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By Nanjinia Wamuswa
Every morning, Manasseh Alwoto takes a walk to a ‘grave’ on one side of his house.
It is here where his right leg is buried after a hippopotamus cut it off 13 years ago.
At 65 years of age, many people would expect him to have gotten over the incidence.
"You never forget when death stares you in the face and you turn your back on it and walk away," says Manasseh.
Though his behaviour strikes his neighbours as peculiar, for Manasseh this is a way of coping.
"How do you explain a situation where part of you is buried in a grave while the other is still alive?" questions Manasseh.
Lately, the mound of soil is overgrown with grass, perhaps a sign that the memories of the ugly incident that left him disabled are slowly fading.
But his misty eyes, which never leave the bushy site, reveal otherwise. He vividly recalls that fateful morning in August 1998 when he woke up early to go to work at a sugar company where he used to maintain machines.
The six-kilometre walk to work was usually uneventful as many people were asleep. Manasseh says the cool morning wind was so refreshing that he did not mind the walk, until the fateful day when he bumped into a hippopotamus.
On that day, he had only travelled a quatre of the journey when he came across a hippo and her calf grazing at the bridge on River Lusumu along the Mumias-Musanda road.
From a distance, the animal appeared like a small hill and so he kept walking.
It was not until he was almost head-on with the beasts that he realised the trouble he was in. The hippo, which was grazing peacefully with its calf, had already spotted him.
His presence and the noise made by his gumboots as he walked seemed to annoy the animal.
"The hippo stopped grazing and started looking at me suspiciously, and I immediately froze. I wished it was a dream where l could escape," says Manasseh.
But within a blink of an eye the hippo charged at him in anger, got hold of his right leg and tossed him in the air.
When it let go of his leg it was already crashed and disjointed. Manasseh struggled to stand but his move seemed to further irritate the animal, which attacked him and started dragging him towards the river.
The hippo dragged him four times, each time leaving him briefly and then coming back to complete its mission of drowning him. All this time Manasseh’s senses were intact, as he fought to free himself but his efforts compared to the beast’s, were futile.
Luckily, noise from an oncoming vehicle scared the beast, making it and it’s calf jump into the river. Manasseh quickly raised his hand to alert the driver and fortunately for him, the car belonged to the company he worked for.
The driver quickly rescued him and drove him to the company’s medical centre for first aid.
Thereafter, he was transferred to Kakamega Highway Nursing Home where an X-ray showed his leg was crushed and some bones broken. It had to be amputated.
"I was so shocked, but there was nothing I could do but to have my right leg amputated," says Manasseh.
He was admitted for six months and his employer footed the medical bill.
Owing to the injury, Manasseh could not perform his duties and after eight months, decided to join the company’s nucleus labour department where his career shone till he retired.
After this he turned to selling bricks, but for someone with clutches it is difficult.
Today, Manasseh is the vice- chair of the Buchifi Disabled Group where he vows to change the lives of people with severe disabilities in Buchifi sub — location.
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