Glynis O’Hara
IN the Afrika Oye! concert featuring Cameroonian Brice Wassy, Mabe Thobejane and Madala Kunene at the Johannesburg city hall tonight, there’s a quiet, unnoticed victory to be noted for one of the musicians.
His name is Sello Montwedi (33), and a year ago he was flat on his back in intensive care, paralysed down the left side due to a head injury after the road accident involving Sankomota, in which four band members were killed.
The group had been on the road in a minibus between Bloemfontein and Cape Town and Sello was asleep when all hell broke loose. He remembers waking up on the cold ground and wanting to stand up but being told there’d been an accident and to keep still. He passed out again and woke up in hospital – unable to talk, unable to see and unable to move his left side.
He spent five days in intensive care and 10 weeks in a general ward. He couldn’t say when he regained his sight and speech: “I don’t remember things very well, but when I started speaking it was in a very high, strangled voice.”
His wife, a teacher, took him home to Jouberton, outside Klerksdorp. “I was in a wheelchair, but I left it at the hospital, I refused to take it home. I couldn’t stand it.
“I couldn’t walk, though. I used to struggle around the house every morning using the wall for support. I went to a physiotherapist every day, later two days a week, and I’m still going. Even now, I’m not walking normally, I still have a limp.
“There’s no pain in my left-hand side, but the muscles cramp like anything when I extend myself. It took me a year to recover.”
As a drummer, he uses all four limbs to play, so the fact that he’s back on stage is nothing short of remarkable. “I’m not supposed to be working yet, but I had to start to help pay the bills.”
He only started playing again a month ago, when his friend Fana Zulu, the bass player for Thobejane’s part of the show, persuaded him to try and then to audition. “Hey! It was tough, it was tough, but I knew I just had to play again. I practise a lot and the muscles in the left hand are coming right – although the hand shakes sometimes – so it’s promising.”