Obama's Jakarta Childhood Friends Recall a Would-Be Leader, Tattle-Tale

[TeamJordan23]

Obama's Jakarta Friends Recall a Would-Be Leader, Tattle-Tale
By Kim Chipman and Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama's teachers and fellow students during his four years of grade school in Indonesia aren't all that surprised that he is now a top U.S. presidential candidate.

In interviews, those who knew him then remember a tall, laid-back, curly-haired and athletic kid named Barry whose darker skin and broken Indonesian didn't prevent him from being a leader.

Isabella Darmawan, Obama's first-grade teacher at the Catholic school he attended when he arrived as a six-year-old, recalls an essay in which he said he expected to be president someday, though he didn't specify of which country. His second- grade teacher, Cecilia Sugini, says he often led his peers when they lined up single-file for class and was quick to let her know when other pupils misbehaved.

``He'd tell me to make them stop,'' Sugini, 63, said in an interview.

Obama had the same penchant for calling out bad behavior when he was with his friends. ``We played marbles out on a dirt field. We could never cheat him. We did try but he always found out,'' says Zulfan Adi, 47, a freelance tourist guide who still lives down the street from Obama's old house in a lower-middle class neighborhood in South Jakarta. ``He used to say, `Kamu curang, kamu curang!''' (``You cheat, you cheat!'')

Obama ``is resolute, that's the best way to describe him,'' Adi says. ``He never hesitated to stand up to defend his rights.''

Local Schools

Obama lived in Jakarta from 1967 to 1971 with his mother, Ann, a white Kansan, and his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim, and attended first through fourth grades at two schools. ``Without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks,'' he wrote in his 2006 book, ``The Audacity of Hope.''

Obama, now 46, was most notable for his diligence in returning home every day to hit the books, those who knew him say.

``He was very disciplined because somehow at 5:30 p.m. he went home to study,'' says Adi's 86-year-old mother, Aisyah Zainal-Abidin. ``It was unusual.''

Obama is also remembered for his playful side. He used to pick up the turtles his stepfather kept as pets and run after the other children, trying to scare them, Adi says. One day, Adi said he and other kids led Obama to a nearby pond, ``held his hands and feet,'' and threw him in.

He ``swam very well and enjoyed being thrown into the water,'' Adi says.

Continue Reading: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aImM5qqem3OU&refer=home#

[Richardo]

1. I heard he kicked his own mother while she was pregnant with him.

Jesus. :eyes:

[jpgray]

2. Obama--pillar of law and order, x-ray vision for corruption at an early age

Do you see how easy it would be to rewrite the headline with positive superlatives? This is at most a superficial nothing of a story, and the amount of insight it can reliably provide into the present is infinitesimal at best.