'I'm not a product of thokolosi'

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Monday December 6, 2010 00:00

 

You instinctively look at the feet... THESE are not human feet! The guy at the door must be a monster, you think. 

And the memories of those who read the school foundation years' literature in the early 1980s would be taken back to the scary nights when they would remember Sankhambi, the half bird, half human monster of immeasurable strength that feasted on human beings.  This is because Bhembe Mkuhlani's feet are nothing like human feet. The feet are so grotesquely misshaped that had he been born in the 17th Century his parents would have probably thrown him away, in the belief that he was a curse, or had been swapped by witches as soon as his mother delivered him, or while asleep or even that his progenitor was some supernatural being.  Alternatively he would have been worshipped as some god. None of these things happened to Mkuhlani, but he grew up knowing he was different. Instead of 10 toes, the man has only two monstrously deformed toes that curl inwards to form together with the heel a horseshoe shape. The inwardly curled toes spring out of the foot like two poised scorpion tentacles, giving the man a strange, even crab-like bottom appearance. He does not know what the condition is called and would not care as he has come to accept his deformity. Nor does he care about people who attribute his deformity to birth by thokolosi -a mythical supernatural being - or magic.

'Look I am not disabled. I only have wonderfully made feet,' he says jokingly, even with a wave at a suggestion that people who stare at him, or speak in hushed tones when tahey see his feet should trouble him.

' No sir, I would encourage a child or adult who I see staring at my feet to come closer and have a good look.  Often I tell people not to be afraid to talk about me, and even invite them to ask any questions  they have, as I can understand their puzzlement,' he says. It is difficult to classify Mkuhlani's condition, until you see his hands.

The fingers are fused together and like the toes, grotesquely deformed. You will be able to make out six fingers on his left hand.

Mkuhlhani has both polydactyly and syncdactyly. Polydactyly is a congenital abnormality where a person has more than the normal number of fingers or toes.

Syndactyly is the webbing or fusing together of two or more fingers or toes. It varies in degree of severity from incomplete webbing of the skin of two digits to complete union of digits and fusion of the bones and nails. The fusion can be simple with the digits connected only by skin, or it can be complicated with shared bones, nerves, vessels, or nails  - as in Mkuhlhani's case. When the two conditions form an alliance or association, they are called polysyndactyly. (source: Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers).

The condition is usually inherited as an autosomal dominant characteristic. Because it is autosomal (not a sex linked chromosome) it can affect both female and male children in a family. Children with one parent who has the condition have a 50 percent chance of inheriting the condition. It affects 1 in every 1,000 children according to scientists. 'My father, Mkuhlane Malise had feet like mine. My sister who comes immediately after me also has the condition. In my sister's case, the toes are straight,' he says. The rest of the eight children in his father's house did not have the condition. He does not know if any of his father's relatives in distant Transkei have the same deformity, as he has never met them.

'My father came from the Transkei, spent some time in Rhodesia before moving to Botswana. I have never visited the province of my paternal grandparents and have never met them,' he says. However, he has met relatives from his mother Zondiwe's side, whose family originally came from Zimbabwe, not too far from Senyawe where Mkuhlani Senior settled among the Ndebele and Kalanga speaking peoples of the area. Being a Xhosa, his language would mostly have been mutually intelligible with Ndebele. ' I also have established my home in Senyawe, and my wife and younger children are currently staying there,' says Mkuhlani. His eldest child is working and the other is at university. For years Mkuhlani walked barefooted because he did not have shoes that fitted him. He even went for his job interview at the Veterinary Office barefooted because no shoe could fit him. That was way back in 1986 when he was 28 years old. ' I grew up walking barefooted because no one around makes shoes that my feet can fit into,' says Mkuhlani. In fact until he met a shoemaker in Johannesburg, Mkuhlani had always walked barefooted - through the biting winters, through rain and the scalding hot sands in summer.

Especially because he earns a modest salary and has only gone as far as Standard Three, Mkuhlani did not know how or where to get help. So he resigned himself to walking barefooted.

That was until he went to Johannesburg on a church pilgrimage - he is the priest of an African independent church, The Daystar of Jerusalem.

'I met this shoemaker in Johannesburg who agreed to make me sandals.

He measured my feet and my toes and managed to make the sandals that you see me wearing,' he says, removing his feet from under the table where he has been sitting to show the sandals. The sandals are fairly broad at the front and have separate straps for each of the toes a ensure a firm fit.

Because he has been wearing the sandals for some time, he has developed soft soles and is worried that he may not be able to find another pair, or the person who made the sandals.

'Yes I would be happy if there was a company that could make shoes for me,' he says.

Unless he gets another pair this father of seven would have to go back to walking barefooted. 

The temperatures in Tsamaya, where he recently transferred to can reach 40 degrees celsius in summer  He may even have to go on the numerous veterinary field trips barefooted. He downplays the obvious discomfort that he would have to endure in the event he does not get another pair of sandals. 'When you walk barefooted, the soles of your feet harden and you soon do not care about the elements,' he says with a straight face.  You would want to believe the slight shift of the eyes is a betrayal of the man's true feelings: RESIGNATION.

He needs help but typical of his ilk, he would not want to become a burden.  That might explain why he stayed behind when a Taiwanese family took his sister along with them to Taipei and got specialists to design shoes for her.

That was some years back. His sister spent six months in Taipei, he says. Like him, his sister found love and family. None of their children has inherited the condition.

Mkudlani believes that there could be people out there like him.

'The problem is that people hide their disabilities or deformities.

That makes life a  nightmare as they spend the rest of their days trying to hide those features.

People need to accept their conditions, especially when there is nothing that can be done to rectify them,' he says.

And you begin to feel guilty for complaining about things that you should really not be complaining about - such as the fact that you are a little broader or shorter than your competition.