I stood my courage!

The joys of my entry into Senior 1 in Kibiito Secondary School were dashed right on Day 1, with the notification that Mother had collapsed while tilling the garden. The experience equally shuttered for a time the hopes of our first born, Charles, who was in Senior 4 at the same school and our sister Rose who was in Senior 3 at St Mary’s Kinyarugonjo Secondary School in Kibale District. The other two boys, Joseph and Francis, aged eight and six respectively at the time, may have been too young to get the full impact of the catastrophe though. A female neighbor in Mother’s prayer group had come looking for her and, failing to find her, sauntered into the garden only to chance upon her collapsed in a heap. A long-term sufferer to high blood pressure and ulcers, Mother had been rushed to Yerya Dispensary within Kibiito Town Council and had been immediately hospitalized.

School was about two kilometers away from home, yet mum did not wish us to miss a day even in the midst of her ill health, she remained alone in the home all through the day. Mother’s illness though prompted me to leave school earlier than expected. While we were at school, she had nobody to give her water if she felt a thirst, nobody to scratch her back if she felt an itch, nobody to support her as she staggered into the outdoor, nobody to speak or laugh with, except an occasional neighbor, relative or friend who could come and give a casual call and go. The prayer group members stayed a bit longer though, cooking, washing, singing to the Lord and giving the patient all sorts of comfort and hope – but, even then, that was on Wednesdays, Fridays or Sundays which were their usual prayer meeting days. 

Father was a teacher in the distant Bukurungu Primary School, high up in the Rwenzori Mountains’ and could only afford to be present in the home in the late evenings, he often times got home in the dark only to sleep. To reach his school, he would on most days trudge in gumboots about 15 kilometers across muddy Rwenzori hillsides, crossing the Yerya and two or three other rivers that flooded every so often. In fact one morning, it is reported, as he crossed the flooding Yerya on his way to school, he had felt like washing the thick mud on his boots. He stepped on a slippery stone that let go and was almost swept away by the waters. A female eyewitness cautioned that he would have stood no chance of survival if he had gone as far as the spot a metre away where a pool always swirled whenever the river flooded. So he abandoned the washing and arrived in school with dirty footwear. This continued until Father retired from civil service.

Father braved a lot to come home on any day. Moreover, he had to arrive late and go away again very early. Father’s brother, ex-seminarian Uncle John Asaba, was a civil engineering contractor and among the closest neighbors. Uncle John as well taught at the school where I studied, this was an opportunity for me to even study whenever fees would delay or it was never available, on many occasions, uncle cleared my fees for my secondary education.  Yes, at school I was nicknamed “Vect” my uncles nick name but this never hurt me, all I needed was to attend classes. Every morning and evening uncle made it a point to check on our situation. And because he had more sources of income he often helped out with the medical bills, school fees for all the five of us and with the occasional feeding needs. We never at any moment lacked food.

Mother was a hardworking woman whose gardens flourished with bananas, Irish and sweet potatoes, beans, cassava, maize and greens. Her fowls laid eggs in dozens every week while her cocks strutted all around the compound and her goats bleated endlessly. In every direction I looked there was a resource or two mother had nurtured that would ensure that we remained food secure.

Despite Mother’s illness I had every reason to remain optimistic, ever believing that when she recovered her and Father would put me into a better school like she had promised.  By and by, however, Mother’s health kept deteriorating the more. The woman, who used to stagger out of the house, assisted or unassisted, now failed to get out altogether. She used to feed herself but, over time, we found that we needed to spoon-feed her. From taking solid stuff she started only accommodating liquids such as soup, milk and food supplements.

