Читать книгу In My Dreams I Dance - Anne Wafula-Strike - Страница 8

When I was four-and-a-half years old my dad found out about a boarding school for children with disabilities called Joyland School for the Physically Handicapped and decided that that would be the best possible place for me to go. English missionaries from the Salvation Army ran the school and the standard of education was said to be very high there. For my dad the school combined his love of education and of all things English, so he was delighted when I secured a place there.

There were actually two schools—one in Thika, near Nairobi, and one in Kisumu, about four hours’ drive from our village. It was decided that I would attend the latter.

I was devastated when my dad broke the news to me. I was used to being close to my mum day and night and the idea of being separated from her was too much to bear. My mum did everything for me—how would I survive without her? And how would I manage without my sisters? I was sure that nobody else would be able to play games so well with me.

‘Please don’t make me go. I’m scared. I can’t manage without all of you,’ I sobbed. I was surrounded by love and suddenly that love was going to be snatched away from me.

‘You can come home every three months for the school holidays,’ my dad said.

I had no concept of how long three months would last for, but I didn’t like the sound of it at all. And I didn’t want to be away from my family for even one day.

But my dad insisted. ‘You know I only have your best interests at heart, Anne,’ he said, stroking my hand. However much I cried, he remained determined I should go to school.

Finally the day dawned and my mum and dad took me to Kisumu on the bus. I sobbed throughout the journey and my mum spent all her time trying to hush me and wipe away my tears.

‘This school will be very good for you,’ she said, ‘and you’ll be coming home in the holidays, so we won’t be apart for too long. We are fortunate, too, that the Salvation Army makes no charge to attend the school.’

I wasn’t convinced.

‘I’m expecting great things from you, Anne,’ my dad said gently, ‘and how will you achieve in life if you don’t go to school? We’re lucky to have found such a nice school for you. They are used to looking after children like you and your life will be much easier for you than at an ordinary school. You won’t have to struggle here and so you can really concentrate on getting a good education.’

‘I don’t care about my education, I just want to be at home with all of you,’ I said.

Nothing my parents said could console me and when we arrived at the school my face was crumpled from so much crying. My dad carried me through the gates and then put me down in the grounds.

I became hysterical because I knew that I was about to be parted from my mum and dad.

Also, the school looked huge to me. I’d never seen anything like it. It was much worse than I’d expected. I’d thought maybe it would be a little school, not a massive place like this. I was sure I’d get lost all the time. And how would I ever be able to walk across the enormous grounds in my crutches and callipers? I could see some of the staff and older children walking around and they all looked like giants compared with me.

Joyland was actually a modern, sturdy building surrounded by beautiful gardens and everything about it was peaceful and well ordered, but even if it had been an exact replica of paradise it wouldn’t have impressed me at that moment. I clung to my mum’s legs and started to wail. I couldn’t imagine life without the woman who lovingly catered for my every need.

Some of the staff members came to greet us and advised my parents that it would be best if they left so that I could get used to my new life.

My mum and dad hugged me and whispered once more that I’d be home for the holidays very soon.

‘Please don’t leave me,’ I begged, but they walked away.

Feeling completely bereft, I stared helplessly at their disappearing backs. I felt completely lost and alone. How could my parents abandon me like that?

I looked around in absolute bewilderment. I was surrounded by strangers.

Then one of them, a well-built, bubbly woman with very short hair, came up to me.

‘I’m Mama Salome,’ she said, beaming. ‘I’m the house mother for your dormitory. I’m going to bring a wheelchair to take you to the place where you’ll be sleeping.’

I didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t know what a wheelchair was and I didn’t know that as well as teachers, Joyland employed house mothers, who were, as the name suggests, substitutes for our own mothers.

A few minutes later Mama Salome returned with the chair. I had never seen a chair like that with big wheels attached to it, but I was relieved when she lifted me into it. I was still struggling to get used to my callipers and crutches and it was hard for me to stand up or walk for any length of time. I was exhausted from the journey and all the crying, and desperately wanted to lie down and go to sleep so that I could block out this strange world I was suddenly alone in.

‘We only have two wheelchairs,’ Mama Salome explained, ‘so we use them as taxis to ferry around all the children who have difficulty walking. Sometimes we squeeze two or three children at a time into a chair.’

I had already noticed that some of the children could walk without assistance, although others relied on callipers and crutches to get around.

Mama Salome showed me where the spotlessly clean bathrooms were and demonstrated how the flushing toilets and showers worked. I was terrified by the sound of the flushing and the ferocious splashing of the water from the shower. Later I discovered that many of the children were so frightened by these strange contraptions that the first time they saw them they ran away.

