Dreams from My Father

by Barack Obama

  “The men in our family were very good to other people’s children,” Roy said quietly. “With their own, they didn’t want to look weak.”

  Billy nodded and licked his fingers. “You know, Roy, I think there’s truth in what you say. Myself, I don’t want to make the same mistakes. I don’t want to mistreat my family.” With his clean hand, Billy pulled his wallet out of his pocket and showed me a picture of his wife and their two young children. “I swear, bwana, marriage takes you! You should see me now, Roy. I’ve become so calm. A family man. Of course, there are limits to what a man should take. My wife, she knows not to cross me too often. What do you say, Sayid?”

  I realized that Sayid hadn’t spoken much since we arrived. He washed his hands now before turning to Billy.

  “I am not yet married,” he said, “so perhaps I should not speak. But I admit, I have been giving these matters some thought. I have concluded that the problem that is most serious for Africa is what?” He paused to look around the room. “This thing between men and women. Our men, we try to be strong, but our strength is often misplaced. Like this business with having more than one woman. Our fathers had many wives, so we also must have many women. But we do not stop and look at the consequences. What happens with all these women? They become jealous. The children, they are not close to their fathers. It is—”

  Sayid caught himself suddenly and smiled. “Of course, I have not even one wife, so I shouldn’t carry on so. Where there is no experience, I believe the wise man is silent.”

  “Achebe?” I asked.

  Sayid laughed and clutched my hand. “No, Barry. That one was only me.”

  It was dark by the time we finished dinner, and, after thanking Salina and Kezia for the food, we followed Billy outside onto a narrow footpath. Walking under a full moon, we soon came to a smaller house where the shadows of moths fluttered against a yellow window. Billy knocked on the door, and a short man with a scar along his forehead answered, his lips smiling but his eyes darting around like those of a man about to be struck. Behind him sat another man, tall, very thin, dressed in white and with a wispy goatee and mustache that made him look like an Indian sadhu. Together, the two men began shaking our hands feverishly, speaking to me in broken English.

  “Your nephew!” the white-haired man said, pointing to himself.

  The short one laughed and said, “His hair is white, but he calls you uncle! Ha-ha. You like this English? Come.”

  They led us to a wooden table set with an unlabeled bottle of clear liquid and three glasses. The white-haired man held up the bottle, then carefully poured what looked like a couple of shots into each glass. “This is better than whiskey, Barry,” Billy said as he lifted his glass. “It makes a man very potent.” He threw the drink down his throat, and Roy and I followed suit. I felt my chest explode, raining down shrapnel into my stomach. The glasses were refilled, but Sayid took a pass, so the short man held the extra drink in front of my eyes, his face distorted through the glass.

  “More?”

  “Not right now,” I said, suppressing a cough. “Thanks.”

  “You may perhaps have something for me?” the white-haired man said. “T-shirt maybe? Shoes?”

  “I’m sorry…I left everything back in Alego.”

  The short man kept smiling as if he hadn’t understood and again offered me a drink. This time Billy pushed the man’s hand away.

  “Leave him be!” Billy shouted. “We can drink more later. First we should see our grandfather.”

  The two men led us into a small back room. There, in front of a kerosene lamp, sat what looked like the oldest man I had ever seen. His hair was snow-white, his skin like parchment. He was motionless, his eyes closed, his fleshless arms propped on the armrests of his chair. I thought perhaps he was asleep, but when Billy stepped forward the old man’s head tilted in our direction, and I saw a mirror image of the face I’d seen yesterday in Alego, in the faded photograph on Granny’s wall.

  Billy explained who was there, and the old man nodded and began to speak in a low, quaking voice that seemed to rise out of a chamber beneath the floor.

  “He says that he is glad you have come,” Roy translated. “He was your grandfather’s brother. He wishes you well.”

  I said that I was happy to see him, and the old man nodded again.

