And Then Life Happens: A Memoir

by Auma Obama

  Because I could understand her despondency and the oppressive loneliness only too well, I looked desperately for a way to help her. Finally, I found a group of older women who met once a week for tea and did various activities together. Though my mother had her difficulties with English, I was certain that she would overcome them with time. Gradually things started looking up.

  At that time, I often wondered which of us was the child and which the mother. After all the worry and the exhausting period spent taking care of my mother, I eventually could not help feeling some indignation. The relationship between my mother and me was complicated, even though we never spoke about it. Ever since I had gotten to know her at the age of thirteen, I carried around with me the feeling that I owed her something. Perhaps that was because I had actually forgotten her over the long years of separation and had not loved her from afar. In some way, I felt as if I had to make up for that and as if I were responsible for her. Although it should have actually been the other way around—it had been she, after all, who had given me up, deprived me of her motherly love.

  These thoughts troubled me. I wished that I at least had a shared history with her, shared experiences of joy and sorrow—everything that belonged to a family life. And something that could serve as a justification for the hard work and the sacrifices I now had to bear for her sake. But then I thought of my own daughter and knew instantly why I was doing all this. It was for her. Even if it might be too late for me, Akinyi still had a chance to develop a good relationship with my mother. My daughter could nurture an intact connection with her grandmother without the burden of any family tragedies, I thought. When I managed to see things that way, it was suddenly no longer so hard for me to be there for my mother.

  * * *

  During her hospital stay, I had explained to the authorities why my mother could not leave the country after the expiration of her visa. Now the worrisome question arose as to what would become of her if she were deported. In Kenya, we had not had the best experiences with family care. All our relatives were too preoccupied with their own problems. And it seemed just as questionable whether my mother would get the proper further medical treatment there.

  “Why don’t you ask whether she can stay with you permanently?” a friend suggested to me, when I had told her about my misgivings.

  “Impossible. They’re so strict with us Africans.”

  “Just try it. Inquire with a lawyer.”

  “I would need money for that,” I replied with resignation.

  “Certainly—ordinarily. But your case is unusual. Your mother is sick. I’ll look into what can be done.”

  So I took on, with my friend’s encouragement, the long, arduous process—involving red tape, driving from one place to another, endless telephone calls and appointments—of obtaining permanent residence for my mother in England. One day, to our joy, a letter finally arrived informing us of the decision of the Home Office that Grace Kezia Aoko Obama was permitted to stay in Great Britain. An official document followed, complete with the royal seal of her majesty Elizabeth II.

  27.

  IN THE MEANTIME, I had taken a new position with the Bracknell Youth Service in a program called Connexions. I was able to leave my job as project manager and could now work full-time for the Youth Service. I was tasked with helping children and youth from difficult family circumstances get an education or find training or employment opportunities.

  I had been doing this for almost two years when I was entrusted with the Bridget Case. Bridget had just turned seventeen and was homeless. Because she was underage and without fixed abode, she was entitled to state support, for which she had applied with the authorities in Bracknell, where she had last resided.

  When we inquired about the application at the office, we were told that a different agency was now responsible for it. But there, no one knew anything, and we were sent to a third agency, which itself referred us elsewhere, until we ended up back at the first office, where now someone was able to produce the sought-after application after all. The whole back and forth involved hours of phone calls, which the girl would never have been able to handle successfully on her own. Without my help she would have given up and gone on sleeping “under a bridge.”

  Bureaucratic obstacle courses of this sort went with the territory of this work. But as a staff member under the Social Services Department, I could at least insist on responses and the expediting of processes, even if often not much came of it. To expect young people who lived on the fringes of society to find their way in all this on their own was, however, too much to ask. Most of them had no idea that they had rights. They did not even expect to be treated better when they ended up caught in the wheels of bureaucracy, in which they constantly had the feeling that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing.

  Although I knew many colleagues who really strove to make a difference, I was frustrated by the often rather scant sympathy the authorities showed the youth in need. As a result, I had to struggle hard to allay the young people’s mistrust toward adults, including myself. In light of my cultural background, I was often astonished by the enormous gulf that divided the youth and adults where I worked. I was convinced that the adults needed to be much more responsive to the young people. In most cases, unfortunately, the exact opposite was the case: The youth had to adapt. They were expected to fit in and assume their predetermined place in the social structure. In Kenya, too, there were certainly strict rules to which you had to adhere, but family had such a strong influence on the lives of the children and youth that such a wide gap between the generations was not likely in the first place.

  In light of these experiences, I began to reflect on how I could contribute to fundamentally changing the situation for these young people. It was clear to me that as a Connexions staff member I could take them by the hand for only a brief time and could not really improve much about their lives. So I applied one day for a position that had been created some time ago in the Youth Service of the neighboring town of Wokingham. The work there essentially consisted of giving children and youth the opportunity to participate more intensely in decisions affecting them. Following orders from on high, the initiative sought to provide them with a platform from which they could express themselves and be taken seriously. This work seemed to be tailor-made for me and my vision.