At home my mum had washed me using a bucket of water. I hadn’t been able to use the traditional long drop toilet—simply a deep hole dug into the earth—so she had allowed me to defecate onto a piece of paper that she then took outside to the long drop. Here, because the toilets were so clean and there were no stairs to navigate, the children could easily crawl on their hands and knees to them, something that would have been very unpleasant at a long drop toilet. All the facilities at the school were designed to make life as easy as possible for children with physical disabilities.

Next I was shown the place where I was sleeping, which Mama Salome explained was called a dormitory. I had never seen such a big room for sleeping in before, nor so many beds lined up in neat rows. They looked very comfortable, but I couldn’t lie down and sleep yet.

Next Mama Salome offered to help me unpack. She folded the clothes that my mum had packed for me, but then started scratching her head.

‘Where is your underwear, Anne?’ she asked. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any here.’

At first I didn’t know what she was talking about and felt very embarrassed that I hadn’t brought something with me that was apparently important.

At home I had always worn trousers and it had made life easier not to wear any underwear. At Joyland, though, all children had to wear underwear underneath their uniform of brown tunics or trousers and yellow blouses or shirts.

‘Never mind. I’m sure we can find something for you,’ Mama Salome said kindly. ‘Come, I’ll show you around a bit more.’

Joyland was surrounded by a wire fence. The staff room, library and Salvation Army major’s house were all close to the main gate. There was also a nursery school and I saw young children there wearing the tiniest callipers and crutches. I soon discovered that they were taught independence from a very early age.

There was a tailoring room where uniforms were made to fit each child, because many of the children did not fit standard clothes. Those with curved spines or misshapen limbs were given specially made clothes that fitted perfectly and felt very comfortable.

All the buildings were surrounded by well-tended flowerbeds. ‘The more able-bodied children look after these,’ Mama Salome explained.

After all the events of the day, I was relieved when it was finally time to crawl into bed. I was used to sharing a bed with my mum or my sisters and it felt strange and lonely having a whole bed to myself. I missed the warm bodies and breath of the members of my family as I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning I began to learn about how things worked at Joyland. The school day was highly structured, unlike life at home, which was much more laidback.

The house mothers woke us up at the same time every day. When I first arrived Mama Salome helped me to get dressed, as I was unable to manage this by myself, but the emphasis was on teaching us to become independent.

I was allowed to have breakfast in the dormitory at first, as I was unable to get to the dining room, but before long I managed the journey on my crutches and callipers and joined the others.

Our meals always followed a similar pattern—porridge for breakfast, maize and beans for lunch, and ugali for supper, a form of maize with vegetables. We were also given tinned salmon and tuna regularly and I grew to love eating them. The only fish I had tasted before was tilapia. We were given a big chunk of cheese three times a week and at first I thought it tasted like soap and used to trade it for fish. Eventually, though, I developed a taste for it.

Whenever I cried because I was missing my family, Mama Salome put her arms around me and said, ‘Don’t cry, my child, you and all the other children are here so that you can have a better life.’

She knew all the children in her dormitory very well and made sure all of us were well cared for and happy. She had a little bedsit next to our beds where she cooked her own food.

Although the children at Joyland had all sorts of disabilities, we were all equal and nobody stared at anyone else as if they were a freak. Whatever the disability, everyone fitted in. There were plenty of children who had been disabled by polio as well as those with conditions like cerebral palsy. Some children used to dribble and were unable to talk, but the staff found a way to make sure they joined in with everybody else.

A lot of love and care went into supporting us and as the weeks went by I stopped crying and actually began to enjoy myself. The physical longing to return home began to subside, although I still missed my family very much. The environment was comfortable, stimulating and much more suited to people with disabilities than the barracks in Nairobi. More importantly, I was surrounded by kindness. I began to realise that the school’s name was an accurate one—it really was a land full of joy.

I grew to appreciate the calm order and superb facilities at the school. There was a swimming pool and a gym for rehabilitation. I cried the first time they tried to get me to go into the swimming pool, though, because I thought it was like the river in our village at home, which was full of snakes and crocodiles lying in wait. Eventually the staff managed to explain to me that it was safe to get into the pool.

The gym was an empty hall furnished only with mats to lie down on and some walking rails. A physiotherapist who knew what kind of movements would benefit our limbs taught us what was called PE but was more like rehabilitation. She used to place me gently on my back, remove my callipers and try to stretch my legs. The more able children threw a ball at each other. However severe a child’s disability, the teachers and physiotherapists made sure everyone was included in these sessions.

