Dreams from My Father: Chapter 18 Summary & Analysis

Barack and most of his family board a train headed for Kisumu. He stares out the window at the track; when it was built, it was the biggest engineering effort that the British ever undertook. Upon its completion, there was no one in Kenya to ride the railway—so the British pushed white settlers to come to Kenya. Barack’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango, was born in 1895, the year construction began on the railway. In the dining car, Auma and Roy explain that it’ll take a day to reach Home Squared—that is, the ancestral home in the country known as Alego. They reminisce about how much fun they had in Alego with Granny and “The Terror,” their grandfather. He’d hit people with a stick for not following proper British etiquette. Zeituni says that she was his favorite, but she was still afraid of him—and he’d even punish adult guests.

Zeituni explains that Onyango was nevertheless respected, as he learned British farming techniques while working as a cook and serving as a captain in the British Army during World War I. She tells the story of how once, a man with a goat asked to walk across Onyango’s property. Onyango warned the man that he’d kill the goat if it ate anything—and beheaded the goat the instant it started to nibble. Auma says the family’s problems started with Onyango. Onyango was the only person the Old Man feared. As Barack falls asleep, he vows to piece together Onyango’s story.

The train arrives in Kisumu in the morning, and the family walks to the bus depot. They take two matatus (minibuses) and get off at a clearing where Barack’s uncles, Yusuf and Sayid, greet the travelers. Yusuf and Sayid lead them to a compound where Granny greets Barack warmly. She leads him into the house, the walls of which are covered in the Old Man’s Harvard diploma and family photos. Auma points out Onyango and then a photo of the Old Man as an infant with little Sarah and their mother, Akumu. There’s one photo of a dreamy white woman, whom Granny says is a Burmese woman—another of Onyango’s wives.

As Granny serves tea, she explains that she and Yusuf couldn’t work the land all by themselves, so she’s given some land away and sells lunches to school kids to make up for the lost income. The roof is leaky, and she hasn’t heard from her son Omar in over a year. She asks Barack to ask Omar to come home if they see each other. Roy takes Barack outside to two cement tombs. One bears Hussein Onyango’s name; the other, covered in yellow bathroom tiles, has no nameplate. Roy tells Barack to make sure his grave gets a name when he dies. Over the afternoon, Barack feels as though a circle of his life is starting to close. He feels at peace and as though he recognizes himself. This feeling only disappears once, when he and Granny are unable to talk. She says he shouldn’t be too busy to “know his own people” and learn Luo.

After dinner, Roy leaves to visit friends. Yusuf brings out an old radio and, in the distance, they hear a moan. Auma jokes that it’s the night runners—spirit men who take an animal’s shape at night and can hex people. Zeituni scolds Auma for talking as though the night runners aren’t real and tells Barack that Onyango was the only person who wasn’t afraid. He once caught a huge, man-like leopard trying to kill a baby goat. Once Barack and Bernard squeeze onto a twin-size cot, Bernard asks if Barack believes in the night runners and why he came home. Barack says it was time, but he’s not sure about the night runners.

In the morning, Sayid and Yusuf show Auma and Barack around the land. Yusuf explains that the land is good, but the people here are uneducated and stubborn, so they won’t learn “proper agricultural techniques.” Barack notices Sayid frowning. Yusuf turns back, but Sayid leads them along a stream. They stop next to one woman who remembers the Old Man. She tells Auma that life is hard now—young men leave the elderly, the women, and the very young here. Auma gives the woman a few shillings and, as they turn back, she asks Sayid what happened—begging like this didn’t used to happen. He says that now people come back from the city and tell people here that they’re poor, and poverty is a new idea out here. Granny is also poor, but she takes pride in what she does. Most others give up instead.

Sayid notes that Yusuf doesn’t work and suggests that education doesn’t do much without sweat. Barack thinks that Sayid might be correct that the idea of poverty may be an import, but that doesn’t make it fake—there are people who have a lot and many who have little. In this way, he sees that the situation is much the same as in Altgeld. Sayid talks about his own hope to start a business so that he doesn’t have to know someone or pay a bribe to get a job. He says this was the Old Man’s error, but then he insists that it’s not worth it to worry about the past. He tells his sisters often to forget about the inheritance and to stop paying the lawyers, offers a saying popularized by the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, and says that Africans have more in common than they like to think.

When they return to the compound, Roy explains that he, Bernard, and Kezia are going to travel to Kendu Bay to fetch Abo and he invites Barack. Barack and Sayid pack bags and, after several hours, they reach another compound in the countryside. Roy points out their great-grandfather’s grave. This is where the first Obama settled, but Kezia doesn’t know why Onyango moved the family out to Alego. Outside a low house, Roy introduces Barack to a woman named Salina and then to Abo. Abo asks what Barack brought him from America. He doesn’t fully hide his disappointment that the cassette player isn’t a Sony. Barack thinks that Abo looks calculating, like he knows he’s been wronged. He reminds Barack of the men in Chicago.

Salina serves cookies as a handsome young man walks in and greets Roy excitedly. Roy introduces Billy, Salina’s son and his childhood friend. Billy tells Barack that when he and Roy were young, they were wild and chased women. He asks about American women and Roy seems uncomfortable. Over dinner, Billy explains that his father and the Old Man were friends, and he and Roy often went to the other’s father for advice. Roy says quietly that their fathers were good to others’ children, but they didn’t want to look weak in front of their own. Billy agrees and says that marriage settled him and that his wife obeys him. Sayid insists that the biggest issue in Africa is gender relationships—men try to be strong, but they mess up. They take multiple wives who become jealous, and children aren’t close their fathers.

After dinner, Billy leads Barack, Abo, and Roy to a house. Inside, an old man pours everyone shots of a potent alcohol and asks for a gift from Barack. Billy waves the man off and leads Barack into a back room where Onyango’s brother sits. He says, through Roy, that it’s good Barack came home. Barack struggles to remember the rest of the evening. They drink for hours until Sayid leads Barack and Bernard out. Barack meets Roy’s eyes as Roy accepts another drink. Outside, Sayid says Roy is like the Old Man, who used to buy drinks for everyone. He was a good man, but he couldn’t understand that he couldn’t write economic policy and buy drinks. Sayid believes the Old Man just wanted to belong and warns Bernard to respect his elders but to learn from their mistakes.