In My Dreams I Dance. Anne Wafula-Strike
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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.
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