We were placed in different dormitories according to our ages. There were four boys’ dormitories on one side of the site and four girls’ dormitories on the other side. The lights were switched off at 8 p.m. sharp and until that time we sang our hearts out.

Mama Salome often taught us new songs—hymns and traditional African songs—and encouraged us to compose our own music. As we sang she said, ‘If God is looking down from heaven right now, He will be so pleased with all of you.’

As part of the drive to make us self-sufficient we were taught how to wash our own clothes. Often we didn’t do a good job and the house mothers had to rewash them for us, but at least we tried. We were also taught how to fold our clothes and make our beds, and doing both quickly became a habit.

At home we all used tree bark to clean our teeth, but at school I was given two alien things instead—a toothbrush and toothpaste. At first I hated the feel of the brush and the minty taste of the toothpaste, but I soon got used to it and found I preferred it to tree bark.

Lessons were 35 minutes long. I loved Swahili, English and music, but hated mathematics, and also art, because I couldn’t draw. The standard of teaching was very high. A lot of money had gone into the school and the missionaries wanted to make sure we did well academically. We followed the same curriculum as other Kenyan schoolchildren, but we had some British textbooks and our education was a mix of Kenyan teaching and that of different European countries like England and Holland, where some of the Salvation Army people came from.

The headmaster was a man called Sammy, who was very popular with all the children. He put a lot of effort into making us all laugh. In the middle of an apparently serious conversation he would climb up onto the desks and dance. It was impossible to feel cross about anything when we watched Sammy performing. He used to make up songs for me about how much my dad loved me and that made me feel really good.

I was in a class with children of all different ages—some children didn’t start at Joyland until they were a few years older than me but had to start in the first class because they had never received any education before.

At first I hated having to go to lessons. All I wanted to do was play with my dollies like any other girl of my age, but I soon overcame my dislike of the lessons and began to soak up the information my teachers gave me. I swelled with pride when I won an award for my handwriting.

To begin with I was very nervous in maths lessons, but once I learned to relax I began to do well. I even managed to bring about a change in our teacher’s approach to learning. He was extremely strict and caned us if we failed the tests he set us, even though the school policy was not to cane the children. When I failed one test I fell on the floor crying, asked to use the toilet and then locked myself in to avoid being caned. I refused to come out until the end of the lesson. When the Salvation Army bosses heard about this, they were furious with the teacher and made sure that he stopped caning children. He was unhappy about the ban and was scornful about the white people, who he said were ‘too soft’.

I started to do well in all my subjects and wondered if my dad’s prediction about my middle name Olympia really would come true one day. For the first time in my life, I started to feel successful.

I also made friends at Joyland. One was called Abigail. She was a few years older than me and was in one of the dormitories for the older girls. She was a lovely friendly girl who wanted to make sure that everyone was happy. She made me feel safe and protected.

I was also friendly with two girls called Monica and Grace. We would sit outside together playing with our dollies and giggling. We tried to do knitting with sticks and grass and fell about laughing at our rather poor attempts.

I still felt very homesick and sometimes I burst into tears when I thought about my mum and everyone else at home.

‘Don’t cry, Anne,’ said Monica. ‘You can have my dolly, that will make you feel better.’

‘And have my book too,’ said Grace, putting her arms around me and trying to wipe my tears away.

I still missed home, but my friends certainly made me feel more comfortable at school.

My best friend was a girl called Sarah. She had the luxury of one fully functioning leg and we all thought she was extremely able. Sometimes she stood up and danced for us or proudly walked for a short distance without the calliper that supported her bad leg. She was able to wear sandals and as I stared at my heavy polio boots I was very envious of her.

Generally, all the children got along well together. Of course we sometimes had disagreements and insulted each other, but like quick-drying showers these fallouts didn’t last for long. The emphasis on singing really bound us together as a group. We sometimes entered singing competitions, competing against able-bodied schools, and to our immense delight we always won.

One 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.

One school holiday when my mum came to pick me up and we got on the bus to go back to Nairobi, the bus conductor said to my mum, ‘You have to hold your crippled daughter on your knee and cover her legs so that nobody sees her.’

I burst into tears at his harsh words but, wanting to avoid a fuss, my mum did as she was told.

I was beginning to understand that the world could be very cruel. Whenever we went out in Nairobi during that school holiday I felt that people’s eyes were burning through my clothes to stare at my withered polio legs. I was convinced that they dismissed me as an inferior cripple. The stares made me self-conscious and withdrawn in the company of strangers and I longed to return to Joyland where the staff worked hard to instil confidence and a strong sense of self-belief into us. As soon as I walked back through the school gates I came alive again.