He was, according to at least three reports out of Kenya, there on his first visit in 1983. Malik has 'David' deceased in 1984. The scars suggest something violent may have happened. It's possible whatever caused the injuries landed him in hospital for a very long time. Did he enter as 'David' and exit as the BHO2 we know so well?
Are we to be afraid to ask questions?
It's just a book, for heaven's sake, we aren't talking about real people, just trying to glean something that fits with visible reality. It's not an autobiography, it's a novel based on biograpical background, and there are composite characters, it is devoid of any chronology, it's a self-serving instrument created to establish an identity.
The scars seem to be there, the missing period in NY between 1982/1983 has been discussed, and 'David' appeared as a mistaken identity, a 'ghost' in a street in Nairobi and disappeared without trace.
He remains the 'ghost' we first hear of in 'Dreams'
It's not about identifying the people or children we have been shown as being goodness knows who - it's about trying to make sense of possible events that are concealed behind false names and a lack of chronology.
It's about asking, who was the son of the kenyan named Barack whom people saw at the funeral? How could they mistake Malik for zero? They didn't say 'Malik went to his father's funeral' because that would not have been noteworthy. The boy Malik played with, who taught school in Uganda was also called Barack by Malik himself. One might assume he went to his father's funeral. He came and went quietly, says one report.
Kezia says that when Stanley Ann Dunham visited her, she was like a sister to her. There's a flight record with destination redacted for her in early 1983. Did their efforts to insinuate themselves into the clan as the long-lost son and his white wife end in a physical attack by a member of the family? Maybe introducing herself as Anna and the son the kenyan wrote home about wasn't immediately accepted?
Maybe it was a bit much to ask, after 'granny' Sarah had already taken part, probably in 1964, in a clan ceremony during which the US born son of the kenyan was 'passed through her hands' - who had been named after his father? And here's another one...
Did anyone ever ask, who is the elder brother of the kenyan student, the Clan Elder, whose existence has almost vanished? The older brother with whom the kenyan attended school at Maseno? The man who is seen with 'granny' Sarah, wearing the beaded cap and holding the whisk, which denotes his position in the tribe? Whose existence would explain why there is still an ongoing dispute about the clan land, and why Malik had to ask permission to erect a building - because he's NOT the eldest son of the eldest son. The eldest son of Onyango is the man the teacher at the school in Maseno named Joseph, which is Yusuf in arabic, and who left the school two years before his younger brother. Why the need to keep him under wraps, why does the wiki entry show Yusuf as born circa 1950's - when he's obviously of the same generation as the kenyan student himself?
Born in 1934 maybe? The birth year the kenyan was using on his documentation, perhaps to differentiate him somehow from an arrest record which would have prevented him from applying for a scholarship to any US destination...
And no amount of hysterical accusations should derail an effort to try and understand the structure of how the myth was created, if that is of interest, that is.
I’m curious why Yusuf would be kept under wraps, given the wrong birth date, and so on. Would that be because he was the one clan member who refused to go along with the charade of pretending that Zero was the son of 0bama?