Like any other Batooro women from Kyenjojo in Mid-Western Uganda, Mother was a really tall person. But unlike the rest who were pencil thin, she was rather fat. Nevertheless, over the period of the illness we watched her shrink away in height and weight till she remained boney, then she died. This terrified me the more: after I had made all those tedious efforts, I was paid with a bequest of death? I cursed whatever that was surrounding me. By my being there for her, I thought I would save her life, give her a new lease of life, and put another smile on her face. But instead, I saw her life ending, carried her on my laps as she breathed her last on the 10^th October 2002, and leaving me to take on the mantle with my siblings under the care and guidance of Father and dear Uncle John. Indeed like the Bible says in Proverbs 16, and 2^nd Timothy 4:7;  we may make our plan, but God has the final word, Mother had fought the good fight, had finished the race, and had kept her faith, so God decided and none would stop his will, hence Mother’s death. We had to accept it because somehow Mother’s health was worrying that period she suffered a lot of pain that always made us worry in our tender age, we questioned God, why us at such a tender age, like Job in the Bible, we had no answers but to cool ourselves and seek Gods protection and prayed for his will to be done.  

Mother had served the Lord in various ways and capacities, she had prepared us for any situation by teaching us how to love God and pray. On the day she passed on, we all lost energy not knowing that the Lord was going to take her breath away at 1:06pm on 10^th October 2002. Mother loved this scripture among others, Revelations 14:13 “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them." She passed on at a time when we were praying a service at home, during prayer after receiving Holy Communion, My Beloved tender Joy My Mother breathed her last with her Jesus the one she loved most. Days and months after her death and burial, I reflected on this situation and most of the things she kept sharing with me and siblings. She always wished to die on the days they met for prayers in her prayer group, a Wednesday. Friday or a Sunday and wished to be buried on these days, God heaven, it was a Wednesday and she was buried on a Friday. Before her death, she prepared a list of things that would be used to accompany her, these included a white cloth and five candles, and indicated that, each one of her children would accompany her carrying a lighting candle. Her will was also another story of life, she started with …praise God, and thanked people who came to accompany her to her Eternal Father! Many of the things she told me came true and these still keep me strong, they actually show me that she is resting eternally with God. Her love for God keeps me loving God and making him loved, Mother wished that two of her children would fully serve the Lord i.e. she wished to have a Priest and a Nun.

She died without seeing this dream come true since we were young. God blessed our family with my elder sister becoming a nun under the Banyatereza Sisters congregation in Virika Diocese who are the daughters of St Therese, in 2007, this was one prophesy coming true. My follower joined the seminary and would later be ordained a Catholic Priest, in 2023, 21 years after Mother’s death.

The sorrows of my early childhood happened chronologically. Only months after dear Mother’s death, I started experiencing heart breaking events that taught me that life is like water which once poured on a dusty ground is never recovered. Father picked another woman. She seemed to be in her late twenties, with a gleaming face, braided hair, wonderful Tooro gait, spackling eyes and everything else angelic a man would desire in a woman. She had three kids from her earlier marriage though we stayed with the youngest. She was exceedingly sweet and played good mother to us for a while–only for things to turn the other way one year in our home. The first changes my new Mum effected were to sell off the poultry and exhaust the garden crops without replenishment and short change whatever money Father would have spared for us to go to school. Suddenly starvation stared us in the face. 

The new Mum seemed to feel so ruffled whenever she saw us going to school, believing, in fact, that we were taking away the money that would otherwise have been used for treating her hair. All this even before she gave Father any child of his own. I was 14 years by this time, I had not much to do to change the situation, but I played the good girl Mother had raised. All I focused on and yearned to receive was an education because, many of the people I saw around who were happy had attained an education, alas, times were even more unjust to attain an education, but I never gave up. 

I stood my courage and said I must keep in school even when times are bad. You can imagine a moment you are in class but thinking, what shall we eat tonight? I had to come home so early so that my siblings and I can do some garden work and may be plant a piece of cassava stem for the next day. Well, this happened, but I never regret of it. It is the reason I stayed in school, every time I thought about that situation, I sat and decided that I must read hard and get over the situation. I never wanted to die in that situation.

 

The next memoir will be about my life in Secondary school!