On the Crutches: Autobiography

By Isaac Mbuyiselo Mraxa

I am the witness of my disability and
I know how to be disabled. I know
how to be stigmatized by the people
whom you never did something wrong
to them. I know how to live in
discrimination because of the
disability I never intended to have,
but all those things are nothing because the only dangerous
weapon that kills the expectations of any disabled person is the
WORD that many people use; thinking that they are showing
their kindness. Yet they do not know that they are killing the
strength of mind of the disabled, they keep on using the word
SHAME as if all is well to the disabled person. In actuality it is
not good to be disabled. It is not magnificent to depend on
somebodys kindness and willingness to quench your desire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Apr 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483610795

Isaac Mbuyiselo Mraxa

I am the witness of my disability and I know how to be disabled. I know how to be stigmatized by the people whom you never did something wrong to them. I know how to live in discrimination because of the disability I never intended to have, but all those things are nothing because the only dangerous weapon that kills the expectations of any disabled person is the WORD that many people use; thinking that they are showing their kindness. Yet they do not know that they are killing the strength of mind of the disabled, they keep on using the word SHAME as if all is well to the disabled person. In actuality it is not good to be disabled. It is not magnificent to depend on somebody’s kindness and willingness to quench your desire.

Book preview

On the Crutches

Autobiography

Isaac Mbuyiselo Mraxa

Copyright © 2013 by Isaac Mbuyiselo Mraxa.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4836-1078-8

                 Ebook         978-1-4836-1079-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 04/05/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-644-6988

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

[e-mail]

301081

Contents

Biographical Note on the Author

The Writer’s Message

1   Parents Get a Funny Child

2   Before the Blackboard

3   The Day I Became Bigger than My Teacher

4   Faced With a Strange Punishment

5   Some Liberties Brought by the Crutches

6   The School Is on the Boil

7   Plot to Deceive My Scoutmaster

8   That Easter Monday

9   The Quiet Refuses to Return

10   Sins of the Past on the Other Page

11   23 September 1986

12   A Disabled Person Refuses Social Grant

13   Reaching the Worker’s Desk

14   No Disability in the Eye

15   The Knot Is Tied Before the Magistrate

16   Why I Married Pearl

17   Face to Face With Mamomncinci

18   Rest in Peace, Mamomncinci

19   Save Me, Will You

Biographical Note on the Author

Isaac Mraxa was born on the 4 February 1965 in the Phuthuma coastal village of Mqanduli district, Eastern Cape. He left his village at a young age to grow under his father who worked for a glass-cutting shop in Mthatha and to study at the Ikhwezi Lokusa School for the Disabled Pupils. After Ikhwezi Lokusa School, he went to Umtata Technical College. He now works as a typist and an officer in the government Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform in Mthatha—Eastern Cape and he is assigned in the Special Programmes Unit. He’s currently the chairperson of Simanywa Lusiba Writers’ Club, the position he holds since 1998.

He has published numerous pieces of his prose and fiction in the Kotaz Magazine, Port Elizabeth. This book, On the Crutches, narrates about his experiences and struggles in life as a disabled person.

The Writer’s Message

I am the witness of my disability, and I know how to be disabled. I know how to be hated by the people to whom you never did something wrong. I know how to live in discrimination because of the disability I never intended to have, but all those things are nothing because the only dangerous weapon that kills the expectations of any disabled person is the word that many people use, thinking that they are showing their kindness. Yet they do not know that they are killing the strength of the mind of the disabled; they keep on using the word shame as if all is well for the disabled person. In actuality, it is not good to be disabled. It is not magnificent to depend on somebody’s kindness and willingness to quench your desire.

The attitude shown to disabled people because of their incapability does not give righteousness to the person who was once a disability-free man. All the flashbacks of his life are swept away by the ‘shame’ word, and he somehow begins to live a miserable life because of other people. Instead of trying to defeat his disability, he drowns his hopes because of the word ‘shame’—which is wrongly used. The word ‘shame’ in true sense means disgrace. The only thing that I believe is that once you distort somebody’s hope, without doubt you have emotionally killed that person. In reality, there’s no one who wants to experience the life of being disabled.

