In My Dreams I Dance. Anne Wafula-Strike

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СКАЧАТЬ to uproot his entire family and transplant us all into unfamiliar territory, but he felt he had no choice. He realised he wasn’t going to succeed in changing attitudes in the village and needed to keep his family safe.

      So, one year after my illness started, our family gathered up our belongings and bade farewell to the villagers. Our relatives cried, but it was clear that many other people were glad to see the back of us.

      

      In many ways it was a relief to my family to make a new start and our mood as we travelled to Nairobi on the JJ Family bus was quite positive. My mum and dad took turns at holding me on their lap.

      The first thing my dad did after we’d settled in was to take me to Kenyatta hospital where I could be examined by a proper doctor. The hospital was overcrowded, dirty and chaotic and overflowing at the seams with people of all ages suffering from everything from malaria to malnutrition.

      The doctor examined me carefully, moving my limbs in various directions and noting the shape of my spine.

      My family gathered around anxiously. They hoped not only for a diagnosis but also a cure, so that the lively two-and-a-half year old who had suddenly been lost to them could at last be restored to full health.

      Although my condition was a mystery to my family, the inhabitants of my village and assorted witch doctors, it wasn’t to the doctor at Kenyatta hospital. He looked at my body flapping helplessly like a fish on the shore and pronounced flatly, ‘This is polio.’

      My mum and dad gasped.

      I was too young to understand what was going on and lay oblivious to the sickening blow the doctor had just delivered.

      ‘But all my children have been vaccinated against polio,’ my dad said. ‘My wife walked many miles to the health clinic with Anne to make sure she had the vaccine.’

      Some Kenyans chose not to vaccinate their offspring because they thought that whatever substance those strange syringes were putting into children’s bodies was a plan of the white man to reduce the African population. My family, however, didn’t share that view.

      The doctor shrugged. ‘That’s too bad. But it happens sometimes. Maybe the vaccine was out of date and not that effective.’

      He explained that the polio virus had attacked my spine, entering in an asymmetrical way and leaving it curved in two places. Some muscles had completely wasted away, though some function remained in others.

      ‘What can you do for her?’ my dad asked.

      ‘I’m sorry, there is nothing we can do for her now,’ said the doctor, shaking his head sadly. ‘She can have some physiotherapy to improve the movement in the muscles that are still working and a plaster cast to straighten out the limbs, but we can’t restore movement. We can’t repair the nerves the virus has destroyed.’

      My mum started to cry. My dad put his arm around her and did his best to comfort her.

      Polio is a virus carried in water and food that causes nerve damage. It attacks different parts of the body, leaving them withered and lifeless. There is a great deal of knowledge about how to prevent it now, but because it has been successfully eradicated in most of the world it is regarded as a disease of the past and not one that researchers are looking into anymore.

      As I lay quietly on the examination table my dad sighed heavily, wondering what kind of life lay ahead for me. One thing was certain though: things were not going to be easy.

      Still, he was determined to try to make the best of it. ‘Well, thank God my daughter has survived,’ he said. ‘We will find a way to make life as good as possible for her.’ He stroked my hair sadly. ‘You are a strong girl, Anne, and I know that somehow you will overcome all of this. I didn’t give you the middle name Olympia for nothing. I know that despite your polio you will still show the world how strong and powerful you are.’

      I didn’t understand what he was talking about and was absorbed in looking at the strange surroundings of the hospital, a place that looked nothing like the traditional village I had spent all of my life in. Things were already changing for me.

      

      Our family moved into Kahawa barracks and without any fuss adapted to my newly diagnosed disability. My dad was given a small two-roomed place which was more luxurious than our home in the village because it was made of stone and had running water and electricity. My mum lavished enormous care and attention on me. Because she couldn’t do farming in Nairobi, she spent much more time doing knitting and needlework and completely devoted herself to her children. I lacked for nothing and she knew instinctively everything that I needed in order to thrive. She made sure I was always clean and comfortable and played with me a lot. My favourite foods were beans and sweet potatoes with fermented milk, mixed with dried leaves and mashed together into a thick paste. She often cooked this for me because she knew how much I loved it.

      One of the best things about our new life was that nobody wanted to burn our house down anymore. Nobody living in the barracks pronounced that our family was cursed because of my disability.

      Back in the village, our extended family took over the farming of my dad’s land so that we didn’t have to worry about it being neglected.

      The doctors at Kenyatta hospital referred me to an orthopaedic hospital, Kabete, on the outskirts of Nairobi. The doctors there were very familiar with cases like mine and, as the doctor at Kenyatta hospital had predicted, put me in a heavy, uncomfortable plaster cast from my feet to halfway up my ribcage with just a space between my legs to allow me to urinate and defecate. I was very floppy and my knees and elbows were starting to bend. The doctors said that the plaster would straighten my muscles and help me to grow to a normal height. You see some polio survivors in Africa whose knees are bent permanently because they were not put into plaster.

      ‘I know it will be hard for you to put up with the plaster, Anne, but this is the best chance you have to straighten out your twisted body,’ the doctors explained.

      I had to endure this for about a year, which would be hard enough for an adult but was particularly tough for a little girl like me. I couldn’t understand why my body was suddenly locked into this horrible white material. In the village I’d adapted well to only being able to use the top half of my body, but being trapped inside the plaster often made me cry. It was the worst kind of prison and always became unbearably itchy. A new cast was put on every three months and each time the medical staff removed the old plaster they found many wounds underneath it where I had managed to dig my finger or a spoon through the plaster to scratch the maddening itches. Sometimes lice got under my plaster and bred there in the warm conditions.

      While I was in the cast my mum carried me around everywhere. My sisters Alice and Jane were very good to me and found ways to adapt their games so that I could join in. We liked to play a game with bottle tops where the person who could make the tallest pile was the winner. My hands used to shake a lot and my sisters helped me to steady them as I tried to place one bottle top over another. Unwittingly, they were helping with my rehabilitation.

      The hospital staff always used a noisy saw to remove the old plaster and its harsh screech made me cry, but afterwards my body felt so free. I was allowed a few plaster-free days before the new plaster was applied. At these times one of my sisters would fling me onto her back. It was much easier for my family to carry me around when I was plaster-free.

      To me the plaster was just a heavy burden—I couldn’t understand the advantage of it at all. Sometimes I poured ink from my dad’s СКАЧАТЬ