Lia is a small caretakers when Obama was in Jakarta. By Obama’s stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, Lia was appointed as a child.
Does this translate as Lia was in the employment of Lolo to serve as a companion servant/playmate/nanny to Barry?
That would explain the rope thing. She was not allowed by her master to leave the room before he woke up. He was likely within his *rights*, according to that society, to tie her to him so he would know if she disobeyed.
*Adopted* is perhaps a conflation and perhaps she _was_ treated “as one of the family”, although one of a lower tier.
Do servants in Indonesia sometimes take on the name of their employer? IIRC, some Indonesians go by only one name.
My reading of this difficult translation: Lia was living with her own grandfather when he died. They lived in the same building as a woman who was employed by Lolo and Stanley Ann (Eny) Soetoro as their housekeeper.
(Note that this girl says it was 1964. When she was 7. She was born in 1957. If this is true, then it’s an inconvenient truth because the “official” version goes that Stanley Ann and Lolo didn’t marry until 1965 (although one of her passport applications does say 1964) and that S. Ann didn’t go to Indonesia with little Barry until a year or more after she married Soetoro. Ruh oh, if Lia’s speaking truth.)
Going on with my take on the translation: After Lia’s grandfather died, the lady who was Soetoro’s housekeeper (Siti?) took her with her to work. It sounds as if nobody wanted Lia, perhaps grandfather was her sole remaining relative. S. Ann liked her and wanted her to become her foster child, so Lia moved in with the Soetoros and became like a sister to Barry, since he had few friends and Maya wasn’t yet born. She probably also was conscripted to do household chores. We know from other documents that S. Ann had domestic servants. Help me out—was this listed in the Soetoro divorce papers? I think it was.
As I recall, Lia says they took her in even before Barry came from Hawaii to Indonesia. So there’s another discrepancy between Lia’s tale and Barry’s “Dreams”. S. Ann was in Indonesia in 1964. At some later point, she went to Hawaii to “pick” Barry up. S. Ann had told Lia how wonderful it will be for her to have a brother.
Lia talks about Barry being abused and ridiculed by the children of the neighborhood. After one incident when they both came home bloody, S. Ann kept Barry inside and Lia kept him company. It sounds as if they attended the same school together for a time, and then Barry went to the other school—the Muslim one. The gift of a monkey is interesting. Remember that charm that Barry carries around—Hanuman, the monkey god?
We need a better translation.