Just who is this Zack?

DR ZACKARY KIMOTHO, the face behind the ‘Bring Zack Back Home’ campaign, has now become a household name. But not many people know the heart-wrenching story behind his life. KIUNDU WAWERU caught up with him in Namanga

It’s business as usual at a hotel along Namanga Road as patrons stream in for lunch. The air is aromatic and the waiters are busy taking orders.

A man approaches the reception wheeling his wheelchair. The man is Dr Zackary Kimotho the legendary man behind the ‘Bring Zack Back Home’ campaign a brainchild of the Kenya Paraplegic Organisation and corporate sponsors.

Zack is on his way to South Africa because that’s where the nearest spinal cord injury rehabilitation centre is located.

To meet his target of raising Sh250 million for the construction of a modern spinal injury facility in Kenya, Zack wheels an average of ten kilometres a day in his quest to cover 4,000 kilometres to South Africa.

By the time of this interview on June, 30, Zack had covered about 80 kilometres since the campaign started on June 9.

“I hope things will change in this country,” says the man who has become a household name. “Our buildings and our people are not sensitive to the needs of disabled people,” he adds.

Zack is determined to change the plight of the disabled.

So just who is Zack and how did he get himself as the face of this campaign?

Zack is the quintessence of suffering and courage.

As a member of the Kenya Paraplegic Organisation, he learned there was to be a fundraising mission to South Africa, to help build a spinal injury rehabilitation and trauma centre in Nairobi.

A team of 20 people from the organising committee visited him at his house in Nairobi’s Donholm Estate and sold him the idea.

“The magnitude of the task was huge. But I told them ‘bring it on’”.

This coming from a man that life has dished a lemon too many in the last nine years.

In 2003, Zack’s wife of three years died leaving him with a one-and-half-year-old son to care for.

As if that was not enough, six months later, gangsters shot Zack in a carjacking attempt in Kikuyu, leaving him paralysed.

“It was a cascade of bad happenings,” he says softly, his voice without a trace of bitterness.

For eight days, Zack was in pain in a hospital bed. This was critical time that Zack says would have saved damage to his spine, but the doctors at the first hospital did not act fast enough.

A doctor friend visited him and alarmingly suggested that he needed a neurosurgeon, pronto.

Series of misfortunes

Zack was rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital’s private wing and put under the care of Dr PK Wanyoike. He stayed there for three and half months.

Misfortunes never come singly, so they say. Zack had been shot in January 2004 and in February, while he was still at the hospital, his brother (and best friend) was hit by a wave while swimming in Luanda, Angola and died putting Zack’s family in a spin.

“They got the courage to tell me after one week. I was devastated so I kept talking so as to cope,” says Zack.

It was during that period that Zack also learned that he would be confined to a wheel chair for the rest of his life. The spine injury treatment was expensive and he had no medical insurance. He only had one prayer; “Lord, give me a second chance. I need to see my son grow up.”

On leaving the hospital, it was a complete lifestyle change. He had to relocate to a more wheelchair friendly house and he got his sister Leah and a houseboy to help him around.

“As I could not use my hands, the houseboy fed me ‘like a bird’. It was only my eyes that could move and I helplessly watched my son being fed at the same time by the houseboy,” he says emotionally.

Zack would regain the use of his hands with the help of physiotherapy. He learnt to write again at the same time as his son, then in kindergarten.

For three years, Zack remained in the house, without an income and relying on family.

Turning point

Around this time, he met a ‘bush doctor’ from Uganda who claimed he could help him walk again.

“I visited him and found many other wheelchair-bound people who believed that he had answers to their woes. I joined the bandwagon. I spent Sh200,000 on him but nothing changed,” he reveals adding, “When you are desperate you try everything. There are people who capitalise on your fate.”

Zack’s turning point came four years on when his houseboy took a short leave.

He was so used to the boy assisting him around and the reality hit him when he needed to use the washroom.  He managed to do it on his own and from then on, he became more independent. He even started to bathe himself and even do some exercises.

He put up a home office and in 2008, he got a job with Goodwill Stores, an animal health products firm as a manager.

“I salute the proprietor, Mr Ndago, for trusting in me. Not many people employ people on wheelchairs,” he notes.

A Veterinary Medicine degree holder  from University of Nairobi, Zack has since resigned and started his own business — Zydok-LH Ltd —  that manufactures animal health products.

“I am now an employer,” he says proudly.  “When I decided to start living positively, I discovered my strengths. I am a creative thinker and I do most things for myself.”

Zack is a registered vet with the Kenya Veterinary Board.

For now, he has put his career on hold to accomplish his sole mission so that nobody else who is involved in a dilapidating accident will have to go through what he and 75,000 other paraplegics have gone through.

The father of one is determined to wheel all the way, if Kenyans don’t bring him back home by contributing towards the campaign.

The campaign is expensive as Zack has to be accompanied by police escort, a medical team and the campaign officers.  It’s is also a logistical nightmare as he is about to hit the Kenyan-Tanzanian border, he wonders how foreign countries will welcome him and worries about the terrain.

“But somebody has to do it,” he says with determination.

If you want to participate in this campaign send money to M-Pesa Pay Bill number 522500. Account number ZACK or Dial *555# to donate directly from your phone. You can choose between making daily donations or a one-off donation.

Being daddy and mummy to his son

W hen his wife died after three years of marriage leaving him with their 18-months-old son, Zack wondered how he would bring him up single-handedly. But he accepted his fate and rolled up his sleeves ready to work.

With the help of his sister and house boy, Zack has seen his son Daniel grow up, and they have shared developmental milestones together.

At one point, Daniel, a pupil at Donholm Catholic Primary School would teach his father how to write again.

“Daniel makes my life shine. He is so smart,” says Zack with pride.

Daniel knows about his family’s story, and he shares a close bond with his father. When Zack learnt that he would be wheeling to South Africa, he spoke to his son first.

Daniel exclaimed, “Oh when are you flying!”

“I am not flying, Daniel, I am wheeling to South Africa.”

Daniel looked at his father incredulously and said it was not possible.

“I sat him down and explained to him about the project. He understood but he had one request.”

Daniel told his dad he had to do what he had  to do, on condition that he would bring him the Samsung Galaxy Young phone after the quest.

Zack frequently calls his son while on the road to bond with him and get updates on his progress in school.

What about dating again?

Well, Zack struck an interesting deal with his son when he was five years old.

One day as they were watching the deal or no deal programme on TV, his son requested to make a deal with him.

“He told me to promise that I would never marry again because most step-moms are mean. I promised to honour his wish,” Zack says nostalgically.

When the energetic boy was nine years old, and as they were watching a beauty pageant, the boy looked at his father pensively and reminded him, “Those girls may be hot, but remember we have a deal.”

So for now, dating is a no-go zone because he doesn’t want to break his son’s heart.

All through the interview, concerned family and friends called him incessantly to find out how he is doing.

“I am touched by the people. Kenyans are so giving and they are turning up in large numbers on the road to wish us luck.”