Throughout his early years, Obama was known at home and at school as "Barry". Obama's parents met while both were attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled  as a foreign student. They separated when he was two years old and later divorced . His father received Master's degree in Economics from Harvard University, then returned to Kenya, where he became a finance minister before dying in an automobile accident in 1982. His mother married another foreign student, Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967. Obama attended local schools in Jakarta, from age 6 to 10, where classes were taught in the Indonesian language. During his time in Indonesia, he first attended St. Francis Assist Catholic school for almost three years. When Obama was in third grade he wrote an essay saying that he wanted to be president. His teacher later said that his reason for becoming president was that he wanted to make everybody happy. Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his materal  grandparents while attending Punahou School, a private college elementary school, from the fifth grade until his graduation in 1979. Obama's mother, Ann, died of cancer a few months after the publication of his 1995 memoir , Dreams from My Father. In the memoir, Obama describes his experiences growing up in his mother's middle class family. Of his early childhood, Obama writes, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me---that he was black as pitch , my mother white as milk ." Some of his fellow students at Punahou School later told the Honolulu Star--Bulletin that Obama was mature  for his age as a high school student and that he sometimes attended parties and other events in order to connect with       African American college students and military service people. When Obama was a child,   _  .
people used to call him Berry his father died of serious illness his father became a finance minister of America his parents attended Harvard University