(ERGO) – Mukhtar Ali Is’haq, 58, is a well known figure in Baidoa, where he drives a tuk-tuk taxi that has been modified to suit his disability.
He was 14 and living in his pastoralist community in Kurte, 30 km from Wajid in Bakool, when he was infected with polio.
He described how he went to sleep one night thinking of taking the goats for grazing the next morning. He slept well but woke up with his legs paralyzed. He had never been vaccinated and did not know what the sickness was. “I felt as it I had become a lesser being than everybody else. I wept for days,” he recalled.
Mukhtar feels undignified when he had to crawl, using a third shoe on his left hand to haul himself along. But in his tuk-tuk, or bajaj, he feels like a king.
“The accelerator and the break have been shifted up close to the steering wheel so I can everything by hand,” Mukhtar told Radio Ergo’s local reporter.
The bajaj has become very popular in Baidoa, where it can beat the traffic jams and is low on fuel.
The small taxi gives Mukhar the kind of independence he has yearned for, having had different jobs since he finished high school and also being unemployed for long periods.
“Operating it doesn’t need a lot of strength like some other jobs. It is work that gives me my dignity so I don’t have to crawl in the dirt,” he said.
He makes a decent living, although he works a 10-hour day, enough to support his family of two wives and 14 children. Five of his children go to school.
His greatest fear is relying on others. He can get in and out of the tuk tuk unaided.
With 1,400 people in Baidoa known to be disabled through disease, conflict or accidents, Mukhtar has become a role model. He does not approve of people resorting to begging. “The challenges are many, but we have to think of a way of managing our livelihoods. The biggest disability is the one that affects the mentality,” he said.
Three other drivers have followed Mukhatar’s example and had tuk tuks modified so they can earn a living as drivers.
Mohamed Shariff
