Flavia Lanyero
17 June 2011
analysis
In our daily series capturing personal stories of victims of the July 11, 2010 bomb attacks in Kampala, our reporter Flavia Lanyero, brings you the tale of a young man who escaped the hellish room of a mortuary but his dream of becoming a systems control analyst is strapped to a wheelchair.
The first thing I notice when I meet Benjamin Ojara is the tube aiding his breathing. Inserted through his throat, it keeps making a wheezing noise, in tandem with his breath pulse. He is also sweating profusely.
Unlike most people confined to wheelchairs who have half their bodies functional, with Ojara it’s only the region from his upper chest towards the neck that has life. The rest of his body is paralysed.
I can’t appreciate his pain until it he has to cough. He struggles to exhale; mucus is stuck in his throat. He can’t spit. A suction pump must be used to drain the substance. It is only then that he can resume the conversation.
“I was very hesitant to go to Kyadondo Rugby Club that day,” he says of the dark Sunday July 11, 2010, when what should have been a night of fun, watching the football World Cup final, turned into a field of death and pain.
“When I entered that field, I felt a sense of strangeness. I said a little prayer and went ahead to find a seat and catch the game.”
Struggling to recollect events, Ojara says, “What I remember is I was hit during the first explosion. I fell on the ground and immediately realised something was wrong. Blood was oozing from my neck, I could not move my arms or legs.”
Lying on the grass, with confusion all over, he felt some people go through his pockets, relieving him of the little money he had. A stranger picked his phone, promising to call someone to help. When the police arrived, the stranger made off with Ojara’s phone.
Ojara was bundled onto a police truck, which was headed to the mortuary. “Luckily, before we reached the mortuary, some curious people saw me move my fingers and the driver was asked to take me to Mulago Hospital instead,” Ojara says about the near conscription into the world of the dead.
Since then, the 30-year-old’s dreams have turned into a nightmare. When he walked into Kyadondo Rugby Club, Ojara had just finished a diploma in telecommunications engineering at Kyambogo University.
Because of his outstanding performance, the government offered him a scholarship to pursue a degree in the same discipline. His dream of becoming a programmer and systems control analyst was just taking shape.
One year later, all these dreams have been shattered. They are strapped to a wheelchair, somewhere in an orphanage in Kitgum District, where this interview was conducted.
At Mulago Hospital, doctors first treated him for shock, unsure of the magnitude of his injuries. They recommended a Magnetic Resonance Angiogram scan, and yet Mulago lacked the necessary machines to conduct the examination.
The scan was later done at Kampala Hospital Kololo after a friend paid the Shs650,000. The findings were disturbing. Ojara’s neck spine was damaged, dislocated and compressed. The problem could be corrected at Shs2 million.
“It was at this point that the Shs3 million offered by government came in handy. I managed to get the operation and bought some medicine. The money was finished in a matter of days,” he says.
Ojara then stayed at Mulago Hospital with minimal care (the operation was done at Mulago). The two months he spent in the Intensive Care Unit were some of the most trying, he says.
“The ICU had no suction pump. They had to keep begging from other units, yet I needed to be suctioned about 30 times a day.”
Because he could not get physiotherapy sessions and could not turn on the bed, lying in the same position for days, a big sore began developing on his back.
Temporary relief
“At Mulago, I had lost weight, was not breathing well and was not getting physiotherapy yet I could see physiotherapists moving around. I do not know why I was ignored.”
At this point, some relief came from the most unexpected of quarters. In October, 2010, a Good Samaritan, Louise Ford, took him in, transferring him to International Hospital Kampala–which became his home for the next eight months.
Ms Ford had heard about Ojara’s plight through his elder brother–a friend. At IHK, Ms Ford paid the medical bills, while his brother’s wife became his keeper.
“In fact because of the good care at IHK, the sore that had developed on my back began healing yet I had been recommended for another operation,” he says.
But the rosy moments came to an end. His brother’s wife got tired and left. An uncle, who had tried to help, also caught the fatigue bug and left.
With no one to care for him, Ms Ford transferred Ojara to her orphanage, Tender Trust, in Kitgum District, also his birth place. Ojara stands out at the facility. He is the only adult in a sea of about 100 children.
“I chose to come to Tender Trust because it is near home and I can get some medical care. If I go home, no one will look after me,” says Ojara.
But there was a time when Ojara did not have to worry about company. He had a part-time job with an electrical firm in Kampala. He also had a girlfriend–who visited him while still at IHK but has never reappeared while in Kitgum. She went with their child. He has a second child from an earlier engagement–which broke when the woman got married to another man.
“I miss work, sometimes I think how the future will be for me in case I do not walk again. How will I be?” he asks, waiting for an answer that I can’t offer. “I still have a long way to go. I am not married yet but I have two children. How am I going to look after them?”
For now, the orphanage is all that he calls home. An orphan himself, Ojara has found it easy to fit in with the children.
“I sit and wait for the children at 1pm to come back from school. They are very eager to share the day’s experience. They sit all around me and we talk and laugh, it makes me happy,” he says, as I detect a faint smile–held back by obvious pain in his chest.
When alone, he is wheeled under a mango tree–where he engages in his new-found love; reading novels. Renowned writers John Grisham and Danielle Steel are his favourites. He also reads religious literature.
One thing though keeps gnawing away at him. “Will I ever regain my ability to walk?” he asks. Doctors will not tell him a thing and it makes him more anxious.
“When I think about the way I was and what I am now, my spirits go low, very low. I feel bad and weak. Sometimes, I just feel lost, lost in the wilderness. I feel so lonely, I am not myself.”
Whereas he has found some solace in this orphanage, he does not know how long the offer will last. Already, his needs are immense.
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