  “He says that many young men have been lost to…the white man’s country. He says his own son is in America and has not come home for many years. Such men are like ghosts, he says. When they die, no one will be there to mourn them. No ancestors will be there to welcome them. So…he says it is good that you have returned.”

  The old man raised his hand and I shook it gently. As we got up to leave, the old man said something else, and Roy nodded his head before closing the door behind us.

  “He says that if you hear of his son,” Roy explained, “you should tell him that he should come home.”

  Perhaps it was the effects of the moonshine, or the fact that the people around me were speaking in a language I didn’t understand. But when I try to remember the rest of that evening, it’s as if I’m walking through a dream. The moon hangs low in the sky, while the figures of Roy and the others merge with the shadows of corn. We enter another small house and find more men, perhaps six, perhaps ten, the numbers constantly changing as the night wears on. In the center of a rough wooden table sit three more bottles, and the men begin pouring the moonshine into the glasses, ceremoniously at first, then faster, more sloppily; the dull, labelless bottle passed from hand to hand. I stop drinking after two more shots, but no one seems to notice. Old faces and young faces all glow like jack-o’-lanterns in the shifting lamplight, laughing and shouting, slumped in dark corners or gesticulating wildly for cigarettes or another drink, anger or joy pitching up to a crest, then just as quickly ebbing away, words of Luo and Swahili and English running together in unrecognizable swirls, the voices wheedling for money or shirts or the bottle, the voices laughing and sobbing, the outstretched hands, the faltering angry voices of my own sodden youth, of Harlem and the South Side; the voices of my father.

  I’m not sure how long we stayed. I know that at some point, Sayid came up and shook my arm.

  “Barry, we are going,” he said. “Bernard is not feeling well.”

  I said I’d go with them, but as I stood up, Abo leaned over to me and grabbed my shoulders.

  “Barry! Where are you going?”

  “To sleep, Abo.”

  “You must stay here with us! With me! And Roy!”

  I looked up to see Roy slumped on the couch. Our eyes met, and I nodded toward the door. It seemed then that the entire room became silent, as if I were watching the scene on television and the sound had gone off. I saw the white-haired man fill Roy’s glass, and I thought about pulling Roy out of the room. But Roy’s eyes slid away from mine; he laughed and poured the drink down his throat to much cheering and applause, cheering that I still could hear even after Sayid, Bernard, and I had started making our way back toward Salina’s house.

  “Those people were too drunk,” Bernard said weakly as we walked across the field.

  Sayid nodded and turned to me. “I’m afraid Roy is too much like my eldest brother. You know, your father was very popular in these parts. Also in Alego. Whenever he came home, he would buy everyone drinks and stay out very late. The people here appreciated this. They would tell him, ‘You are a big man, but you have not forgotten us.’ Such words made him happy, I think. I remember once, he took me to Kisumu town in his Mercedes. On the way, he saw a matatu picking up passengers, and he said to me, ‘Sayid, we will be matatu drivers this evening!’ At the next matatu stop, he picked up the remaining people and told me to collect the regular fare from them. I think we squeezed eight people into his car. He took them not only to Kisumu but to their houses, or wherever they needed to go. And when each of them got out, he gave them all their money back. The people didn’t understand why he did this thing, and I also didn’t understand at the time. A
fter we were done, we went to the bar, and he told the story of what we had done to all of his friends. He laughed very well that night.”

  Sayid paused, choosing his words carefully.

  “This is what made my brother such a good man, these things. But I think also that once you are one thing, you cannot pretend that you are something else. How could he be a matatu driver, or stay out all night drinking, and also he is writing Kenya’s economic plan? A man does service for his people by doing what is right for him, isn’t this so? Not by doing what others think he should do. But my brother, although he prided himself on his independence, I also think that he was afraid of some things. Afraid of what people would say about him if he left the bar too early. That perhaps he would no longer belong with those he’d grown up with.”

  “I don’t want to be that way,” Bernard said.

  Sayid looked at his nephew with something like regret. “I did not mean to speak so freely, Bernard. You must respect your elders. They clear the way for you so that your path is easier. But if you see them falling into a pit, then you must learn to what?”

