VOICE OF AGONY PROGRAM KYOGA VERITAS 91:5FM DATE: TUESDAY 15TH-OCT-2013 TIME: 10:00PM-12:00AM(STUDIO CONTACTS-0756-915915/0785-161021) THEME: MARITAL PROBLEMS: NOTE: PEOPLE WHO WISH TO SIMILA EXPERIENCES WITH VOICE OF AGONY PROGRAM,CAN WRITE TO VOICE OF AGONY P.O BOX 182 SOROTI. E-MAIL petersonmateeka@gmail OR CALL 0759-764722 ONLY DAY TIME. One of the districts at the furthest point south of Uganda is Kabalet.Any journey beyond that means you are preceding to Rwanda. The dominant inhabitants here are the Bakiga people. Like most tribes that live in mountainous regions of Uganda, most Bakiga are well built, compact and physically strong. This is due to their staple diet of millet and other grains as foods rich in calcium and carbohydrates. It’s here where I was born and went to school as a young girl. After finishing my senior four exams, as teenagers we got so excited by what youth call vacation. I met a man who was working in a cement factory. He was an Acholi whose home district is Gulu.He proposed to me and we fell in love. He bought for me nice things. We used to have sweet pain with him and after a short while I realized I was pregnant. He told me he had no family and therefore wanted to take me as his wife. My parents faced him till he had to pay a charge of 300Thousand shillings for making me pregnant while I was still in the process of continuing with education. The rest of the dowry was to follow later. The parents handed me over to him for the period till I was to give birth. I came to learn much later that this man had another woman with a family of three children staying within Kabale town-He had rented for her in another division. When his first wife discovered, she confronted me with a knife in my home wanting to stub me. Thank God, the public and police intervened and managed to arrest her. After giving birth to a baby girl, the husband organized secretly to take me to their home in Gulu for introduction to his family members. The Acholi wife back in Kabale was not supposed to know about our trip. We arrived late in the evening, celebrations to welcome me were just starting; at around 10pm in the night. Surprisingly his first wife we had left in Kabale also arrived armed with the deadly knife ready to finish me off. The whole family got involved and a dangerous and bloody fight broke out. The entire celebrations meant to welcome me turned into an agony between life and death. I managed to escape with my baby that very night leaving the whole home in dangerous fights. I picked a night coach for Kampala and by 5 in the morning; I was in the city connecting back to my home Kabale. I reached home safe, but cursed myself and promised never to again to cross Karuma to the North in search of love. The next day he also arrived in Kabale.He pleaded to my parents to allow him take me back promising that I would be safe. They said never. He wanted the child from me, but it was still too young and the law could not allow. He gave up and we have never met again. But nature is such a powerful component of our life; with its own controls. I was now a big mother who had tasted f sweet pain at length. It was not easy to forget easily. I started feeling again like I needed someone to give me that special touch. The next man to come into my life was a security personnel who was guarding some industrial installations within Kabale town. He had no wife and no child. This one was from Soroti.He told me his tribe is called the Kumam.I had to be honest and excuse myself; for sure at that time, I did not know there was a tribe called the Kumam in Uganda. But love had not only taught me some history but also brought me one of them a loving man. He lived in a simple rented house with one inch mattress-No sauce pan, no chair, almost nothing in the house-He had his meals in local restaurants and that was how he lived his life. But surprisingly, he had several bundles of second hand clothes fully packed in the house up to the roof. They were worth millions of money; I asked him how he got them but he was hesitant to tell me the truth. He just said, they are ours. He told me to begin selling them out in markest.We got very good money. I bought a six inch mattress, sofa set, and better things in the house. One day when he came back from work, he was shocked to find the house completely changed-and thought he was lost. But I told him this is still the same house of ours. I used some of the money I got after selling the clothes to buy this things so that our house looks presentable and more comfortably to rest. There was still more money left and many more bundles too. Shortly he was given a transfer to Jinja.He said, it’s expensive to move with all these things to Jinja and told me to sell them off. He went ahead and left me in Kabale because the deadly for reporting to his new station was due. I have an uncle of mine an influential figure in this government. I told him about my husband and the transfer. He got a whole Fuso track, fuelled and gave me the driver. Brought me with all my property up to Jinja where my husband was without spending even a penny. People in the area where he was living were shocked to see the property offloaded from the track for a low paid security guard like my husband. I now had a baby boy with him. I survey the area and discovered several strategic business a place where I could continue selling the clothes in Jinja and started off immediately. One day it rained and had problems with transport getting back home from the market. When I finally arrived a bit late. My husband was so bitter and had a different opinion about my excuse for coming late. He told me you have to live, I pleaded that my dear husband since I left this house in the morning, have not branched anywhere. He refused to believe me. I thought it was over, the next day I left for the market; coming back in the evening, I found my luggage outside .He had carried everything of his and taken the child with him. I went to his work place they told me he told them that we had a simple disagreement the previous evening, and then I abandoned for him the child and went away. He even went to police and forged the same statement. I was confused and could not know where to start from. He had used that excuse to carry the boy up to his village in Soroti after having plans to leave the job. During the good times, he had directed me his village in Soroti.I boarded from Jinja till I reached at night. I got him and the son in the village. His family members got involved and reconciled us. He had taken all the money we had got from the clothes from the house. He had spent all the money he came with and we had nothing left. Adapting to the environment between Kabale and Soroti was very difficult for me and my son. But for the sake of love for my husband and my son, I accepted to start a new life with a new beginning in the way it was. I had no more money to do business and no job. I went to some school and the headmaster told me that with your O’level standard you can teach lower primary classes. He employed me to teach p4 and 5 .He paid me some money per month. This changed our life in the home for the better and the boy became healthier. I had an exciting experience teaching youngsters and loved my job. His family members turned. They told my husband that your wife is now teaching, she’s going to be wiser than you because she has a job and she will be the one to decide how things go in the home. They said if you lose authority you will not be a man enough. They told him to marry another lady from his own Kumam tribe. They made sure they brought for him a girl up to home. I did not resist and accepted to stay with my co-wife. But my husband started mistreating me and beat me often telling me to leave his home. I have left with my baby staying with a friend. I want to find means of getting money; just enough to transport me back to Kabale.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 10:55:10 +0000