We went to drop off Zeituni at Kenya Breweries, a large, drab complex where she worked as a computer programmer.
Stepping out of the car, she leaned over again to kiss me on the cheek, then wagged her finger at Auma. “You take
good care of Barry now,” she said. “Make sure he doesn’t get lost again.”
Once we were back on the highway, I asked Auma what Zeituni had meant about my getting lost. Auma shrugged.
“It’s a common expression here,” she said. “Usually, it means the person hasn’t seen you in a while. ‘You’ve been
lost,’ they’ll say. Or ‘Don’t get lost.’ Sometimes it has a more serious meaning. Let’s say a son or husband moves to
the city, or to the West, like our Uncle Omar, in Boston. They promise to return after completing school. They say
they’ll send for the family once they get settled. At first they write once a week. Then it’s just once a month. Then they
stop writing completely. No one sees them again. They’ve been lost, you see. Even if people know where they are.”
The Volkswagen struggled up an ascending road shaded by thick groves of eucalyptus and liana vines. Elegant old
homes receded behind the hedges and flower beds, homes that had once been exclusively British, Auma said, but that
now mostly served government officials and foreign embassy staffs. At the top of the rise we made a sharp right and
parked at the end of a gravel driveway next to a yellow two-story apartment building that the university rented out to its
faculty. A huge lawn sloped down from the apartments to meet patches of banana trees and high forest and, farther
down, a narrow, murky stream that ran through a wide gully pitted with stones.
Auma’s apartment, a small but comfortable space with French doors that let sunlight wash through the rooms, was on
the first floor. There were stacks of books everywhere, and a collage of photographs hanging on one wall, studio
portraits and Polaroid shots, a patchwork of family that Auma had stitched together for herself. Above Auma’s bed, I
noticed a large poster of a black woman, her face tilted upward toward an unfolding blossom, the words “I Have a
Dream” printed below.
“So what’s your dream, Auma?” I said, setting down my bags.
Auma laughed. “That’s my biggest problem, Barack. Too many dreams. A woman with dreams always has
problems.”
My exhaustion from the trip must have showed, because Auma suggested that I take a nap while she went to the
university to teach her class. I dropped onto the cot she’d prepared and fell asleep to the buzz of insects outside the
window. When I awoke it was dusk and Auma was still gone. From the kitchen, I noticed a troop of black-faced
monkeys gathered beneath a banyan tree. The older ones sat warily at the tree’s base watching with knotted brows as
pups scampered about through the long, winding roots. Rinsing my face in the sink, I put water on for tea, then opened
the door that led into the yard. The monkeys all froze in their tracks; their eyes turned toward me in unison. A few feet
away, the air filled with the beat of huge green wings, and I watched the dreamy ascent of a long-necked bird as it sent
out a series of deep-throated cries and drifted toward distant canopies.
We decided to stay in that night, cooking stew and catching up on each other’s news. The next morning we walked
into town and wandered without any particular destination in mind, just taking in the sights. The city center was smaller
than I’d expected, with much of the colonial architecture still intact: row after row of worn, whitewashed stucco from
the days when Nairobi was little more than an outpost to service British railway construction. Alongside these
buildings, another city emerged, a city of high-rise offices and elegant shops, hotels with lobbies that seemed barely