The Other Barack (16 page)

Obama got to work. For the first time in his life, he worked relentlessly
.
Every evening after work and during much of his spare time, the elder Obama pored over his American books, running over his lessons time and
again. He was so inspired by his own progress that he began to renew his visits to the Old Man in Muthaiga to show him that he had buckled down and was now working in earnest.

Onyango was generally a solemn presence in the Hagberg house, striding through the elegant home barefoot and clad in his kanzu. At night, he would retreat to the servants' quarters and read the Koran by candlelight. Despite the Hagbergs' request, the landlord had refused to put electricity in the Africans' living areas, saying there was no need. His grave demeanor considerably lightened, however, when his boisterous son showed up at the door. The Hagberg's twelve-year-old daughter, Paula, noticed that, on seeing Obama, Onyango even broke into a broad smile, something he did not often do.

Onyango was impressed by his son's perseverance, and relations between the two warmed considerably. “Barack would be dressed to the teeth, very natty, very full of himself,” recalled Paula Schramm, sixty-four and living in Enosburg Falls, Vermont. “He'd ring the bell and announce, ‘I have come to see the Old Man! Where is he?' And Onyango would be very pleased.”

After a few months of determined study, Obama and Mooney decided he was ready to take the college entrance examination even though he was still short a few high school credits. He waited anxiously for the results, growing thin with worry. At last, notice of his score arrived. Mama Sarah did not see him open it, but when he told her about it later, “he was still shouting out with happiness. And I laughed along with him, for it was just as things had been so many years before, when he used to come home after school to boast about his marks.”
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Obama had scored well enough to apply to a U.S. college. Now he just had to find a school that would accept him. Mooney and Roberts described the variety of schools in the United States, schools on the different coasts, urban schools that specialized in engineering, and southern schools that emphasized the Greek letter traditions. When someone from home sent an installment of magazines and newspapers, they scoured the pages for articles about colleges that might help him make some choices. Mooney and Obama were both struck by a 1958 piece in the
Saturday Evening Post
about the University of Hawaii, which it described as “one of the most unusual and colorful campuses on American soil.”
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The “color” stemmed from the wide variety of races represented among the student body, a rich blend of Chinese, Japanese, Polynesian, Korean, Filipino, Hawaiian, and Caucasian heritages. In fact, according to the piece, the school had found that there were so many students of mixed races that it created a special category for mixed-race students called, “Cosmopolitan.” Better still, the campus was home to so many beautiful women, the student yearbook recognized not just one beauty queen but seven in order to honor each of the seven different racial groups on campus. Last but not least, the school was flexible. Each year the University of Hawaii accepted a group of students from further south in the Pacific who were lacking a few high school credits, just as Obama was. All things considered, it would be hard to imagine a campus more fitting for Obama.

In the end, Obama wrote a personal letter to the presidents of thirty universities, among them Morgan State, San Francisco State, the University of Hawaii, and Santa Barbara Junior College. Attached to several of them was a letter of recommendation from Mooney, in which she explained Obama's truncated transcript and made the case for Kenyan students' urgent need for education. “Given Mr. O'Bama's desire to be of service to his country, he should be given a chance, perhaps on a one year basis,” she concluded.
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And then it was time to wait again.

With a few days break from classes for the Easter 1959 holiday, Mooney and Helen Roberts used the opportunity to travel. During the almost two years she had been in Kenya, the primers had been completed in four languages and the Literacy Center had settled into a smooth routine. Mooney was beginning to think about what she was going to do when her contract expired in the fall. Although she was considering seeking a PhD or working in television, neither seemed quite right. And so she and Roberts packed up the blue Volkswagen and headed for the Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda for some adventure in the bush.

