade fair in Düsseldorf. We’re looking for an interpreter, and you were recommended to us.”

  He sounded very matter-of-fact, and completely contrary to my habit, I said, “But you know that I’m African, right?”

  As I said that, I tried not to sound sarcastic or condescending. I just wanted him to know. In situations like that I often had to think of the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. “Telephone Conversation” is my favorite poem on the theme of racism. It’s about an African who contacts a landlady on the phone because he is interested in a room she is offering. He tries to prepare her for the fact that she is dealing with a black man. The poem goes:

  The price seemed reasonable, location

  Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived

  Off premises. Nothing remained

  But self-confession. “Madam,” I warned,

  “I hate a wasted journey—I am African.”

  Silence. Silenced transmission of

  Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,

  Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled

  Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.

  “HOW DARK?” … I had not misheard …

  “ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?”

  “That doesn’t matter to me.” The voice of my conversation partner sounded annoyed. “What a question!”

  “I’m sorry. I only wanted you to know.”

  I was unsettled. I had not expected such a vehement reaction, but something more along the lines of “That’s no problem!” or an excuse as to why it couldn’t work in this case, for they would prefer a native speaker. I can forget this job, I thought. Instead, the question came from the other end of the line, “So can you work for us?”

  All was not lost, I realized with relief. “Of course,” I said.

  We discussed all the necessary arrangements and then said good-bye. At the time, I did not yet know that the man with whom I, sitting on the carpeted floor of the hallway in the student residence hall, had spoken on the phone would be my future husband and the father of my daughter.

  * * *

  When Ian entered my life, Karl and I had just broken up. I was dissatisfied with my studies in Bayreuth as well as those in Berlin. With my professor’s waning interest in my dissertation, it was progressing only slowly, and the film school had turned out to be too “alternative” for me, making it difficult to find a platform for the more ordinary human stories I wanted to tell. I felt like a swaying ship with no sense of direction, looking for a place to anchor. I needed something solid and stable in my life. Suddenly Ian appeared, a man who seemed confident and grounded, something I had found lacking in Karl.

  I plunged into the relationship with Ian, convinced that I had finally found a man who would
take care of me. I visited him on several occasions in England, and he also came to Germany. It didn’t matter to me that he didn’t speak much and seemed to be a rather serious type. I myself talked so much that I didn’t really notice that at first. He was happy to let me keep our conversations going. But as time went on, I got tired of always determining the course of the conversation. Though we spent a lot of time with Ian’s family, who were wonderful people and welcomed me warmly, he did not seem to socialize much outside of that. I was itching to explore London, which was not too far away from where he lived. However, Ian, though he readily tagged along with me on social outings in Germany, was unfortunately not as enthusiastic back home. “Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt!” was his reply when I suggested a night out in the capital.

  Inevitably, I, too, began to be silent more often when we were together. I wanted to see whether he was really so quiet or whether he could make an evening with friends or family interesting without my help. Ian remained taciturn—even when we were with his family. More and more often I would find myself grouped with the women, while the male family members, Ian among them, sat apart and chatted about soccer and politics. Ian’s silence began to frustrate me, and I started to doubt whether he was really the right partner for me. I wanted to be with someone who participated more in what was going on around him. But Ian seemed content simply to be there and let me take the lead. It thus became clear to me that what I had mistaken for stability based on his down-to-earth, confident nature was, in fact, more a reflection of his shy, introverted temperament. I was no longer so sure about my relationship with Ian. And after a while, we went our separate ways. I returned to Germany and resigned myself to never seeing him again. The relationship had lasted just under a year.