Collet 'adopts' limbless Ndlovu

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Monday November 8, 2010 00:00

 

These could be Dale Collet's words. Remember Dale Collet? He is the gentleman who drives while on his belly because more than half his body is crippled, and whose front-page story we carried two issues back with the headline The Phenom of Mmamashia. In the same issue we carried the heartrending story of Pontsho Ndlovu, the  limbless beggar who spent days asking for alms at Gaborone's African Mall, spending the night under cardboard boxes beneath an old table at the mall. Here he suffered from anything that you can imagine from being urinated upon by some drunk who would not know that beneath the heap of boxes lay a person, being beaten by mosquitoes, Christmas beetles, being drenched to the skin by summer rains, to being nearly frozen to death by our often cruel winters. Yet fellow human beings passed him by everyday, and knew about his plight.

And none, 'save for two Indians who once tried' saw the need to help him. That was until Collet and his workers, Barbra and James, read the story.

'After reading the story Barbra asked me: 'What are you going to do about the man?' The next day she asked me: 'So what have you decided about the man? Do you know it is evil not to help him?' And that kind of brought the urgency to this whole situation.

So I took one of my workers at the office with me, Tshidi Maele and off to African Mall we went. We found Pontsho and told him why we had come to see him. He said he was willing to come along, and that was it. The guys helped him onto the van and he is here now,' says Collet, as he calls out to Barbara, his right hand woman to call Ndlovu and James.

'He is one amazing man. You would have expected the man to disdain Ndlovu, but they almost bonded the first day, which is incredible considering James speaks English and Shona and has very little understanding of isiNdebele which would make communication with Ndlovu easier as he speaks Zulu.  His father was Zulu,' says Collet.

While local workers at Collet's farm have snubbed Ndlovu, with one stating, 'I do not want to be seen with him, because people will laugh at me,' James' heart went out to the man. He bathes Ndlovu and sometimes even carries him on his back. You ask James if he does not feel the same way that the locals feel about Ndlovu and he tells you that 'all I see is a human being who really needs my help, and I don't see any reason why I can't help him. It could have been me,' he says.  Barbara too, has been a source of comfort and much help for Ndlovu.

'You see Barbara used to work for the Jairos Jireh home for the disabled in Bulawayo, and she has much experience working with people with disabilities,' says Collet as the 'family' quartet comprising him, James, Barbara and Ndlovu prepare for a family portrait.

Then Ndlovu starts talking, and he leaves everyone in stitches: 'You know when Collet came to fetch me I kept wondering; why is he driving on his belly. I saw the bed and said to myself ' this is a very interesting car. But I realised soon that he was disabled. Eish man, here is a car full of disabled people. She [Tshidi Maele] does not have a leg, I have no arms and legs and man, our driver is driving on his belly!

'At some point the lady got off the vehicle and Collet was telling me he was going shopping. I wondered 'the lady's gone. How on earth is he going to accomplish that! If he should send me to go into the shop I will never be able to get back into the vehicle and he is going to leave me here. I but I was too afraid to ask him'. That was at Phakalane Spar where Collect wanted to buy soap for him.

'I was relieved when he called out to a security guard and sent her in to buy the items. But you see after we left the store I was still asking myself about this dude. He was driving into the woods! I would not make it obvious to him that I was looking at him, but I concluded as I watched his demeanour and how he drove through the bush, that he was a soldier. For how can a man who can't walk be driving through the bush - in the company of a stranger without limbs?!' As everyone tries to catch their breath from laughing, Ndlovu, who makes the jokes with a straight face - which is really what also forces you to laugh - adds 'And she (Barbara) tells me that Collet did well to bring her a man without arms because I can't beat her up!' he says, triggering all-round laughter again.

Then as we all wipe the happy tears from our eyes, his face lights up. He smiles, obviously enjoying the moment. You want to cry. Here is a man who has been rejected by his very own and lived like a squirrel for decades. And today, for the first time in his life, he has a hot-water shower, three square meals a day and yes, the family he never had.

'Ndlovu grew up abused. He tells me that he was hospitalised at least twice after his mother assaulted him badly. Once he says, he was accused of urinating in his cousins food and forcing them to eat it.

How does a man with no legs and arms force anybody to do anything? His mother took a brick and hit him on the side of the head. And as he lay on the ground, almost unconscious and unable to get up, she took a wire doubled it and whipped him until he passed out. He landed in hospital from the beating. It was after that that he decided he would never go back home. He went to stay at Kgale Hill,' says Dale. While a vagabond at Kgale, Ndlovu tried to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Gaborone dam. On both occasions, members of the Botswana Defence Force personnel who happened to be in the area saved him. With death failing him, he went to ask for alms at African Mall, the place where The Monitor, and later Collet found him.

'I have decided that he should stay here for as long as it takes to get him help. I have been talking to a number of people around and the prospects are encouraging. One has pledged to build a self contained customised room for him.

Another has pledged P500 a month,' he says. Collet is also trying to get Ndlovu an Omang, the national identity card which should enable him to get services that the Social Service have denied him as he does not have one. To that end he has engaged at least one community elder to intercede on behalf of Ndlovu. One of the biggest partners who have teamed up with Collet to help improve Ndlovu's life is Life Gaborone Private Hospital who are working to raise funds to get Ndlovu prosthetic limbs.

'We have teamed up with Collet and we are raising funds to get Ndlovu new prosthetic limbs,' says Life Gaborone Private Hospital Brand Manager Lindsey Jones.

And so Ndlovu finds himself surrounded by love - finally.

'Ndlovu is a nice guy, and we try to make him know he is home, but it appears he is anxious, almost afraid that he will wake up to find himself at the African Mall again.

He is too careful to ask for things, as he feels he may be seen as a burden, but we continue to reassure him that he is part of the family and will get what we can or are able to give him when he needs it,' says Collet.

'How far that little candle throws his beams. So shines a good deed in a weary world,' William Shakespeare writes.  You can be that 'little candle' in Ndlovu's life. Call Dale Collet at +267 71311 619 or Lindsey Jones at +267 71849212. You can also call The Monitor at +267 397 4784.