Plot 959 Kigombya A, Mukono, Uganda.
ILONA. The Story 2 of our girls
Rejection features very prominently in the lives of our girls. Children can be rejected for a variety of reasons, but in the case of Agnes, (all names are changed to protect their identity), she was rejected because she is a girl.
Many Ugandan tribes have cultural beliefs that value males much more than they value females. When their wives give birth to baby girls in a row, the men believe that these women were created with baby girls and that their chances of giving birth to boys are very slim.
Naomi comes from a tribe in Western Uganda, and was orphaned young, with few chances to attain education or have a fairly good life. While still a teenager she was forced to leave home and start working in the homes of more affluent families, who eventually brought her to the city. Naomi met George who was involved in business in the city and he befriended her and took her to his one room house as a wife. Naomi’s family do not know George because, twelve years down the road, their relationship has never been formalized. Naomi was happy to get her own home, and believed she would be happier than the life she lived as an orphan.
George too was raised by his step-grandmother in the mountainous area of Eastern Uganda near the Kenya border. He didn’t know his mother until he was 25 years of age, because she handed him over to his father when he was two, and she never checked on him throughout his childhood. George’s father died when he was four years old. His grandparents took over bringing him up, but his grandfather died when he was six, and his grandmother died a year later, leaving him in the hands of his grandfather’s second wife who treated him like he was a burden that she found herself with. Though the family had resources to take him to school, she did not bother to push him further in school, telling him often that he was not related to her at all, and that whatever she did for him was not his right, just her kindness.
Naomi soon got pregnant and gave birth to Agnes. She then gave birth to Molly, Francesca, and Kate. By the time Kate was born George was disillusioned and took her and her four daughters and dumped her in a little hut on the same land with his step-grandmother who raised him. He said Naomi was useless because she gave birth to only girls. Naomi soon figured out that the matriarch did not consider them close relatives at all and wanted nothing to do with them, especially if they needed anything from her. Naomi had to grow food to support her girls but never raised enough money to take them to school. When Agnes made five years, she started going around the village with her mother digging in people’s gardens and doing odd jobs to earn money for basic needs like soap, clothes, beddings or medical care. Because she was a child, she learned the language of her father’s relatives much faster than her mother and would act as her interpreter. All attempts to persuade George to send money for the girls’ education fell on deaf ears. “Who takes girls to school?, he would say. Am I crazy? Who educates losers?”
Naomi was depressed most of the time, very far away from her relatives, not that they cared about her that much, but her rejection was worsened by the fact that she was dumped with relatives who never cared about her or her kids, and she did not know the language. Agnes understood the hostility surrounding her, her mother and her siblings and learned to keep her feelings hidden in her heart. She also learned to pretend not to understand the hurtful things said about her mother so that she could listen more and protect her mother and siblings better. But because she was a little bigger, she would take on more casual work opportunities, sometimes without her mother, and so the abuse started. She kept it all to herself, not telling her mother who was already crushed in the spirit and depressed. She did not want to burden her more. Besides, they had nowhere to go.
George would sometimes visit the village, especially if there was a funeral, but he never stayed longer than a few minutes or brought much, especially the money they so badly needed.
One such time when he had come for a burial of a relative, it rained very heavily and he failed to travel back to Kampala. He ended up spending the night. That night Naome conceived. A few months later George got calls from the relatives that his wife had been philandering around and was pregnant. He did not even remember the night it rained and he slept over. He was extremely angry with his wife, and the relatives were even more hostile to her and her children. Naome gave birth to a baby boy. Speculation about the boy’s father was all over the village. One time George arrived unexpectedly in the village, picked up the baby boy from his mother and took him to three different clinics for DNA tests. He brought back the baby and went to stay with other relatives to wait for the results. The results from all the three clinics proved that he was the father of the child. Naome reminded him of the rainy night and he took Naome and the whole family back to his home in the city. But the girls had missed years of study, especially Agnes who ended up in ILONA because she had missed 4 years of school, but also had a lot of emotional baggage.
Agnes is picking up gradually in this safe and loving environment, but her mother is receiving therapy as well. The plan is to invite George into therapy later in the year. He still does not pay school fees for girls. Naome has to do odd jobs to pay tuition for Molly, Francesca and Kate, who attend a government school near their home. Only Agnes attends ILONA center. Baby Simon is almost two years old now, and George behaves like he is the only child he has.
