a fiancé-than by the fact that she’d recognized my name. That had never happened before, I realized; not in
Hawaii, not in Indonesia, not in L.A. or New York or Chicago. For the first time in my life, I felt the comfort, the
firmness of identity that a name might provide, how it could carry an entire history in other people’s memories, so that
they might nod and say knowingly, “Oh, you are so and so’s son.” No one here in Kenya would ask how to spell my
name, or mangle it with an unfamiliar tongue. My name belonged and so I belonged, drawn into a web of relationships,
alliances, and grudges that I did not yet understand.
“Barack!” I turned to see Auma jumping up and down behind another guard, who wasn’t letting her pass into the
baggage area. I excused myself and rushed over to her, and we laughed and hugged, as silly as the first time we’d met.
A tall, brown-skinned woman was smiling beside us, and Auma turned and said, “Barack, this is our Auntie Zeituni.
Our father’s sister.”
“Welcome home,” Zeituni said, kissing me on both cheeks.
I told them about my bag and said that there was someone here who had known the Old Man. But when I looked back
to where I’d been standing, Miss Omoro was nowhere in sight. I asked the security guard where she had gone. He
shrugged and said that she must have left for the day.
Auma drove an old, baby-blue Volkswagen Beetle. The car was something of a business venture for her: Since
Kenyan nationals living abroad could ship a car back to Kenya free of a hefty import tax, she had figured that she could
use it during the year that she’d be teaching at the University of Nairobi and then sell it for the cost of shipping and
perhaps a small profit. Unfortunately, the engine had come down with a tubercular knock, and the muffler had fallen
off on the way to the airport. As we sputtered out onto the four-lane highway, Auma clutching the steering wheel with
both hands, I couldn’t keep from laughing.
“Should I get out and push?”
Zeituni frowned. “Eh, Barry, don’t say anything about this car. This is a beautiful car. It just needs some new paint. In
fact, Auma has already promised that I will have this car after she leaves.”
Auma shook her head. “Your aunt is trying to cheat me now, Barack. I promised we would talk about it, that’s all.”
“What’s there to talk about?” Zeituni said, winking at me. “I tell you, Auma, I will give you the best price.”
The two of them began to talk at the same time, asking how my trip had been, telling me all the plans they had made,
listing all the people I had to see. Wide plains stretched out on either side of the road, savannah grass mostly, an
occasional thorn tree against the horizon, a landscape that seemed at once ancient and raw. Gradually the traffic
thickened, and crowds began to pour out of the countryside on their way to work, the men still buttoning their flimsy
shirts; the women straight-backed, their heads wrapped in bright-colored scarves. Cars meandered across lanes and
roundabouts, dodging potholes, bicycles, and pedestrians, while rickety jitneys-called matatus, I was told-stopped
without any warning to cram on more passengers. It all seemed strangely familiar, as if I had been down the same road
before. And then I remembered other mornings in Indonesia, with my mother and Lolo talking in the front seat, the
same smell of burning wood and diesel, the same stillness that lingered at the center of the morning rush, the same look
on people’s faces as they made their way into a new day, with few expectations other than making it through, and
perhaps a mild hope that their luck would change, or at least hold out.