  I prepared thoroughly for the interview and was overjoyed when I got the job.

  But my plans and those of my colleagues were often thwarted by lack of funds. The second most important task besides the attempt to give children and youth a voice and greater self-esteem was the struggle for financial resources. For without the necessary money I, too, came under suspicion of making only empty promises.

  Increasingly, I compared the British children with whom I worked at that time to Kenyan children. It pained me to see that they had so many more possibilities in comparison to their African counterparts and yet made so little of them. At the same time, I knew that these reflections were pointless (and would hardly have motivated the youth more). In many ways, the British boys and girls faced challenges that, under the prevailing circumstances, were just as difficult as those confronted by young people in my native country.

  One such challenge was the scarcity of meeting places for young people that were not also centers where they were required to participate in specific character-building activities, leaving little room for them to just “hang out.” I never really understood why young people did not meet at each other’s homes, until a colleague explained to me that the parents were often against it out of fear that their children and their friends would make a mess.

  “But wouldn’t that be better in the end than your daughter or son roaming around in some dark park and you as a parent not knowing what your child is up to?” I asked.

  “I think these fathers and mothers have given up,” the colleague replied. “They don’t want their children coming home late at night, but the children no longer obey them. They just do w
hat they want.”

  “Still, the parents could definitely do more,” I insisted.

  “No. The British have ceded their responsibility in many respects to the state. For that reason they accept the status quo.”

  So how was I supposed to improve anything for young people, if the parents themselves weren’t pulling together? I wondered. More than ever, I was aware of how little I could change the existing conditions. I thought of Akinyi, who was eight already, and at that moment, only a few miles away, lay safely ensconced in her bed. What would become of her once she was a teenager? Would I be able to keep tabs on her behavior outside the home? For some time, the thought had been repeatedly crossing my mind that it would be better to leave England before I was confronted with such a situation. I simply could not imagine my daughter in a poorly lit park, hanging around with other, possibly unstable young people, even if it might be only under peer pressure.

  Finally, I made a decision: It would only be a matter of time before I left. At the same time, I was more and more convinced that I could achieve more working in my own country.

  28.

  BARACK HAD BECOME A LAWYER and, as he had once told me he would do, had gone into politics instead of working in a law firm. Over the years, he had never lost sight of his goal of trying to influence policy to improve people’s lives.

  When I one day received an e-mail from him in which he informed me that he was running for election as a senator and wanted to know what I thought of that, there was not much I could say. I wrote back that I did not really understand the significance of this; the American system of government was too foreign to me. But if it was an important step toward achieving his vision, I would definitely support him.

  After a few months, he got in touch again to invite me to his official inauguration as a senator. Wow, I thought proudly, he actually got elected. In the meantime, I had done my homework and learned—also because it was all over the newspapers—that my brother’s new post was not exactly a minor accomplishment. Barack was one of five black people who had succeeded up to that point in getting elected to the United States Senate. And it had been years since the last black person had assumed such an office.

  “You have to come, Auma. I’d really like to have you there,” my brother told me on the phone.

  “I can’t afford it. Two tickets cost—”

  He cut me off. “I’ll pay!”

  “No, that’s out of the question. You shouldn’t be doing something for me. To celebrate this event, I should be doing something for you.”

  “Listen.” Barack sounded impatient. “I’m also inviting other relatives from Kenya, and I’m paying for them, too. It’s really important to me that you participate in this inauguration, as well as Akinyi and your mother. That’s why you have to come.”

  After some back and forth, I agreed.

  “So we’ll see each other in Washington, right?”

  “Absolutely! You’re very persistent. That’s why I love you!”

  * * *

  Not until I was in Washington did I truly grasp what it meant for Barack to be elected senator. Although we stayed in the same hotel, he was barely present, because there were so many demands on his time. A celebratory thrill was in the air, and everywhere great enthusiasm could be felt for what he had achieved. When a black woman from the hotel security service learned that I was Barack’s sister, she spoke to me excitedly.

  “We’re all so proud of him!” she said, beaming. “Congratulations! Congratulations!”

  And so it went the whole time. People were constantly shaking my hand and complimenting us. I was taken aback and overwhelmed, and I almost felt as if I myself, solely by virtue of my relation to my brother, had accomplished something special.

  The days in the capital of the United States were filled with invitations to various events and ceremonies, where I got to witness again and again how popular Barack was. People cheered him enthusiastically as soon as he entered a room, listened to him attentively when he spoke, and applauded him wildly and repeatedly.

  Without a doubt, I was extremely proud of my brother and his success. At the same time, I was astounded at the effect he had on others. Marveling, and also smiling to myself a little, I observed the man who was my little brother. I remembered our conversation on the porch of my apartment in Nairobi, when he had told me about his Harvard plans and his desire to change people’s lives. And now here he was, able to completely transform the mood in a room through his presence alone. The faces of the people who had come to celebrate with him and listen to him reflected the great expectations, hopes, and possibilities that he embodied. Even Barack’s colleagues seemed hypnotized by him. My little brother was now a big man, I thought. If only the old man were still alive to see all this!