  “Step around,” Bernard said.

  “You are right. Diverge from that path and make your own.”

  Sayid put his arm over the younger man’s shoulders. As we approached Salina’s house, I looked back behind me. I could still see the dim light of the old man’s window, and sense his blind eyes staring out into the darkness.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ROY AND ABO BOTH woke up with bad headaches, and along with Kezia stayed in Kendu for another day. In slightly better shape, I decided to make the trip back to Home Squared with Sayid and Bernard by bus, a decision I soon regretted. We had to stand for most of the way, our heads forced down by the bus’s low roof. To make matters worse, I’d come down with a case of the runs. My stomach lurched with every bump. My head throbbed with each wayward turn. And so it was in a cautious trot that I first appeared to Granny and Auma upon our return, offering them a curt wave before racing across the backyard, around an errant cow, and into the outhouse.

  Twenty minutes later I emerged, blinking like a prisoner in the light of the early afternoon. The women were gathered on straw mats under the shade of a mango tree while Granny braided Auma’s hair and Zeituni braided the hair of a neighbor’s girl.

  “Did you have a nice time?” Auma said, trying not to smile.

  “Wonderful.” I sat down beside them and watched as a skinny old woman came out of the house and took a spot next to Granny. The old woman was in her early seventies, I guessed, but was dressed in a bright pink sweater; she folded her legs to the side like a bashful schoolgirl. She peered at me and spoke to Auma in Luo.

  “She says you don’t look so well.”

  The old woman smiled at me, revealing two missing bottom front teeth.

  “This is our grandfather’s sister, Dorsila,” Auma continued. “The last child of our great-grandfather Obama. She lives in another village, but when she heard—Ow! I tell you, Barack, you are lucky you don’t have braids to undo. What was I saying? Yah…Dorsila says that when she heard that we had come she walked all the way to see us. She brings greetings from all the people of her village.”

  Dorsila and I shook hands, and I mentioned that I’d met her older brother in Kendu Bay. She nodded and spoke again.

  “She says her brother is very old,” Auma translated. “When he was younger, he looked just like our grandfather. Sometimes even she couldn’t tell them apart.”

  I agreed and took out my lighter. As I pulled at the flame, our great-aunt hooted and spoke rapidly to Auma.

  “She wants to know where the fire comes from.”

  I handed Dorsila the lighter and showed her how it worked as she continued to speak. Auma explained, “She says that things are changing so fast it makes her head spin. She says that the first time she saw television, she assumed the people inside the box could also see her. She thought they were very rude, because when she spoke to them they never answered back.”

  Dorsila chuckled at herself good-humoredly, while Zeituni went into the cooking hut. A few minutes later, Zeituni came out with a mug in her hand. I asked her what had happened to Sayid and Bernard.

  “They’re asleep,” she said, handing me the cup. “Here. Drink this.”

  I took a sniff of the steaming green liquid. It smelled like a swamp.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s made from a plant that grows here. Trust me…it will firm up your stomach in a jiffy.”

  I took a tentative first sip. The brew tasted as bad as it looked, but Zeituni stood over me until I had gulped down the last drop. “That is your grandfather’s recipe,” she said. “I told you he was a herbalist.”

  I took another puff from my cigarette and turned to Auma. “Ask Granny to tell me more about him,” I said. “Our grandfather, I mean. Roy says that he actually grew up in Kendu, then moved to Alego on his own.”

  Granny nodded to Auma’s translation. “Does she know why he left Kendu?”

  Granny shrugged. “She says that originally his people came from this land,” Auma said.

  I asked Granny to start from the beginning. How did our great-grandfather Obama come to live in Kendu? Where did our grandfather work? Why did the Old Man’s mother leave? As she started to answer, I felt the wind lift, then die. A row of high clouds crossed over the hills. And under the fanning shade of the mango tree, as hands wove black curls into even rows, I heard all our voices begin to run together, the sound of three generations tumbling over each other like the currents of a slow-moving stream, my questions like rocks roiling the water, the breaks in memory separating the currents, but always the voices returning to that single course, a single story….

