Obama's Jakarta Friends Recall a Would-Be Leader, Tattle-Tale
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.
Pre-Dawn Study
Ann Soetoro, adamant that her son pursue his English studies while in Jakarta, enrolled Obama in a correspondence course and woke him before dawn each morning to begin studying, according to Obama's 1995 memoir, ``Dreams From My Father.''
Neighborhood residents and family acquaintances describe Obama's stepfather, who went to work at a Western oil company after serving time in the Army, as quiet and kind.
``He was very good to Ann, just a nice man,'' says Paschetta Sarmidi, 67, who worked in Jakarta with Obama's mother at the Ford Foundation.
Sarmidi denounces efforts by some in the U.S. to try to smear Obama by emphasizing his stepfather's Muslim faith. ``He was a common Muslim,'' she said. ``Nothing radical.''
Some of Obama's detractors have highlighted his time in Indonesia -- the world's most-populous Muslim country -- in an attempt to tie him in voters' minds to Islamic extremists. News outlets, including Insight Magazine, incorrectly reported earlier this year that Obama's second school in Jakarta was an Islamic madrassa, or Koranic boarding school.
iPods
While the public school, Sekolah Dasar Negeri 04, is mostly Muslim, it welcomes all religions. Girls don't wear headdresses and students walk around with iPods and other gadgets.
``We are open to any religion, Christian, Islam, others,'' says Herawati Burhan, 55, a religion teacher who joined the school in 1981. ``That report was probably meant to disadvantage Obama.''
Obama's popularity in Indonesia isn't restricted to former friends and teachers. ``Imagine that someone who will become the ruler of world international police was in our school,'' says Irnasya Shafira, 11. Other Jakarta residents say they first learned about his Southeast Asian roots the same way as many Americans: through television talk-show host and Obama backer Oprah Winfrey.
`Whoa'
``I saw him on her show and I said: `Whoa, he's from Indonesia,''' Yuliana Tan, a 28-year-old marketing communications manager, says while thumbing through a prominently displayed Obama autobiography in a bookstore in an upscale mall in central Jakarta.
Tan says that, ``as a woman,'' she also likes Obama's chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. There's no question, though, who would get her vote if she were a U.S. citizen.
``Obama,'' she said, pointing to his picture on the book she ends up buying as a gift for her boss. ``He's humble and knows exactly what he wants to do.''
Darmawan, 64, Obama's first-grade teacher, agrees.
``Barry has more vision,'' she says.
Bloomberg.com: Politics 
Linear Mode
