Seated behind his school desk, Robert Gesanda looks like a regular student — until he pulls out to reveal his complete frame. It is then that one notices, to great surprise, that the 19 year old is without both arms, and that his left foot is missing. Gesanda lost his limbs in an accident some 14 years ago, at the age of five.

Recalls the boy: "I was on my way home from nursery school when I was run over by a road grader in Nyamira."

Almost one-and-a-half decades later, the memory of that incident remains vivid in his mind. Unconscious after the accident, he still has no idea how he got out from under the grader, or how he is alive today.

Gesanda’s brother, Charles, who was in Standard Seven at the time, explains: "I was on my way back to school after lunch when I met some pupil saying that a child had been run over by a tractor." Eager to find out more, he went to witness for himself. That is how he found out that the victim was his younger brother. Battered, Gesanda lay trapped between the blades of the grader, neither moving nor breathing.

"The scene was a distance from home and my parents were in the shamba," Charles remembers. With no time to waste, he and neighbours pulled Gesanda from underneath the grader. They bundled his seemingly lifeless body into a gunnysack and set out on a 15km trek to the main road to seek help. The casualty was a bloody mess: His arms and leg had been severed; only strips of skin held them together.

Not even trainee nurses at the St Joseph’s Hospital in Nyabondo could bear the sight of the boy. Reportedly, the nurses, upon seeing the mangled lad, took to their heels. To keep his brother alive, Charles donated some blood. As Gesanda received a transfusion, his brother sat with him for the entire night. Gesanda’s parents only made it hospital the following day, having learned about their son’s accident late in the evening. That was 1993.

Gesanda spent a year in the hospital under the close watch of his brother, who was at the time a Standard Eight pupil. Back home, their parents tilled their land. In 1995, the now crippled boy was moved to Dagoretti Children’s Home through the help of personnel from St Joseph’s. By then, the boy’s family had instituted a legal suit against the government, which owned the grader.

Because Charles did not proceed to secondary school, he became a casual worker in their home area until the late 1990s when his mother died.

"My father re-married almost immediately and abandoned us under the care of a maternal uncle who provided food and shelter," says Charles.

After a five-year wait for justice, Gesanda became a millionaire after the courts awarded him Sh3.8 million in compensation. Out of this, Sh1 million was to go into a fixed-deposit account. Gesanda would have access to this amount when he turned 18.

Charles remembers that the rest of the amount was given to his uncle, and would be used to take care of his crippled brother. He remembers running out of the court in joy after the ruling.

"I would have loved to build a house for ourselves and open a business to sustain us," he says. "I knew we could not rely on relatives for ever."

Later, Gesanda’s uncle relocated him to Kisumu from Dagoretti, where the boy had studied until Standard Six. "I sat for my Kenya Certificate of Primary Education in 2006 and scored 244 marks out of 500," says Gesanda.

Too young to understand how his brother’s money was being spent, Charles had no way of knowing where or how their uncle was channelling it. "One day, my uncle just chased us from his house, leaving us to fend for ourselves," Gesanda explains. "That is when we took him to court."

It was in 2005 that they finally received Sh1 million through Gesanda’s foster father, Anwar Khan. Explains Anwar: "I picked up his case through the Rotary Club at Dagoretti Children’s Home and, having listened to what he and his brother had gone through, I decided to be the voice for them and stood for them in court."

Anwar, who is the national Chairman for the League of Disabled Persons, and whose daughter is also disabled, says his concern for Gesanda was his driving force. With the Sh1 million, he bought a quarter-acre piece of land in Kericho, where he built for the boys a four-roomed house.

Just when Charles thought he had finally found a safe haven for his brother, disaster struck on the night of December 29, last year.

"We were busy following the election events on television when we heard people chanting outside from afar," recalls Gesanda.

As the sounds drew closer, the boys went out to find out what was happening. A gang of young men approached, waving machetes, clubs and other crude weapons. Sensing danger and aware of Gesanda’s condition, their next-door neighbour hurriedly hid them in his house. Outside, the shouting continued. "The young men were saying they were on a mission to ‘finish’ people from two tribes," recalls Gesanda’s.

Interestingly, the gang had in their possession copies of receipts of identified tenants, which the tenants had received from their landlords as proof of rent payment. The bunch of hooligans were using the names on the receipts to identify ‘aliens’, whom they said needed to be eliminated. Clearly, it was a pre-planned affair.

Early the following day, Charles and his brother boarded a vehicle to their ancestral home in Nyamira to seek refuge. Lonesome and petrified, Charles rented a small room using Sh800 that he had with him. They would rely on food supplies supplied by the Red Cross Society of Kenya.

Having flashed ‘foreigners’ from their rightful homes that night, the mob stole what they could and left. Early the following morning, they returned, broke off the door and window frames, pulled out iron roofing — then set the houses ablaze. Says Gesanda: "I hear one neighbour managed to put out the fire. But the little that was left is worthless."

Everything the boys had fought so bravely for had in an instant either been brutally taken away, or reduced to rubble. Laments Gesanda: "Where will I go when I close school?"

It was only a week later, after much searching, that Anwar was able to locate his son in Nyamira through the help of the Red Cross. Gesanda was airlifted to Nairobi. "At first I was scared to travel by road to Kisumu then board a plane," he says. "I had heard people were being killed on the roads. Then I was afraid of who would take care of my brother."

Now 19, and at a stage of life when he should be enjoying his wealth, the young man’s hopes rest with the Lands office in Nakuru to transfer his nine acres of land in Molo to his legal custody. Feeling that Molo is too dangerous, however, Gesanda hopes to sell off this piece of land.

Notwithstanding his lack of vital limbs, and in spite of his harrowing experiences, Gesanda goes about his life happily, except that he has trouble cooking or dressing himself. He is in Form Two at Joytown School for the physically handicapped. He hopes to join law school and fight for the rights of the less fortunate, especially people with special needs.

He uses his only limb, the right foot, to write, eat and move. Though confined to a wheelchair, he moves quite fast, pulling manoeuvres that are astounding for a person who is almost limbless. On a high ramp, for example, he has discovered that it is easier to move backwards; it works like magic!

Mrs Kamonye, the headmistress of Joytown, says Gesanda is admired in the school for his independence. "Many in his predicament stay in a state of self pity, but not him," she reveals. Recently, the Red Cross gave new wheelchairs to the school, including one for Gesanda. Feeling that the new one was not as comfortable as his old one, he quickly switched back to his old chair. But he asked that his new chair not be taken back, but be given to another needy student at the school.

Kamonye laments that many young people in Gesanda’s condition end up missing university places, because of being evaluated on the same standards with able-bodied students during national examinations. "Someone has to do the chemistry experiments for them," she says.

The young man owes his life to his brother, Charles, who has courageously stayed by his side even when everyone else ran away. He hopes to become self-reliant.