  First there was Miwiru. It’s not known who came before. Miwiru sired Sigoma, Sigoma sired Owiny, Owiny sired Kisodhi, Kisodhi sired Ogelo, Ogelo sired Otondi, Otondi sired Obongo, Obongo sired Okoth, and Okoth sired Opiyo. The women who bore them, their names are forgotten, for that was the way of our people.

  Okoth lived in Alego. Before that, it is known only that families traveled a great distance, from the direction of what is now Uganda, and that we were like the Masai, migrating in search of water and grazing land for great herds of cattle. In Alego, the people settled and began to grow crops. Other Luo settled by the lake and learned to fish. There were other tribes, who spoke Bantu, already living in Alego when the Luo came, and great wars were fought. Our ancestor Owiny was known as a great warrior and leader of his people. He helped to defeat the Bantu armies, but the Bantu were allowed to stay on and marry Luo, and taught us many things about farming and the new land.

  Once people began to settle and farm, the land in Alego became crowded. Opiyo, son of Okoth, was a younger brother, so perhaps that is why he decided to move to Kendu Bay. When he moved there, he was landless, but in the custom of our people, a man could use any unused land. What a man did not use reverted to the tribe. So there was no shame in Opiyo’s situation. He worked in the compounds of other men and cleared the land for his own farm. But before he could prosper, he died very young, leaving behind two wives and several children. One wife was taken in by Opiyo’s brother, as was the custom then—she became the brother’s wife, her children his children. But the other wife also died, and her oldest son, Obama, was orphaned when still a boy. He, too, lived with his uncle, but the resources of the family were strained, and so as Obama grew older, he began to work for other men as his father had done before him.

  The family he worked for was wealthy, with many cattle. But they came to admire Obama, for he was enterprising and a very good farmer. When he sought to marry their oldest daughter, they agreed, and the uncles in this family provided the necessary dowry. And when this eldest daughter died, they agreed that Obama could marry the younger daughter, whose name was Nyaoke. Eventually Obama had four wives, who bore him many children. He cleared his own land and became prosperous, with a large compound and many cattle and goats. And because of his politenes
s and responsible ways, he became an elder in Kendu, and many came to seek his advice.

  Your grandfather, Onyango, was Nyaoke’s fifth son. Dorsila, who sits here, was the last child of Obama’s last wife.

  This is the time before the white man came. Each family had their own compound, but they all lived under the laws of the elders. Men had their own huts, and were responsible for clearing and cultivating their land, as well as protecting the cattle from wild animals and the raids of other tribes. Each wife had her own vegetable plot, which only she and her daughters would cultivate. She cooked the man’s food, drew water, and maintained the huts. The elders regulated all plantings and the harvests. They organized families to rotate their work, so that each family helped the other, in doing these things. The elders distributed food to widows or those who had fallen on hard times, provided cattle as dowry for those men who had no cattle themselves, and settled all conflicts. The words of the elders were law and strictly followed—those who disobeyed would have to leave and start anew in another village.

  The children did not go to school, but learned alongside their parents. The girls would accompany their mothers and learn how to grind the millet into porridge, how to grow vegetables and pack clay for the huts. The boys learned from their fathers how to herd and work pangas and throw spears. When a mother died, another would take the child in and suckle him as her own. At night, the daughters would eat with their mothers, while the sons would join their father in his hut, listening to stories and learning the ways of our people. Sometimes a harpist would come, and the entire village would come to listen to his songs. The harpists sang of great deeds of the past, the great warriors and wise elders. They would praise men who were good farmers, or women who were beautiful, and rebuke those who were lazy or cruel. All were recognized in these songs for their contributions to the village, good and bad, and in this way the traditions of the ancestors stayed alive in all who heard. When the children and women were gone, the men in the village would gather together and decide on the village affairs.