adminLungile Tshuma, Sunday Life Correspondent
WHEN the biblical Moses was asked by God to rescue the Israelites from the jaws of Pharaoh in Egypt he responded by saying: “No, Lord, don’t send me. I have never been a good speaker, and I haven’t become one since you began to speak to me.
I am a poor speaker, slow and hesitant.” As a stammering person, Moses doubted his potential a case common with people living with disabilities, some who view it as a dead end.Such is the case of Simbarashe Choga (33), a visually impaired father of two who has never doubted that disability means incapability. The lack of eyesight, he says, does not stand on his way.“My lack of eyesight cannot be a drawback because everything happens for a reason,” said Choga with his voice eerily thin, while his hands clasped behind his back.
He moistened his lips and added with his voice taking a petulant pitch: “I was not born blind. I had a serious headache in 2006 which eventually affected my eyesight and from there I have never been able to see.”
After getting the sad news that he was turning blind, Choga said he felt the earth was giving away beneath his feet.
In a halting eulogy, posing often to contain his emotions, he said: “All my dreams looked shattered,” he said in a menacingly low tone,“I never thought that it was a beginning of a new journey. This is the new journey which I am walking and I can declare that I am going to be successful because I haven’t faced any challenges.”
With his flat face and the heavy dark lenses glasses shielding his eyes gave him the look of a chameleon. He drew his lower lip changing the shape of his mouth and maintained a monastic silence while looking downward like a toddler counting his toes.
At Esigodini where the news crew caught up with his is pick-up point. Choga who resides in Nkulumane 12 survives on selling Colgate, needles, deodorants and toothbrushes for low prizes which mainly start from $1.
His mode of vending is getting into different buses which he picks from Esigodini to march binding till late when he goes home.
“We all have different strategies of survival. God’s wish is different. For me, God gave me an idea of selling my products which has proved to be successful while others ask for people to give them money and what is important in all these is that we are all surviving,” he said with light smile.
Per day, Choga says he makes a profit of close to $30.
“I opted to selling in buses because there is no way people can dupe me. This is the advantage selling your goods in the public eye and whenever the person tries to dupe me, people will beat him on my behalf but that has never happened to me,” he said, laughing loudly.
Choga abruptly makes a call using a Samsung E1070 to one of the conductors to ask about their whereabouts as he has been waiting for them to embark on his business.
Asked about how he makes telephone calls, with one of his mouth lengthened into a wry half smile said: “I memorise telephone numbers and this is a simple phone which enables me to dial any contacts easily. This phone is important because it helps me to contact bus drivers to find about their where about or where we can meet.”
For purchasing his goods, Choga said he liaises with his brother who stays in Harare whom he sends the money to buys goods which he will transport them to him.
An Inter Africa bus approaches and the conductor opens the door which swallows him.
Online Reporter