Maneuvering up the Nile River in a launch, both women were thrilled to see crocodiles and hippopotamuses lolling in the water. One day, when Mooney ventured close to an elephant in the park in order to take a photograph, their guide began to shriek, “‘Kubwa! Kubwa sana!' (big, very big.) Then more urgently, ‘Pita! Pita!' (pass! pass!) for the elephant had lifted his huge ears and started towards us,” Roberts wrote in her memoir,
The
Unfolding Trail
. “So, I went full speed ahead. After that we usually took our pictures from a safe distance.”
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By the time they got home, letters from two schools had arrived in the mail. Once again, the news was good. “You will be glad to know that the boy you sent the books for has received admission both to San Francisco State College and Hawaii University,” Mooney wrote her sister-in-law. “He'll probably go to Hawaii as there is an engineering college there.”
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Obama told everybody of his triumph, proudly waving his acceptance papers for them to see. Many, who had never heard of Hawaii, wondered where it was exactly. “I had never heard of the place, but Barack told me it was very good indeed,” recalled Richard Muga, the friend with whom Obama lived briefly. “He told me all about the beaches and the wonderful weather. He was very overjoyed to be going there. And he said that he hoped I would be making it to America, too.”

Word traveled swiftly to the shores of Lake Victoria, and the celebrations in Kanyadhiang and Alego stretched far into the night. Barack had
done
it; he was going to be one of the Big Men, one of the men in gleaming cars with silver-tipped fins and his very own office in one of the tall buildings on Victoria Street. His achievement meant not only that he would be the first of his clan to go to college; it meant that the doors at last were opening for all of them, that the dusty red road led not only to the next village but also to magnificent places far beyond. Many from home would admire Obama for this achievement regardless of what else he did with his life. Dozens of chickens were slaughtered that day, and bottles of
busaa
were raised to the heavens.

Not everyone shared in the celebration. Kezia, for one, had decidedly mixed feelings about Barack's news. His triumph was hers to share, for a degree from the United States would surely guarantee him a position in the country's critical years ahead and thus elevate her own status; in a way, it already had. But Kezia had also recently learned that she was pregnant with her second child. With Barack away, she would have to live between Alego and Kendu Bay, relying largely on both of their families to support her and her children. She knew the wait would be many years long.

Then there was the Old Man, who had retired to Alego earlier in the year. He was oddly heartbroken at the news. Although he had long been among the fiercest proponents of the importance of education for his
children in general and Barack in particular, Hussein felt that Barack should remain in Kenya to take care of his wife and child. He also worried about how he could support Barack in the United States and still pay for school fees for the rest of his children.
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But mostly he feared that his headstrong bird of a son would be won over by the temptations of America and lost to him forever. “
Winyo piny kiborne
,” he sighed to his children. For the bird, the world is never too far. The bird was taking flight once again.

All the bird had to do was find the money to pay for it all.

For the gathering mass of students preparing to go to America in the fall of 1959, there was a grab bag of funding possibilities. Some students were lucky enough to earn full scholarships that covered the approximately $1,000 cost of board and tuition. Others were awarded scholarships that Mboya, Kiano, or another benefactor had secured, so they only had to cobble together money for room and board. A great many of them accumulated funds through years of hard work and family sacrifices, such as the sale of livestock or personal belongings. There were many
harambees
, community events such as teas or dances held by a student's clan or tribe to raise money for their expenses.

For the average student the cost was phenomenal. The American Consulate required that students, in addition to arranging for their tuition, also have $300 to cover incidental expenses and be able to prove that they could cover their own support during their first year in the United States. Whereas the chartered aircraft took care of the approximate $600 cost of the flight for the airlift students, Obama had that expense to cover as well.
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Obama went into action. In July his name was included in a list of students appearing in the Luo newspaper,
Ramogi
, who had been admitted to schools abroad but still needed funds. The item, which appeared under the heading, “Migosi Barack H. Obama,” read in Luo: “
Wuod Alego (CN) dwaro Shs. 6,000 kuom konye e thuolo moyudo Hawaii (U.S.A.) mar dhiyo nyime gi puonjruok. En wuod Jaduong Hussein ma Luo mathot ong'eyo
.” (Son of Alego needs Ksh 6,000 to help him continue his education at Hawaii (U.S.A.) where he has secured admission. He is the son of Mr. Hussein who is well known among the Luo.)
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Over the next few months Obama contacted nearly a dozen organizations that supported African interests, including some in Hawaii, and
made numerous personal appeals. The process was one he would get to know all too well, for while he was in the United States, Obama was constantly trying to drum up money, right up to his final weeks.

