Dwarf dancer who helps the deaf and dumb get justice

William Omondi Omolo. [PHOTO: KELVIN KARANI/STANDARD]

William Omondi Omolo was preparing to join his colleagues at Generation Club in Mombasa where he works as an entertainer when he received a call from Inuka police station in Likoni. He was to report to the police station immediately.

“I was afraid the police were going to lock me up, but I knew I had committed no offence,” Omolo, a dancer with Ohangla musician Osogo Winyo, said.

Used to such calls from the police, Omondi hopped onto a motorcycle taxi and headed to the station, where he found an officer waiting for him.

He was swiftly ushered into the OCS’ office where the station commander introduced himself and thanked him for coming.

“He gave me a chair and asked for a girl, who was sitting a few metres from the report desk to be ushered in,” said Omolo, a dwarf.

His mission there, as he was soon to find out, was to help the police understand what the deaf and dumb girl had gone to complain about.

No one at the police station could understand what the 17-year-old girl was trying to say. But it took Omolo less than two minutes to figure out her ordeal - she had been defiled by two men she knew.

Shocked, the police officers asked Omolo to help them write a statement from the girl, who narrated her ordeal step by step.

They then requested him to ask the girl take them to where her alleged defilers lived. The following day, he accompanied the police and the girl to the suspects’ hideout.

“The suspects immediately took off when the girl singled them out, but the police gave chase and arrested one of them. The other was arrested later,” said Omolo.

The suspects -- Ndoro Sammy Athman alias Kingwedo and Nzombo Bakari Kadenge alias Rajab -- were on Monday arraigned in a Mombasa magistrate’s court where they denied charges of defiling the girl at an approved school in Likoni.

They were remanded at Shimo La Tewa prison after Mombasa Senior Principal Magistrate Richard Odenyo denied them bail.

And as fate would have it, Omolo was present at the court room to interpret the proceedings.

This was not the first time authorities were asking him for help. Police in Likoni depend on Omolo’s sign language expertise to communicate with deaf and dumb suspects or victims of crime.

He has made a name for himself as the best sign language interpreter in Likoni and is referred to as a private sign language interpreter in court.

“We have faith in Omolo’s interpretation because he does it with ease and humour,” says Stephen Kalinga, a human rights activist.

Kalinga told The Standard on Sunday that without  Omolo’s help, the police would not have brought the girl’s defilers to book. The police pay him Sh2,000 for his help.

Born in 1987, the Ohangla dancer learned sign language interpretation while a student at Nyang’oma Primary and Secondary School in Siaya County between 2000 and 2009, where he had deaf and dumb classmates.

Omolo says he dropped out of school in Form 3 in 2009 when he was accused of befriending a female schoolmate.

“When the headmaster discovered I had a girlfriend in the school, I abandoned my education to the disappointment of my deaf German sponsor,” he says.

Never did he imagine that he would one day help aggrieved people get justice.

He cannot recall the number of times the police and judicial officers in Mombasa have asked for his help.

“I am happy to help magistrates communicate with the deaf and bring justice to the aggrieved,” he added.