  * * *

  Apart from my brother’s inauguration as senator, a major highlight of our trip to Washington was meeting my nieces Malia and Sasha for the first time. My last visit to the States had been before the two of them were born.

  Malia was six, a year younger than Akinyi. Sasha was almost four. As I hugged them, I caught myself looking for signs of family resemblance. Malia, I could see at a glance, looked a lot like her father’s maternal side of the family. Little Sasha was more difficult to place. “Could those be the Obama high cheekbones?” I asked myself. “The forehead perhaps…?” It was hard to tell. She also looked a lot like her mother.

  Although I was still a stranger to them, the girls graciously let me hug them. They tolerated my many “aunty” questions before turning their attention to a more interesting new member of the family, their cousin Akinyi. The three of them slipped easily into a sense of familiarity and for the rest of the visit were inseparable.

  Despite Barack’s hectic schedule, we were able to congregate one evening for an intimate dinner with family and friends. Coincidentally, it was also my forty-fifth birthday. Maya promptly saw to it that a birthday cake would be served. As we all sat at our tables, laughing and chatting, and later, when we gathered to take photos to capture the moment forever, I felt a great sense of family and belonging. It crossed my mind that this might have been what my father had wanted to achieve when he longed for Barack and his mother to come join us in Kenya.

  * * *

  “Hey, Sister!” That was how Barack always greeted me on the telephone, and this time was no different.

  “Hello! What have I done to deserve this phone call?” I replied jokingly. “Is everything all right with you?”

  Automatically, I suspected the possibility of bad news as the reason for the unexpected call. We had not spoken for a long time. Since his inauguration as senator, both of us had always been busy and had not had much time to talk on the phone.

  “Everything’s great.” He really did sound in good spirits. “We’re doing fabulously. And you? And Akinyi?”

  It was not his way to beat around the bush and make small talk. So he got straight to the point with his next sentence. He was planning a trip to Kenya and wanted to have me there with him. In August, he would pay the country an official visit. At the same time, he wanted to visit our grandmother with me.

  I could not give him an immediate answer. For one thing, it was really short notice. For another, there was the familiar challenge of the expenses.

  “I’ll call you back once I’ve calculated everything,” I finally said.

  But he offered to pay for the flights; I myself would then only need to arrange our accommodations.

  “Not again.” I had to laugh. “You can’t pay for our plane tickets all the time.”

  Barack laughed, too. “That seems to be the price I have to pay for a long-distance relationship with my sister and the fact that I want her to take part in my life.”

  But this time I was able to come up with the money for the trip myself and give him a positive answer shortly after his phone call. Akinyi and I would accompany him, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha to Kenya.

  * * *

  We arrived in Nairobi
before Barack and his family and checked into a hotel that was only a few paces away from theirs. That way the children could be together most of the time, while I accompanied my brother and Michelle on several official visits. Despite all the spectacle and the various ceremonies, I found it wonderful to be in Africa with the two of them again. The August weather was mild, with considerably cooler temperatures on some days.

  What particularly astonished me on this trip was how Barack was received everywhere in Kenya. From the day of his arrival, the whole country was seized with Obama mania. Crowds of people flocked to hear him speak. When he gave a speech at the University of Nairobi, the hall was packed. Many people were standing, and some were even sitting on the floor. When he planted a tree in Uhuru Park in the business center of the capital, countless people came to watch him. When we drove in a motorcade through the streets, they craned their necks out the windows of buses and cars. The police escort ensured the smooth flow of traffic, which in essence meant clearing and blocking off the road for us. And I, who had always been disapproving of politicians or dignitaries who caused traffic jams with their motorcades, was myself suddenly sitting in one of those official cars holding up traffic. It was a crazy situation for me.

  “Do you remember your last visit?” I asked my brother jokingly as we hurtled down the Uhuru Highway.

  “I do indeed. What to say?” he replied, and shrugged with a smile.

  Back then we had sat in my old Beetle—or rather, on the roadside, while two strangers had tried to repair the burning car.

  “What to say?” I echoed, mimicking his gesture with a laugh. I was so proud of him. He really had become a statesman.

  * * *

  The arrival of Barack and Michelle in Kisumu was a major event. The small city on the shore of Lake Victoria was abuzz with excitement about Obama, and everything else came practically to a standstill. Thousands wanted to see my brother. T-shirts and caps with his name printed on them and other souvenirs were being sold. The crowd chanted: “Obama! Obama!” To hear my family name from all those mouths was confusing and uplifting at the same time. In anticipation of his arrival, people had lined up along the road from the airport into the city. This was my first brief impression of the rock star aura surrounding Barack, which I would later witness again and again in his encounters with crowds of people. In Kisumu, of course, there was the added element that the people were incredibly proud that such an important person had his family roots in their region. The fact that Barack was Luo increased their self-esteem immensely. Every single one of them standing there on the roadside or gathering on the grounds of the hospital we visited experienced Barack’s success as their own.