In My Dreams I Dance. Anne Wafula-Strike

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СКАЧАТЬ of the unexpected pleasures about Joyland was the library. I had learned my ABC from my family before going to school, but to begin with I couldn’t read. I started off using colouring books containing cut-out dolls and a cut-out range of outfits for them to wear. I also loved looking at books containing pictures of other countries.

      The library was full of European books, along with a few Kenyan ones. Once I had learned to read, I read the children’s books over and over again. Jack and the Beanstalk was one of my favourites. We weren’t allowed to take the books home with us, but because I knew the stories so well I could recite them almost word for word to my sisters and brothers when I saw them in the holidays. However many times I reread the stories, I never tired of them.

      My dad instilled a love of books into me and all my sisters and brothers from an early age. Other soldiers would go to the mess to drink when they’d finished working, but he would bring home books from the barracks library and read all kinds of enchanting children’s stories to us or listen to educational programmes on the radio with us. He really was a very devoted father.

      I took off fast with my reading and writing. It was as enjoyable as playing for me. I also soon learned to join in with the tricks and games of the other children. If Mama Salome left her room after she’d cooked herself some tasty food, we sneaked in and licked out her pots. When she returned to wash up, she would see a trail of telltale finger marks around them.

      ‘Who’s been licking out my pots?’ she would ask, trying to sound cross. None of us ever wanted to own up.

      There was a big organisation called Kindernottif, based in Europe, that raised some money for the school. The children also had individual sponsors and mine were members of a church in Germany. They sent me a beautiful doll that could blink with its eyelids and eyelashes. Not all of our dolls were so fancy—we used to try to make simple ones out of sticks. We were asked to write thank-you letters to our sponsors and sometimes they took photos of us holding the gifts they had sent us.

      Along with our academic subjects, we girls were taught how to bathe properly. Health professionals came to talk to us about good hygiene—keeping our nails short and our hair combed. At first I struggled to comb my hair, but after a while I got to grips with it. My hair was longer than that of some of the other girls and the staff told my parents to cut it short to make it easier to manage.

      My dad used to give me a soap called Fa that smelled of wild flowers and sometimes my friends asked me if they could use it. I loved the smell of their soap as well and sometimes got tired of my own. Giggling, we would agree to swap. We enjoyed smelling a little bit different from usual when we showered.

      

      Although I adapted well to Joyland, I counted the days until I returned home for the first time a few months later. My mum came on the bus to pick me up and as soon as I saw her I flung my arms around her neck.

      ‘Oh, Anne, you’ve grown a lot,’ she said. ‘I can see that this place is treating you well. We’ve all missed you so much.’

      On the long bus journey home I chattered all the way about the different things I was doing at Joyland. My mum listened patiently. ‘You’re certainly different on this journey than on the one when we took you there,’ she smiled.

      My family were excited when I arrived home. We spent the first few days swapping stories. Excitedly, I told everyone about the running water, showers and flushing toilets at Joyland. They all seemed very impressed.

      I had also now seen white people for the first time. I discussed these strange creatures with my sisters. We concluded that they weren’t the same kind of humans as us. I believed that they never went to the toilet and could not die.

      Although I’d got used to living away from home, I slotted back into family life straight away. I loved the pampering I received at home. My dad slaughtered a chicken in my honour, saying, ‘Now I have all my family together.’ Chicken was a luxury that wasn’t eaten too often in most families.

      I taught my siblings the songs I’d learned at school. They were very different from the songs they were learning. I proudly showed off the pens and crayons I had been given at school and received admiring gasps from my brothers and sisters, who didn’t possess such luxuries. My school books were also better than my brothers’ and sisters’ books and I was wearing nice clothes that the Salvation Army had given me.

      When the other children in the barracks saw the good things I’d returned home with, they suddenly wanted to be my friend. But their parents forbade them from playing with me. ‘Don’t touch her or you’ll get an infection,’ some of them said.

      I could never understand why these parents thought that my toys were safe for their children to be in contact with when I wasn’t.

      Many of my aunts and uncles visited me while I was at home and showered me with love and affection.

      ‘Anne, you’re doing so well, you look so strong and healthy,’ they exclaimed.

      

      It was hard returning to Joyland after having such a lovely time at home, but I soon settled back into the school routine. I loved being at home but I also loved school, where I felt equal with the others. School also made me aware that some children were less able than me. School and home became my two heavens.

      Christmases at the school were very special. A strange-looking man called Father Christmas would give us all a gift with our name on it. I hadn’t known anything about these western traditions before I started at Joyland and felt worried at first because Father Christmas was dressed from head to toe in red. Plain red is associated with lightning in the area where my family’s village is, so I was afraid to approach him in case he struck me with lightning. When the staff reassured me, I was brave enough to sit on his knee.

      As part of the Christmas celebrations every class had to perform a nativity play. I was always given the part of an angel, but one year I became bored at the thought of doing the same thing again and refused point blank.

      ‘No, I want to be Mary this year,’ I said rather petulantly.

      ‘No, you are very good at being an angel. You must be an angel,’ my teacher replied.

      ‘But I want to be Mary. Angels don’t wear callipers and crutches,’ I protested.

      The teacher slapped me for my impertinence and I went flying across the room. I wasn’t hurt, but I reported it to one of the Salvation Army staff and the teacher was reprimanded. Violence from staff was extremely rare at Joyland.

      

      I had lost a lot of co-ordination through the polio, but the physiotherapy I received at Joyland helped me to regain some skills. Because I had so much love and positive reinforcement from my family and from the staff at the school, I rarely regarded my disability as a curse, but rather as an inconvenience that I had to work around. Some of the children, though, seemed very miserable about their disability because it had led to their families rejecting them. I always came back to school after the holidays looking immaculate because I had been well looked after, but some of the children came back with scabies because they had been neglected at home. I realised how lucky I was to have a family who loved me.

      My years at school were very happy, but by the time I was eight I was more aware that I fitted in at school and at home, but I didn’t fit in with the rest of the world. I felt as if the wider community were shouting in my face, ‘You are so different, Anne!’ because they stared at me wherever I went.

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