Making ends meet through God-given acrobatic skills

By Nicholas Kipchumba

The gasps determinedly for breath as he continued pumping up and down under a scorching sun.

Then, still panting, he says, “This is what feeds my family.”

Watching him do what he does best, one is left with no doubt that for Joseph Yaya Kimondio, disability is not inability. It is this attitude, coupled with his rare God-given skill, that keeps him going.

He has just come down from third floor where he lives in a one-bedroom house. Out there in the streets of Kahawa West, Nairobi, a crowd of onlookers is gathered around him to witness his extra-ordinary talent.

Memories of his childhood days cannot deter him in any way, he says, adding that he has no bitterness about it.

 Kimondio was abandoned by his mother when he was barely seven and from that time her mother was never  to be seen again. His mother, he says considered him a curse because of the disability.

Good samaritan

 “I have forgiven her and long to see her,” he continues, “I want to meet her to prove to her that so she did not bear a ‘useless thing’ but rather a man of worth.”

His mother abandoned him and got married in Mishomoroni-Mombasa as a young innocent boy with no sibling or relative, physically challenged, plunged into the streets of Mombasa after neighbours shunned him.

One day when he was almost dying of hunger, he crept to the door of an eatery in Mshomoroni where  he met  the owner of the eatery, Mr Kimondio, who on empathy turned a Good Samaritan.

Kimondio took Yaya to Mutito Andei Primary school where his children were also schooling. This is how he acquired his third name.

But he dropped out at Class Seven and went back to the streets. “I was fooled by the little education I had acquired and   ran to Malindi while avoiding Mr Kimondio,” he said. While in Malindi he joined the other street boys.

Again, another chance of hope came by. “I liked music and I started spending a lot of time listening to and observing local musicians as they performed in the streets. Some acrobats identified and recruited me,” the eloquent man says.

From here he learnt the acrobatics that today he counts an invaluable asset  in his life.

Great help

To him, many of the challenges considered grave to the physically challenged persons have been relieved by the acrobatic skills after he accepted it and chose to fight them by all means.

He said the acrobatic techniques and skills has been of great help and he suggests that if other physically challengedpersons were taught these skills or any other of economic value, they would earn an income as well.

He continues, “When the going gets tough, you also have to be tough. But for now I am living just to show that life can continue no matter what circumstance a person is facing.”

He now does street shows and institution shows with two objectives; one, to earn his living and second to encourage other physically challenged persons whose self-esteem has been hampered by neglect.  

The easily mistaken Yaya says disability does not mean having nothing good to offer. Every time he is performing, a large crowd gathers around him to watch him perform his acrobatics, and even children are not left behind.

 The crowd is always left in awe of his performances and draws nearer to have a closer look. 

  There are times when the crowd overwhelms him so much that he has to put a demarcation that the viewers should not go beyond.

One of his performances involves defence tactics.

  He springs up over the shoulder of one of the observers and lifts one of his crutches up to hit him as he demonstrates how he would defend himself without running away in times of danger.

 Each of the crutches weighs 12kgs, something that puzzles his audience.

To prove this, he balances one horizontally as the audience witness his live performances to confirm that indeed it is real.

The audience is given a chance to try but none of them manages.

Besides acrobatics, he is also a musician. In his first four tracks, all in Kiswahili, Yaya educates and cautions the public on how to approach disability.