adminwall, its strings inviting the fingers. The man decides to start a fire for his warmth and cooking. His is a pitiful sight but he defiantly continues with his chores, as if nothing is amiss in his life.
Conspicuous by their absence are family members. Why should such a troubled soul live alone? Does he need a helping hand?
“I have been called names, children have pointed their little fingers at me because I look so different in their eyes.
“My grandfather never wanted me to go to school. He thought that I was an outcast. To him I was a humiliation to the family. One good thing, though, that he did not think of killing me to save the family name,” says Moreblessing Christa Shoko, a victim of poliomyelitis.
Shoko suffers from poliomyelitis, the disease which paralysed his legs and condemned him to the life of a hermit.
For all his life Chisvo has lived with his fate and accepted it.
Poliomyelitis is a viral disease that can affect the nerves and can lead to partial or full paralysis. It is a disease caused by infection with the polio virus which affects people at such at a tender age.
“I was born at Lukhosi Hospital in Hwange District in 1990 and I was able-bodied but, tragedy struck and suffered from polio at the age of five.
“The disease left me paralysed and I was left confined to a wheelchair since 2006 and physically different from my playmates,” he remembers .
Moreblessing has been different but it is true dynamite comes in small packages.
He was born and bred at his rural home in Hwange. The power of music broke the cocoon of the ailment had condemned him.
“Music is where I find joy and hope, I have learnt to express myself and what is in me.”
Shoko, who lost his mother at the tender age of four and later on lost his grandparents, had to learn to pull the strings of life the hard way.
“I never knew my father, but the people who were my pillar of strength were my mother and my grandparents but God had to take them away from me as well,” laments Shoko.
“I live by myself and do all the things for myself at home. I cook, wash, bath and clean the house and look for firewood and do everything for myself.
“Some people actually think I am living a lonely life but to be honest, I am not alone and I am not lonely,” said Shoko, whose music comes from the Bible. There Shoko finds the word of God appropriate for life commentary. “If I read the Bible, the words that I want to use on my music just flow from the word of God.
“Through determination I began to sing in the church choir. I was one person who had a serious inferiority complex.
“I was never comfortable around people, but when I joined the choir in the church called Full Gospel Assembly Church, my confidence got boosted. That is how I started to believe in myself,” he said.
He said in the four-track album entitled “Mishizho Yobupenyu Bwangu” (The Journey of my Life) he talks about how God has been taking care of him throughout his journey of life. “God has been taking care of me, despite the fact that I lost my parents at the time I needed them the most. I managed to soldier on with my physical challenges.”
In some incidences Shoko prefers not to use the wheelchair to move but to use his palms.
“I sometimes move without a wheelchair just to prove a point that I am able to move just like any other person.”
Shoko is one of the few people in Zimbabwe who know that disability is not inability. He is also good in wheelchair basketball where he have been representing Matabeleland North in the National Paralympics Games.
“Yes, from what I have experienced and have seen as a person living with disability. I know being disabled is tough but I would want to encourage my fellow colleagues who are physically challenged to come out of those shells they are hiding. Life is in your hands, just believe in yourself and you can make this world a better place for yourselves.
“And to the parents of the physically challenged, believe in your kids and give them the platform they want and you will definitely see how far they will go.
“I am not alone in this, it could be you tomorrow,” said Shoko.
Rutendo Mapfumo is a journalist based in Hwange. Feedback: [email protected]
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