And Then Life Happens by Auma Obama

to him about my problems.
    Miss Flint visited me every day. I found out that Mrs. Wanjohi, our headmistress, had reacted to the incident with shock and astonishment. No wonder, for she knew me only as a cheerful, lively, extroverted student, who shrank from nothing and was always in the thick of things. When I finally returned to classes, everyone helped me find my feet again. Only Miss Doyle avoided me as much as she could. I actually felt sorry for her. How could I explain to her that I had not cried so hard because of her, but because of everything that had happened in my life over the past several years? Among those things were my experiences at the home of my Uncle Odima, where I had had to seek shelter during one school break.

 
    8.
    R ENEWED ACUTE FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES had forced my father to give up our rented house in Woodley, where we had lived for almost eight years. Now we had nowhere to stay and were dependent on relatives and friends to put us up. There was no space anywhere for our things. Many things got lost at that time: the classical music records my father loved so much, as well as books, paintings, clothing, and kitchenware. We children watched our home disintegrate—and could do nothing to stop it.
    When the next break began, my father brought me directly from school to Ngara, the neighborhood where my Uncle Odima lived with his family. I was to spend the next several weeks with him.
    Uncle Odima, whom I later called “Soda Uncle,” because he worked at a beverage company for years, had come to Nairobi as a teenager. At that time, my father had found a school for him and taken on the payment of his school fees. My father let him live with us until he had graduated from high school. Years later, my father and I now stood at his door. No sooner had we entered the house than I sensed that something was wrong. There was tension in the air. The atmosphere in the small living room was oppressive. Uncle Odima’s wife, Catherine, whom I knew from previous years, did not smile when she—with obvious reluctance—gave me her hand. She was quite clearly not pleased about my presence. I felt like an intruder.
    My aunt’s behavior toward my father and me was unambiguous. Outwardly, my father didn’t let it bother him, instead behaving as if he were at home. In retrospect, I assumed that he did that for me. He knew quite well that Catherine did not want us in her home. But he needed a safe place for me to stay.
    Uncle Odima was not yet home when we arrived. As soon as he returned from work, all would be well, I thought. Surely he would set his wife straight and demand that she treat us, his closest relatives, with the necessary respect. After all, he had lived with us for years. He would remember that my father had paid all his expenses back then and gotten him his current job. Interestingly, my uncle had even adopted my father’s name, because he knew that it would open doors for him. As Bonifus Odima Obama, he enjoyed all the advantages that were initially associated with the name Obama.
    But when he returned home to Ngara that evening and stood in the doorway of his small living room, he seemed to have forgotten all that. At the sight of us, he acted just as irritated as his wife had. He didn’t smile, greeted us only tersely, and disappeared into one of the rooms, from which he did not emerge until dinner was served. I was completely confused. Was this man really my favorite uncle, who had taken me on his best friend’s motorcycle in Woodley and had so often brought us sweets? This man here was a stranger to me. I felt the sense of loneliness that had so often accompanied me since the breakup of our family well up in me again. Besides my father and my brother, this uncle was all that remained of our former family—indeed, of a whole era. He had lived with us; he had to understand what I was going through. But his behavior expressed in no uncertain terms that he