New Vision (Kampala) - October 29, 2006
Harriette A. Onyalla, Kampala

After her birth, Kemigisha's mother abandoned her. Kemigisha was left in the care of her grandmother whom she grew up calling mother.

But in primary five, the aging woman sent Kemigisha to her mother who had then married and was living in Ntungamo. Kemigisha would have loved to live with her grandmother forever. For her, home was where her grandmother was.

The few times her mother came home, she had not been friendly. As her grandmother put her on the bus, the little girl was frightened. She wanted to cling onto her grandmother's clothes and weep. Instead, she climbed onto the bus gallantly.

In the bus, she sat by the window, her thoughts as fleeting as the trees flying past. The only thing that made sense was the milk bottle her grandmother had packed for her and a paper bag containing all her earthly belongings, which she clung to. she also clung to the thought that her grandmother wouldn't send her away unless she had to.

That is how Kemigisha entered a fresh chapter of life. To any 10-year-old girl, the next two years could imprint a page of rejection and Kemigisha was just a normal child.

As soon as she completed primary seven, her mother got rid of her. She wrote a long letter and sent Kemigisha off to her father. Kemigisha had never met her father but she had heard people whispering behind her back about him.

"People would wonder why my grandmother didn't take me to my father. They used to say that my father is rich," Kemigisha says.

But Kemigisha's problem was not riches. After being shunned, all she needed was acceptance. She was terrified about going to her father's home. She had heard about bus accidents where people die, as she sat in the bus to Bushenyi, she prayed silently that the bus would crush.

"But I kept on wondering where I would be buried or if my mother would bother to come and find my body. I wondered if my grandmother would ever know that I had died," she says. She blinks rapidly but tears cling to her long jet-black eyelashes.

Her instincts had been right about coming to her father's home. Nobody wanted her there. Her father tried but he could not antagonise his wife. So his family had a field day making sure Kemigisha did not forget that she is a 'bastard'. "That thing really hurt me. Everybody called me a bastard," she says, a distant streak in her voice.

In her father's home, Kemigisha was nobody, but the household found use in her as a maid. Kemigisha is the oldest child of her mother but the youngest child of her father. Dawn found her hard at work, dusk found her hard at work. At 13, she was the first to wake up in her father's household and the last to go to bed.

"Why did they talk things which only hurt?" she wonders. "I was the youngest child but I wasn't allowed to play. I also wanted to play like other children so I would do my work quickly but they always found something else for me to do."

Kemigisha has beautiful white eyes. But behind them, there seems to be a storm, which she is fighting to calm.

Her father's insult was the last straw. Kemigisha recalls him towering over her and saying, "A child enters the home through the bedroom and not through the gate."

She did not answer him. What would she have said, anyway? Inside her, a floodgate crushed open. It was one thing for her father to remain quiet as her stepmother and her children abused her. But it was another thing for him to join them.

Kemigisha used to feel deserted, but now, she felt all alone. She remembered her grandmother's rough hands doing every little task for her with love.

The next day, Kemigisha fled back home. Home? Yes, to her grandmother. Ironically, the 10-kilometre walk to her grandmother's home was the longest and shortest in Kemigisha's young life. She hurried. Pain was of no consequence.

As soon as Kemigisha narrated her ordeal, her grandmother's happiness died. Kemigisha could not stomach the announcement that her grandmother was sending her back to her father. She begged her not to but the old woman was firm.

In May 1999, Kemigisha fled again. She boarded a bus to Kasese where her school friend, Shivan lived. But nine months after her arrival, the unthinkable happened. She was raped! Her world came crumbling over her. A world that was too small. She had no other place to run to. On December 23, Kemigisha fled yet again.

Her father's home was bad but at least she had not been told outright to leave. Her beloved grandmother had said so, but in her own soft ways. Her mother had been more pointed and her stepfather had made his point clear. So back to Bushenyi she headed. Her father sneered every time he set eyes on her. His family descended on her, their tongue lashing more lethal, but she stayed on. There was nowhere to run, anyway.

"In my heart, I said, if he wants to kill me, he will kill me from here," Kemigisha says. As punishment, her father let her stay out of school for two terms, working relentlessly at home without complaining.

But her father relented during third term and sent her back to school a week to exams. "But I performed well. My father didn't say anything," she says.

In her 'O' level final exams, she got aggregate 29 for the best six subjects. She was then admitted to Katikamu SDA Secondary School. Although one of her stepsisters opposed her joining the school, for once Kemigisha's father stood up for his child.

"Although my father gave his other children sh150,000 for pocket money while I got sh5,000, I didn't mind. But I just don't know where my brains went. I began performing poorly when I reached Senior Six. I hated myself because this gave them what to talk about. I ended up with eight points," she says.

But Kemigisha's father accepted to sponsor her to study at Makerere University on the private sponsorship scheme. However, Kemigisha fell sick. She was admitted in Mbarara Hospital for three weeks. She was suffering from meningitis. The doctor suggested that she take an HIV test, which she did.

The announcement that she was HIV-positive came like a judge's pronouncement of a death sentence. Her stepmother received the news with glee. She spread it in the village with gusto.

"My father said no more school fees. He said I had looked for AIDS so I should sit at home and die. My stepmother's hatred became open. I became a slave.

"I stayed at home for over a year. Then I went to plead with my mother for school fees so I could join any course to get some skills to earn a living. She instead gave me transport to go back to my father. My stepfather warned me never to step in his home.

"It was clear that my education had ended. But I couldn't give up. I came to an uncle in Makindye, Kampala. He allowed me to live in his home for a short time as I looked for a job. The only job I could get was in a casino. I am now living alone and saving for school. I want to do a diploma course at Makerere University Business School. I cannot afford a degree course.

"But I fell sick recently and was admitted to Nsambya Hospital so I used part of my savings. My sero-status makes me desperate to go back to school. I know that when I get bedridden, there will be no one looking after me. I want to study quickly and get a better job. I am already looking for something better to do. Although I work as a cashier, I don't like working in the casino. People do a lot of wrong things there. I'm praying hard that God helps me to find something better to do.

"I have run away from home again, but I advise other girls in my situation that whatever you do, please do not leave home. So long as you are being sent to school, do not mind about the rest. If they punish you by overworking you, work will not kill you.

"I would not have left home again if my dad was going to take me back to school. I wish God could help me to go back to school. Right now, I don't have any way out. My savings will take long to accumulate enough for fees but I'm trying hard. I know I will not succeed without God. I hope He helps me, maybe He will," she says. Kemigisha's story ends.

In short, here is a girl whom life has served with a closed palm, yet to the end, she will struggle to go out in dignity. Will life finally open its palm?

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