Zimpapers Logo

Rufaro Winter, Chronicle Reporter
TWO- YEAR-OLDS are known to be busy bees and are notorious for ever running around but the story is different for Khethani Moyo who clings to his mother all day long.

From the day he was born, his mother Mrs Jenifar Moyo has had to brave watching him grow with a tumour on his eye, a development which has altered his appearance.

Mrs Moyo says she first noticed the abnormal growth when Khethani was seven months old but she ignored it since it was very small at the time.

The two-year-old boy is suffering from a genetic rare disease that affects six in a million people in the world.

Experts say some children inherit this complication from their parents unlike baby Khethani whose parents are both normal.

Mrs Moyo said when she realised that the growth was getting bigger, she took her son to Natisa Clinic, their local clinic in Kezi which is located 95 kilometres south of Bulawayo.

The clinic referred him to United Bulawayo Hospitals where doctors cleared him saying it would get better with time.

“We returned home. It started growing every day and now it’s almost a year-and-a-half since we were told not to worry. The tumour has pushed the eye out and now it just hangs out while discharging blood and pus,” she says with a breaking voice.

Babies are normally weaned from 12 months onwards but Khethani is still breastfeeding as the mother fears his immune system may collapse.

Mrs Moyo said she has decided to continue breastfeeding him because she cannot afford to buy him nutritious food.

She said what was very worrying was that children of her neighbours now loathe playing with Khethani claiming he is a victim of witchcraft.

“We are so used to gossip about my son and his condition. My child usually plays with his siblings because no child wants to be around Khethani and under normal circumstances no one wants to associate with a child who is always bleeding and crying.”

Mrs Moyo says her son’s plight is a thorn in the flesh and a constant reminder of her poverty as the family cannot afford health care services which may help rectify the condition.

The circumstances have reduced Mrs Moyo to a well-known beggar in Tombo Village and she says she struggled to raise 200 rand for transport to and from Bulawayo.

She said she had to go around begging for seven days to raise the R200 which could not cater for the food, medication and accommodation needed now that she is in Bulawayo with her son.

“Our family survives on farming and selling the crops that we would have harvested since my husband is not employed. Besides Khethani we have five other children that we have to fend for, a burden that I cannot honestly bear at the moment,” she says wiping off her tears.

Mrs Moyo who is not familiar with Bulawayo was picked by a Good Samaritan.

“When I got here, I was stranded as all I knew was that I had a note that was in my bag that was written that if I got to Bulawayo, I had to look for Chronicle offices to share my appeal story. I tried asking others for direction and when they were hostile, I just sat down in the city centre and prayed for a miracle,” she says.

Mrs Moyo only has one relative in Bulawayo, a 20-year-old whom she doesn’t know where he lives.

A good Samaritan, Mr Christopher Mudzana took Mrs Moyo and her son to UBH where the boy was admitted upon arrival.

“I am appealing to members of the public to help me with food, medication for my son and further funding that may be needed to rectify his eye. We are at UBH and I am reachable on 0779266067,” she said.-@rufarovaraidzo