as pitch’, while his mother was as ‘white as milk’.
Obama’s father was the University of Hawaii’s first African student. He was the President of the International Student Association at a time when black people made up less than 1 per cent of Hawaii’s population. In 1963, Obama Sr left to pursue a PhD programme in economics at Harvard in Boston, despite a lucrative offer from New York University that would have supported the whole family.
Barack’s mother filed for divorce in Honolulu in January 1964, citing ‘grievous mental suffering’. Obama Sr did not contest the divorce. He went on to attain his master’s degree in economics in 1965 and was known as ‘Mr Double Double’ at Harvard because of his penchant for double Scotch. While studying, Obama Sr met Ruth Nidesand who became his third wife. Ruth went back to Kenya with him in 1965, where he worked as a government economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Economic Planning and Development.
Obama’s mother went back to college, collected Food Stamps and relied heavily on her parents to look after Barack before marrying Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian master’s graduate she had met at the University of Hawaii. In 1967, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree.
Obama’s stepfather Lolo had to return to Indonesia when the government called home all its citizens studying abroad. Mother and son followed Lolo when Obama was only six years old.
Jakarta was their new home. The city was lit by kerosene lamps at the time and they had no electricity in the house.
During his time in Indonesia, Barack came face-to-face with real poverty and recalled a leper coming to their door one day with a hole where his nose should have been. He remembers it made a discomforting ‘whistling sound’ as he asked for food.
Baby crocodiles, chickens and birds of paradise roamed freely in the family’s backyard, and Obama played in rice paddies and rode water buffalo.
While in Indonesia, Obama kept a pet ape called Tata. He ate chilli peppers and sampled dog meat, snake meat and roasted grasshopper.
It was in Jakarta that Obama attended the Roman Catholic Franciscus Assisi Primary School before moving to a school closer to the family’s new residence.
Obama’s mother taught English to local businessmen at the US Embassy in Jakarta while Lolo worked as a government relations consultant with Mobil Oil. Stanley Ann became more fascinated by Indonesia while Lolo became increasingly attracted to all things western. In 1969, Lolo was promoted and they moved to a better neighbourhood.
The future President’s daily routine was admirable. His mother woke him every morning at 4am to give him English lessons before school, as Barack’s classes were taught in Indonesian. As a result Obama speaks Bahasa, the language spoken in Indonesia and Malaysia.
The Indonesian ambassador to the US once said, ‘Back home people think of him as one of us, or at least one who understands us.’
Obama’s mother encouraged him to read African-American literature and to listen to African-American music.
Nicknamed ‘Barry’ and ‘Curly Eyelashes’ by his classmates, Obama was sometimes teased for having the initials B.O. His stepfather taught him to punch above his weight, after the little fella was bullied by an older boy at school.
In a school essay Barack claimed he wanted to be President when he grew up!
Barack’s half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng was born in Jakarta in 1970 and named after Maya Angelou. Maya is a teacher and professor in Honolulu.
Barack’s mother sent him back to Hawaii at the age of ten to complete his education.
Obama lived with his maternal grandparents Madelyn ‘Toot’ and Stanley Dunham in their two-bedroom apartment in Hawaii. They had been moved there through the Federal Housing Program after the Second World War.
Stanley was a furniture salesman and an unsuccessful insurance agent, and Toot was the vice-president of a bank.
In 1971, aged ten, Barack won a scholarship to Punahou School. Punahou is Hawaii’s top prep academy, where the curriculum centred on multiculturalism.
Barack’s real father came to visit him once, at his grandparents’ in Hawaii: ‘Well, Barry, it is a good thing to see you after so long. Very good,’ he said. Barack Sr delivered a speech before his class. ‘Your dad is pretty cool,’ one of Barack Jr’s classmates remarked, but the young boy’s father left after a month, never to be seen again.
The young Barack didn’t want to be seen as different from the other kids, but he couldn’t resist pretending that his father was a prince, his grandfather a chief, and that his family name meant ‘burning spear’.
Obama’s mum and sister joined him in Hawaii in 1972, leaving Lolo behind.
His mother enrolled in a master’s programme at the University of Hawaii to study the anthropology of Indonesia.
Obama was often seen carrying books in one hand (he was particularly drawn to the writings of Malcolm X) and dribbling a basketball in the other.
Obama composed poetry for the school’s literary magazine. In an edition called ‘An Old Man’, he wrote, ‘He pulls out forgotten dignity from under his flaking coat, and walks a straight
