Meet Mbire man who miraculously survived Buffalo attack

Lifestyle

Freedom Mupanedemo ---
It is about mid-morning in Masoka communal lands in Mbire, a frail, wiry and grey-haired man leaves his mud-and-pole hut, which he calls his home to answer to nature’s call in the adjacent thick bush.

For Amos Jokonya (76), like many poor villagers in Masoka, his mud-and-pole hut totters with age, its straws hued black by daily fire wood smoke and is surrounded by a thicket that he calls his toilet.

Each day, he chooses a new place to post his letter, when nature calls.

And this mid-morning he carefully chooses his position, skirting and tip-toeing over previous postings and takes his position.

Suddenly, and within the twinkle of an eye, a wounded buffalo ferociously charges, picks him up with one horn from between his legs and tosses him to the air, his already torn pair of shorts becoming immediate history. He drops with a thud but the bull goes for a kill, this time picking him up by his tummy, ripping the stomach open. Horror!

Somehow, his shirt got entangled between the horns, forcing the gnu to retreat and run away.

“I had gone to relieve myself when I suddenly found myself staring at a fretting and charging buffalo. I never got the chance to move an inch.

“Before I cloud run away the buffalo had attacked and I was on the ground. I was flipped up and what ever happened next only God knows! After regaining some consciousness hours later, I discovered that I was miraculously alive with my intestines out. My tummy had been ripped open and I my private parts were badly injured. In fact, I no longer have my twins. I lost my manhood,” recounts Jokonya.

He said as the heavens would have it, a passersby stumbled on him as he seethed in pain

I was heavily soiled and the gnu had spattered all over the place. A scotch cart was quickly organised and I was taken to Masoka Clinic, where I was transferred to Harare Hospital where I spent several months in admission,’’ recollects Jokonya.

But how Jokonya found himself in a wide male surgical ward in one of Zimbabwe’s biggest referral hospitals charting with nurses in spotless white robes remains rather a mystery to him.

It was this near fatal buffalo attack incident that first brought him to Harare

Masoka communal lands in Zimbabwe’s yonder remote Mbire is a different world all together. The vagaries of nature and history that condemned it might as well have cursed it.

With no cell phone network, no road network to talk about, no business centres, marauding wildlife and unforgiving weather pattern, Masoka could as well be classified as Hell on earth.

Day in day out people and wildlife fight, at times to death, it’s a typical jungle where survival is for the fittest.

Jokonya, who is equally condemned by history, geography and fate, is a living testimony of how cruel life can be, yet to survive, you must be very resilient.

His soul is as scarred as his body, making him a sorry sight. Here is a man who lost his genitals, suffered three broken ribs and had his tummy ripped open.

“I really don’t know how I survived that buffalo attack. It was a miracle and by God’s grace I am living today to tell my story,” says the dejected Jokonya.

Jokonya has since been deserted by his two wives, for, he can no longer perform conjugal duties.

“I thank God that I am alive but am a useless man now. My two wives have since walked out of the marriage because they were no longer getting their conjugal rights. I now stay alone and life has not been rosy since then,” says Jokonya who revealed that he now survives on handouts as he can no longer do any menial job to fend for himself.

“I only do very light jobs and it has not been rosy for me. I normally go fishing and exchange my catch for food in the village.”

Jokonya says he is now a weakling and sometimes sleep deserts him.

“I sleep on one side but sometimes I wake up in a very serious pain. It’s a difficult life to tell you,” he narrated.

Masoka communal lands is a vast swathe in Mbire district and borders Chiwore National Park to the north, Doma Safari to the west, Dande South Safari to the south, Chisunga and Kanyemba communal lands to the east. There human-wildlife conflict is daily bread.

There is virtually nothing uncommon if villagers wake up to find their crops grazed by elephants. Neither would it sound newsworthy to the locals for a pride of lions to have attacked their livestock in their pens.

It’s common and somehow part of the normal daily life for wildlife and humans to mix and mingle albeit with systematic clashes. It is a delicate cohabitation.

Intriguingly, there are some rather horrifying and appalling human-wildlife encounters that occur but still go unheralded, some of them earth shattering and harrowing that only a video footage or action pictures would best describe.

Jokonya said a week barely passes without a villager being attacked or their livestock being attacked by wild animals in the area.

At times villagers are fatally attacked by these menacing wild animals.

But Jokonya is not the only wildlife attack victim in Masoka, the area Headman, Blessing Chisunga says there are some villagers who have lost lives after being attacked by wild animals.

“The challenge here is that we live with these wild animal. We are surrounded by game parks and normally these animals flee hunters into the village. We also have the Doma people who are hunters and gatherers, at times their prey escapes and most wild animals which stray into our villages would be running from attacks and every person they meet would be an enemy,” he said.

Headman Chisunga said they have lobbied Government so that they also benefit through the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (Campfire) programme-Zimpapers Syndication Services

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Meet Mbire man who miraculously survived Buffalo attack

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