In the end he wound up with a smattering of contributors toward the first leg of his journey. The African-American Institute provided his airfare and some additional support, and the African American Students Foundation agreed to provide a modest amount of expense money. The
Ramogi
notice generated a few hundred shillings. But it was not enough—not by a long shot. Obama still did not have the money to pay for his tuition or even all of his expenses. Again, Mooney had a plan, one especially tailored for Obama.

Although Mooney felt Obama would ultimately get a scholarship or could earn his tuition himself, she decided that she herself would pay the $200 for his first year's tuition. Given her salary, this was clearly not an easy thing to do. But Mooney believed deeply in Obama's potential, and she did not want mere financial concerns to distract him. As she wrote to Laubach in March, “He is extremely intelligent and his English is excellent so I have no doubt that he will do well and for that reason I am willing to help him.
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But given that he was still short a few credits and had not been in school for several years, she felt he needed to concentrate exclusively on his work.

Mooney, however, was concerned about giving him hundreds of dollars for expenses for fear that it was more than Obama could manage or that he would spend it before the year was out. In her letter to Laubach, Mooney explained, “I do not like to turn much cash over to Barack because my experience with Africans shows they are not very good at managing money—probably because they haven't had a chance to do so or much money to manage!”

So she devised a plan to protect Obama from himself. She asked Laubach in her letter if she could send him the $400 to cover Obama's second-semester room and board that Laubach would then hold for him. Laubach could then issue a statement saying that Obama had been awarded a $400 grant that could be presented to the university as proof that he could pay. That money would be made available to Obama in January of 1960 to cover his expenses. And one last thing: Could he possibly not send the money right away but perhaps the following January so that
she could deduct it from her 1960 income tax? Given that Mooney's annual salary was $6,355, her gift to Obama was extraordinary. Although she would help many other young Kenyans with her guidance and incidental financial contributions, Obama was one of only a small number of students who so moved her that she committed significant amounts of her personal resources, including her time and money, toward furthering their ambitions. “I have the money in the bank for Barack so there is not doubt that it will be paid,” she wrote. “I won't touch it but in the meantime it can be drawing interest.”
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Laubach consented, as he often did with Mooney's requests. And so, at last, Obama had both a school that wanted him and the money to pay for it. He was on the brink of a step that promised to radically alter the trajectory of his life and foist him onto the front pages of Kenya's unfolding story. Deeply grateful to Mooney, Obama would visit her in the United States, and the two would remain in touch well beyond his return to Kenya. In July he wrote his own letter to Laubach saying that when he received the $400, “believe me, it is because of this that my hopes started to grow that I would come to America one of these days. I could not believe my eyes when I read the letter and was overjoyed.”
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Obama was to land in early August in New York, where he planned to stay for a few days and hoped to meet with his ebullient benefactor. Although he never managed to do so, the two men stayed in touch and Laubach would provide substantial support for Obama during his time in Hawaii.

Obama's departure came at a crucial moment in Kenya's tumultuous drive toward independence. By the middle of the year the Emergency was still in place and there was still no succinct timetable for when Kenyatta would be released. Political leaders were growing increasingly restive. Throughout the rainy months the African members of LEGCO had struggled to form a multiracial party, convinced that the colonial government would soon permit the formation of political parties on a nationwide level. But their talks ultimately led to a stalemate. Their intramural quarreling resulted in a radical split in the ranks of the African nationalists. Although some LEGCO members, including Daniel T. arap Moi of the Rift Vally and Ronald G. Ngala of the Coast endorsed a multiethnic
party idea, Mboya argued that such a party formation was a way to bar Africans from real power, and Odinga and Kiano soon fell in step with him.
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The sharply drawn lines between the two African groups would be reflected in the formation of Kenya's two major political parties in the following year.