But I want to assure everyone that disabled people are like any other person living in this planet and they have got all the needs and feelings encountered by other disability-free people. I have lived for forty-seven years with my disability, and I feel that it is my responsibility to appeal to and welcome the people to read this book of my life On the Crutches. Maybe there is something you will get and probably plant it in your heart. Please make yourself at home while you read it: frown when it’s necessary and laugh when you see the need and make those funny faces that we all make when we are comfortable. Read this one and hope to get another one in due course. Truly, my life does not end here.

1   Parents Get a Funny Child

Thanks so much that my parents did not decide to abandon me or murder me on 4 February 1965, when they saw that the baby they had been anxiously awaiting for eleven months was, in fact, a dwarfed and disabled thing. Thanks so much again that they just strengthened their hearts to bear the stigma of having given birth to the funny-looking and funny moving thing that I was.

As I began to interpret what I saw and what I heard, I began to understand that I was not like the other children around me in KwaQulu locality, a tribal village of Mqanduli in the Eastern Cape. And oh, what a difference between the able-bodied and the one said to be a cripple! To race with other children in search of the good things like survival, education, and work, as I thought, was like a goat racing with a horse. At first, and for a fairly long time, I was ashamed of myself and the situation I was in. I cursed everything, including my birth, starting from the day I was born up to the day I recognised my disability. Seeing other children using their two straight legs to walk and run on rainy days made me think that I was nothing in this world. Yes, I felt I was just nothing—nothing but a dead-alive creeping thing.

Surely you cannot imagine the way I looked and the nature of my handicap. My legs were like corrugated brackets: I was unable to stand or walk. I crawled like a nine-month-old baby. I was… tall, and I weighed 19 5 kilograms at eleven years of age; the records witness for me. Crippled and crooked as I was, I would wonder how I could show my anger or disapproval when other boys offended me. They could run, and they could shape well for a battle; they towered over me. I had no relations with the other capable kids as they refused to play with me, maybe fearing that my disability would rub off on to them.

So I would play alone—I mean Isaac playing with Isaac. A physical Isaac would play with an imaginative Isaac. They would please each other and tease each other. They would laugh at each other and scold each other. Those were friends indeed and friends in need. I wouldn’t care about those who segregated me because of my unfortunate state. I had my faithful friend, the other Isaac. ‘Vum! Vum! Vu-u-u-u-u-u-um! Pip! Pipi-i-p’ the cars of matchbox, used by the two Isaacs to play with, would say, stirring dust and scratching the grounds. The sound effect would earn me claps from those who didn’t want to include me in their games.

Other boys were very sympathetic towards me. They would put me on their backs and run with me like a mother carrying her baby. I mean my peers. From them, I would exclude myself. This was so disturbing to me. ‘How can I be handled by my age-mates like this?’ I would ask myself, simmering with anger.

Before us there was a common road to travel—long, steep, and winding—that of survival, education, and work. But for me, to travel this road with those other children of my age was like a hen trying to fly with eagles.

Maybe it is a good thing to tell you how exactly I look and, of course, what made me like what I am even today. I was born disabled, and I admit to my short stature and bow legs dating back to my childhood. There was no history of short stature and limb deformities in my parents or siblings. I was never evaluated for my short stature or bow legs, and I walked with the aid of my knees and hands. Fortunately, I am of normal intelligence and now have a height of 1.34 m and frontal bossing.

‘Mother, you love me. I can observe that. You don’t stay long with other mothers and women, gossiping and giggling with them. You are always keeping your eye on me. Is it because you love me or is it because you fear for me? Or is it because you think I don’t have a friend?’ I would ask my mother, MaTshezi Cecilia Mraxa, seeing her dedication to me.

‘Yes, I love and care for you, my Son. But who is your friend on this earth?’

‘Myself, Ma.’

‘Yourself? What is that?’

‘Isaac is a friend of Isaac, Ma.’

‘Oh, yes!’

This keen-eyed, strong-limbed, strong-willed woman, my mother, used her energy to ensure my survival. Everything