By GEORGE ORIDO
In his best-selling autobiography, Dream From My Father, US President Barack Obama writes fondly of his Kenyan half-sister, Auma, and their time together.
Now, Dr Auma Obama is telling her own story in a new autobiography, surprisingly offered in German, Das Leben Kommt Immer Dazwischen - Stationen einer Reise (Life Always Comes in Between Stations of a Journey).
Last Friday, Auma read excerpts from her book to a packed audience at the German School in Nairobi.
For instance, she disputes the notion that her Harvard-educated father was polygamist at any stage of his life.
"While my father had a number of wives in his life, there was only one at any one time," Auma explains, adding that while her younger brother Barack grew up in the US and Indonesia, her childhood was in Kenya where their father was born.
The two siblings met for the first time in the 1980s. In the years that followed, they travelled together through Kenya, exploring their family history.
| The autobiography |
"After my A-Levels exams at the Kenya High School, I landed a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, where I lived for 16 years," Auma explains, pointing out that she got immersed in German culture.
"Since most of my life experiences were in Germany I expressed those recollections better in Germany," says Auma.
While many publishers approached her for her story, she says, they were mainly interested in Barack Obama’s story.
Auma details her culture shock in Germany, such as when her host family stepped out of their bedrooms in various degrees of undress.
But the most shocking was the family patriarch joining the children wearing nothing, with a roll of bhang in hand, smoking casually.
Karin Haggmark a teacher at the German School and who hosted the reading session appreciated Auma’s accounts and sees the book as a mirror for the Germans on their values and norms.She singles out Auma’s frustrating encounter with the admission clerks at her first university.
After reporting and completing the paperwork, Auma expected to be given a key to her dormitory, as is the practice in Kenya.To her disappointment the clerk was uninterested and of no help.
Exclusive events
This is because while in Kenya academic admission guaranteed accommodation automatically in Germany, the two were mutually exclusive events.
One had to seek accommodation elsewhere.
After graduating, Auma proceeded to study film production at the German Film and TV Academy in Berlin and later pursued graduate studies at the University of Bayreuth, which awarded her a doctorate in 1996.
Finally, love took her to England, where her daughter was born.
But life in Europe was a constant challenge, and her longing for her homeland grew.
She travelled severally to the USA following the rise of her half-brother, and returned to Kenya in 2007.
She is the senior advisor at Care International in Nairobi, where she works with young people in the slums of Huruma, Kariobangi, Kibera and Mathare, guiding them to become confident enough to take control of their own futures.
Auma lives with her daughter and partner in Nairobi.
On March 31, she will have another reading open to the public at the Goethe Institut in Nairobi.
