Heart-Rendering Tale Of Zalene

EPHRAIM KEORENG
Staff Writer | Monday February 2, 2009 00:00

 

But for 37-year-old Themba Zalene it is the reality that he lives with night and day.

This resident of Kgaphamadi, a village located behind Sir Seretse Khama International Airport, tells a heart-rending story of how nine years ago, he was struck with the reality that was to change his life forever.

'I was born with normal functioning legs. It was in 2000, when in the morning I woke up to find my legs numb,' he says.

In a desperate bid to find an explanation he went to see Ngaka (medicine man) who told him he was a victim of witchcraft. Someone had used muti to paralyse him, he was told.

Doubting the traditional medicine man's findings, he went to a clinic where he was given pills, which he was told would bring his legs back to life, 'but there was no change at all,' he says.

He found himself with no choice but to go back to traditional medicine men, which seemed to have a better understanding of his condition.

A Mogoditshane traditional doctor, whom he would not name, took him in and healed him of the condition. His legs were in good shape again.'He healed my legs after treating me for a year. Then he later told me the gods wanted me to be a traditional doctor,' he says.

He tells Monitor that he went through the training programme for medicine men and graduated but then as fate would have it, something bizarre happened. The protege had a fierce argument with his mentor over a crucial matter. The gods, wanted him to go on a solo practice, whereas his mentor wanted him to work as his assistant. Zalene left the mentor's work, but a threat was issued and carried out, at least in Zalene's words.

'He told me if I walked out on him he would bring back the paralysis and sure enough when I got home my legs would not carry me anymore, as you can see,' he says.

At his one room house he stays alone. To move around the room and out into the yard he moves, legs folded under his body, hands on the ground in a painstaking effort. His mother and sister who stay on the other side of the village sometimes help him with domestic chores. But he says that most of days he is on his own and struggles to cook, wash his clothes and even perform his ablutions, which he says he carries out in the bush due to lack of a suitable pit-latrine. For his groceries, he depends on shoppers on their way to Gaborone.

'But most of them just disappear without even bringing me the groceries, not even the courtesy to return the money, but then what can I do, crippled as I am,' he says.

The once robust Zalene used to work at Blooms, tending gardens and playing football at weekends. He says that now he is resigned to listening to soccer commentaries on radio, 'especially when my neighbours radio is playing at a raised volume because I cannot afford to  buy one'.

He says he would appreciate any help including food supplies, clothes, a wheelchair and water.

'Water is very important and here it is very difficult to get. I cannot carry a bucket of water and there is no tap in my yard,' he says.