THE CRECHE THAT STOLE OUR CHILDREN

I never thought I would write this. But I can’t keep quiet anymore. This is my village. This is what happened.

A white woman came to our village three months ago. She smiled, shook hands, and said she was opening a new creche. She wore bright dresses and spoke perfect English. Parents were desperate — they wanted their children to speak good English, to have a head start. Her school filled up faster than anyone could imagine. In less than three months every classroom was full.

At first everything looked normal. The kids learned songs, they colored pictures, they learned letters and numbers. The woman called herself the teacher. She taught them like a dream. The parents praised her. We felt proud. We felt lucky.

Then things started to change.

It was small at first. A child who used to wake up early began sleeping all day. Another child began wandering the yard at night, eyes empty. Parents said the children were “acting funny.” We blamed tiredness, the heat, late nights. But the late nights were not ordinary. At around five in the morning, sometimes later, children would come back to their homes dusty and smelling like earth. They would fall asleep and sleep all day. Their parents would shake them awake and they would only mutter one name — the white woman’s name.

Rumors began to spread. A few brave mothers went to the creche to ask questions. They were told the children simply needed rest. Some parents were told to sleep early with the kids, to keep them safe. But the children kept leaving at night. They would return with their clothes torn, with small scratches on their hands, and with faraway looks.

The night I will never forget: a group of us decided to dig where the children said they had been. We went under the white moon, spades in hand. We found small things — old toys, crushed feathers, and footprints that led into thick bushes. A neighbor, who knew a little of the old ways, whispered that the woman was a water woman. She is not just a foreign teacher. She is something older and darker.

When the truth began to leak, the white woman disappeared. One morning the school was empty. Her shutters were closed. Her sign was still there, swinging in the wind. Parents tore open cupboards and closets, searching for clues. Nothing but cold air and silence. She had gone — but she had not left us.

The children did not get better. They sleep during the day. At night they work for her — nobody knows what they do. They dig, they carry, they chant in voices that are not theirs. Their futures look broken. They do not laugh like before. They do not play in the sun. They are hollowed out, moving through life like shadows.

We told the police; we told the pastor; we told older women who still remember old medicine. They shook their heads and said not to go near the water at night. But the children still follow her. Sometimes, when the morning is cold and the sky is pale, you can see them walking back to their homes, thin and hungry and eyes like washed stones.

I write this now because I am afraid. I am afraid for my nieces and nephews, for our village, for what comes next. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to call back the children who have been taken by something that looks like a woman.

If you read this, please watch your children. Listen when they whisper names. Do not let perfect English and kind smiles blind you. Some gifts come with a price no one should pay.