Globetrotter who ended up in Kenya by accident

Mr Mohammad Moghadamshad’s face lights up as he describes himself as “the only mzungu” living in Nairobi’s Lucky Summer area.

He has been living there for four months, having come to Kenya by a twist of fate. Those residing around Lucky Summer police station must have become accustomed to the ever-smiling mzungu on a wheelchair, who has only three shirts, and is a good storyteller.

Born in Iran 44 years ago, Mr Moghadamshad is on a wheelchair because he has muscular dystrophy, an incurable condition that weakens body muscles over time, eventually compromising the functioning of a person’s lungs and heart.

He was diagnosed with the condition at the age of 20, with the doctor predicting that one day he would not walk by himself anymore — a possibility that scared Mr Moghadamshad.

The deterioration has been gradual and the doctor’s prediction came to pass two years ago when he could no longer walk by himself and had to use a wheelchair, having used a walker for some time.

Currently, his hand muscles are so weak that he cannot uncork a water bottle by himself.

World tour

“I don’t have too much time,” Mr Moghadamshad, a psychologist, tells Lifestyle. “But I don’t care. The quality of life is what is important to me, not the quantity.”

He is in Kenya because he was travelling across the world partly to distract himself from the thoughts about his condition, which sometimes bordered on being suicidal. He started his world tour with South America in 2018 before going to West Africa last September.

Not in his wildest dreams could he visualise himself in Kenya on March 19. Ghana was his destination, not Kenya. On March 18, he had left Liberia for Ghana aboard a Kenya Airways (KQ) aeroplane.

He was in Liberia, the eighth country he was visiting in Africa, when Covid-19 became a global pandemic. He decided to return to Ghana because he had an Iranian friend there. So he took a KQ plane from Liberia to Ghana on March 18, but ended up in Nairobi.

This was because Accra had closed doors to non-citizens as a coronavirus mitigation mechanism. KQ, faced with the obligation to take care of its customer, found itself carrying Mr Moghadamshad to Nairobi. By then, he had not applied for a Kenyan visa and did not know anyone in Kenya. Iranians can apply for a visa on arrival in Kenya, but the systems were not working then.

He stayed at the airport for nine days, two of which he slept next to toilets. He says for those nine days,  he was “floating” visa-wise because it was hard to tell which country he was legally in.

On the third day he could not bear with the situation, and he made himself comfortable in the business lounge of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Luckily, authorities did not eject him.

“I went there and said I was not coming out because I couldn’t continue sleeping by the toilets,” he says.

He is thankful to KQ for providing him with food all that while. Later, he was admitted to Kenya then transferred to quarantine, first at Moi Girls Nairobi then later at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

Negative tests

After three negative tests, he was free to leave. By then he had reached out to Dr Jafar Barmaki, the Iranian ambassador to Kenya, who helped him find a place to stay.

But the residence did not come cheap, requiring around Sh4,000 a night. Mr Moghadamshad has been travelling on the cheap, and this was not an amount he could afford.

And so he put to use Couchsurfing, an online platform where a tourist can be hosted by a resident for free. It has been one of his travel tools since he embarked on a world tour. He posted about his situation and waited for any takers.

Twenty-six-year-old Joseph Owino, a resident of Lucky Summer, is also a Couchsurfing user. He has travelled to many places across East Africa, where he has been hosted for free, the last trip being to Arusha where he stayed with a host for a week and three days without paying a cent for accommodation.

Mr Owino tells Lifestyle that when he saw Mr Moghadamshad’s request, he was ready to help, but he had his fears. These were the times when the fear of Covid-19 was at hysteric levels.

“I was scared,” says Mr Owino. “But he assured me that he had undergone three tests and had the letters for it, all showing he was negative.”

Four months

He decided to consult his landlord, who, thankfully, granted the request.

But there were challenges. The place where he lived did not have the best road connection. Even if Mr Moghadamshad came by taxi, he had to alight a long way off. And he could not use his electric wheelchair on the stretch to Mr Owino’s one-bedroom house because it was muddy.“I had to talk to some of my friends to help me carry him on the wheelchair,” says Mr Owino.

He left his bedroom to the visitor and henceforth he slept in his living room. They later relocated to a two-bedroom house with facilitation from Mr Moghadamshad — Sh32,000 for a month’s rent plus deposit.

It has been four months of learning new things for the Iranian, whose life motto is to always be happy, just as the “shad” in his name means in his mother tongue.

“I believe in humanity; I try to be nice. Wherever I go, I try to be kind to people, to communicate well with them,” he says. “I came here completely by accident, but I’m very happy now.”

