Mukhwana, the blind stone crusher
What you need to know:
- Abdu Mukhwana has been crushing stones since 1989. However, a few years ago, he became blind. Even, then he has not given up on a job that sustains his livelihood.
- An orbital blowout fracture is a traumatic deformity of the orbit floor resulting from the impact of a blunt object larger than the eye socket.
- When not surgically repaired, most blowout fractures heal spontaneously without significant consequence. However, some are disastrous and will lead to blindness if they are not given attention in the first phase of formation.
When Abdu Mukhwana began to lose sight, he feared for his job that he had done for 27 years.
Mukhwana is a stone crusher and he has never left the quarry even after becoming blind. To date, the 53-year-old wakes up to crush stones from which he sustains his livelihood.
About five years ago, Mukhwana started losing sight which doctors said could have resulted from dust or blunt objects flying off stones.
At Mbale hospital, doctors classified him as blind and further medical attention at Jinja hospital blamed accumulated dust for having progressively destroyed “my iris and the lenses”.
Since then, Mukhwana has come to accept the misfortune and forged a life with his wife, Betty Khakasa, who has stood by him during the most trying moments.
“… my wife has given me the strength to soldier on and she encourages me every time I have wanted to give up,” he says.
Livelihood
The quarry, he says, has afforded him an opportunity to keep his family of seven children and four grandchildren as a single unit.
However, becoming blind at a later stage in life has presented Mukhwana with a few challenges but he continues to cling on the ‘disability is not inability’ adage from which he draws inspiration.
At his home in Budi A village, Namanyonyi Sub-county in Mbale District, Mukhwana lives a modest life and maintains a small quarry in his compound.
Heaps of rocks and bricks fill the compound covering parts of the verandah.
In one corner, there is a large emission of smoke that I later learn is a hit place for stones to ease the crushing.
From here, together with his 12 year-old daughter, Kassifa Nabutsale, he crushes stone after stone with a hummer, before inquiring about the intruder in his compound.
He stares blankly in my direction before asking what I want and if I have come to buy stones.
We exchange pleasantries and I tell him the intention of my courtesy call.
“This is my home. I want to utilise my hands to work hard and look after my family,” he says adding he cannot go to the street to beg even if it is from his friends.
His hands are his biggest assets as he has to measure the size of the stones just by feeling them.
“This is how I am now surviving. It is hard but as I told you, I have a family to feed and children to take to school, clothe and even pay medical bills,” he says as he stares blankly as if struggling to draw out who I am. Mukwana started stone quarrying in 1989 and has mastered the art of crushing stones in all shapes and size.
Other sources of income
Besides stone crushing he does poultry and dairy farming, but on a small scale. He also digs in other people’s gardens as well as brick laying.
He is a known family man in Budi A and Sayiya Mudebo, the village chairperson, says he has known Mukhwana to be a hardworking man. “Although he has hit his fingers many times, he has never given up. Whenever we have a chat, he tells me a man must work whether blind or not,” he says.
Mukhwana, Mudebo says, is a true embodiment of determination, who even with life limitations, has not given up on life and fending for his family.
“…many families here have able-bodied people but their children are not in school. They cannot have complete meals. But the story is different with Mukhwana,” he says.
Cause of blindness
According to John Baraza, an eye care specialist at Mbale hospital, dust from the rocks could have progressively affected Mukhwana’s iris leading to blindness.
However, he says, Mukhwana needs to have regular checkups to see if the condition can be corrected.
He says effects on eyesight are difficult to manage because they are connected to the brain.
“I can’t say this is permanent blindness but given the number of years he has stayed with the effect, he could have completely lost sight,” he says.
According to Baraza, Mukhwana could have had an orbital blow out, a condition that deforms the orbit.
The condition could have resulted from injuries sustained as a result of sharp objects hitting Mukhwana’s eye area.
However, Baraza says, the condition is a slow but progressive process that keeps growing up to a stage when the victim will have double vision as well as struggling to see objects that are near to them.
About orbital blowout fracture
An orbital blowout fracture is a traumatic deformity of the orbit floor resulting from the impact of a blunt object larger than the eye socket.
There are two broad categories of blowout fractures including open door, which are large, displaced and comminuted, and trapdoor, which are linear, hinged, and minimally displaced.
They are characterised by double vision, sunken ocular globes, and loss of sensation of the cheek and upper gums due to infraorbital nerve injury.
Treatment
Surgery is double vision on primary or inferior gaze.
When not surgically repaired, most blowout fractures heal spontaneously without significant consequence. However, some are disastrous and will lead to blindness if they are not given attention in the first phase of formation.