During those first few years in Utah, Macias says, she was constantly surprised that she and her children could just walk around outside, unaccompanied, after so many years of living under house arrest. In Equatorial Guinea, guards were always watching their every move, she says. Even under house arrest the family lived with a former nanny, who continued to take care of them — so they arrived in Utah not knowing how to cook. It is this mixture of vulnerability and entitlement that makes Macias such an unlikely refugee.

She and her children sometimes perform traditional songs and dances from Equatorial Guinea, in their group Hispafric, and her dream, she says, is to use the group to raise funds for Primary Children's Medical Center. Macias is supported by three older daughters who work, but Macias herself prefers not to have a job. The totality of her work experience in Utah amounts to two weeks and two days — two days frying chicken at McDonald's and two weeks at Little Caesars, arranging pepperonis on top of pizzas. It's a job for teenagers, she says simply, and smiles.

This is the legacy of being the oldest daughter of a man who was once the most powerful man in Equatorial Guinea. But this is the legacy, too, she says: In Africa, once a family loses its power, it becomes "the most hated family in the world." If your family had a good life, as hers did once — living in a palace with 28 rooms — "people will hurt your family for generations." Besides, she says, President Obiang thinks she is keeping her father's secrets.

"They feel that at any moment I could surprise them with something," she says. "But I don't know anything."

If Obiang's people want to hunt her down in Utah, she says, "at least the world will know about me and my family."

---

E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com