Having informed the ambassador that he had found a residence in Lucky Summer, the envoy surprised residents one day when he showed up at Mr Owino’s modest house with food for 45 people.

“They brought food donations and distributed them to residents. It was a good thing,” says Mr Owino.

Source of income

Mr Owino was working with an NGO that scaled down its operations due to the Covid-19 pandemic and as such he had no source of income when he let in the Iranian.

Whereas hosting through Couchsurfing is free, he says Mr Moghadamshad — evidently not a man of means — decided to chip in to help him meet his expenses.

At one time, the Iranian also provided capital that they used to open a shop.

“I tell myself that had I turned down his request, my life would have been in chaos at the moment,” Mr Owino reckons. “He is really a nice person. His being here has contributed a lot to the people living around, even myself.”

Mr Moghadamshad cannot help smiling about the experience: “He invited me to his house and I’ve been staying with him. I am the only mzungu in that area.”

Given that Mr Owino’s house has neither a TV nor a fridge, this has been an actualisation of the iranian’s travel philosophy of living with locals to have a real feel of the country he visits.

He shares his experiences in photos and videos through his Instagram handle, @shaad.life.

“I wanted to travel cheap; not to go to hotels or luxury establishments,” he says. And he carries only a small backpack wherever he goes; containing just three shirts, three pairs of trousers and a few toiletries.

“I don’t need anything more,” he says, noting that he once carried a suitcase with him but gave it away together with the possessions when travelling in South America.

“I had more than 20 kilos and little by little, I found out that I didn’t need that luggage. So, I gave them out, especially to the people in Venezuela. They were in a bad situation,” he says.

He considers Kenyans a happy and helpful lot, though he quite doesn’t understand why most of them expect white men to give them handouts.

“Most of them think that white people have a lot of money. It’s not true,” he says, before going on to discuss the economic turmoil Iran is facing with trade sanctions and all.

 Time-keeping

Married for 15 years to a wheelchair-bound woman, the Tehran-born man has been making some money though online consultations as a psychologist. This is the profession he had studied in university, and he was a consultant until he was confined to a wheelchair and stopped for a while.

“It was two-and-a-half years ago that I had to sit on a wheelchair, and I was depressed. In the past, I had planned to kill myself the day I sat on a wheelchair.  So, I left my work and didn’t take clients because I said, ‘If I am depressed, how can I help people with depression?’” Recalls Mr Moghadamshad.

He also finds it interesting that Kenyans cannot quite keep time with appointments, for example this interview next to an Iranian restaurant at Village Market, where the reporter shows almost an hour late.

“They say they’ll come at 3pm, they come at 4pm,” he says, laughing.

He is also troubled that Kenya and most African countries he has visited pay little consideration to the disabled in their public transport systems. He has been travelling by bus or train in some countries, but could hardly do the same in Africa.

“Here, there is no public transport to enable me use it. I have to use a taxi,” he says. “In places where there are buses that I can use, I use them. In South America, I could use them. But in Africa, it’s very difficult.”

The Iranian also thinks some Kenyan families need to employ family planning. The shocking reality hit him when he joined a non-governmental organisation in serving Mathare residents, and he found a family of five children crammed in one small house. “We started to encourage people to come to the classes and have contraception,” he says.

How about Kenyan food?

He says it is all fine, though — like most visitors — he falls short of saying ugali can do with a little “character”.

“I get used to every food. I never nag. However, ugali is really strange to me — ugali alone is completely tasteless; but with something it’s delicious. With something, I like it,” he says.

Regardless, he is focused on the positives, and he is content with his journey so far.

“I can say that the second part of my life started when I was 42. And I am very happy now,” he says.

Mr Moghadamshad left Kenya for Turkey last Saturday. His sights are now set on Europe in his world trip.

He says: “Next year, I want to go to Europe maybe. But Europe is much more expensive so I have to work first to make some money. If my wife agrees, she can accompany me for a part of the trip. But I prefer to travel until I finish, because my disease is still going on.”

“I am happy because my wife let me have this opportunity to travel. It is not easy for her, I’m sure. We do not have any children and we didn’t want any,” he adds.

Before he came to Kenya, he had visited Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, Togo Guinea, Sierra Leone, then Liberia.

In the Americas, some of the countries he visited include Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Cuba.

But because Iran has its fair share of enemies in global politics, sometimes he is denied a visa.

“Lots of countries have a problem with an Iranian passport. It’s very, very difficult. So, getting a visa has sometimes been an issue for me,” he says.

Among the countries that denied him a visa, he says, are Tunisia and Morocco.

“You know, I am an ordinary person but ordinary people suffer from their governments’ decisions,” notes Mr Moghadamshad with a wry smile.

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