Dream About Getting Out
Wangechi Mutu
I do remember thinking if I have any opportunity to get out of here — I used to sit outside after dinner at my parents’ house, and learn all the star constellations and look at the moon a lot and just dream about getting out and going places, and studying somewhere else.1 And it’s like one of those scenes from a — some fairy tale, like a grim fairy tale, or something — it’s like you wish on a star, and lo and behold, when I was 16, my friend Richard Leakey, Dr. Leakey, asked me if I was interested, and if I would consider trying out for this school in Wales, which is an international school.2 And it would mean going there to study and leaving Nairobi, leaving my family. But it’s a two year course, and it would set me up for an amazing future doing whatever I wanted to do. So, I said okay, I’ll try it out. It kind of scared me, but I was — I was so interested in getting out, going somewhere else.