Uganda’s Unpaid Woman!
The thoughts of
this woman have visited me many times and today I get to talk about it. I get
to say it how I have seen it for the past two years. Since you never said it
before, I suggest you buckle up and listen up.
She is a slave,
but a free slave. She is not your typical woman, not by a long shot. The things
she does can seldom be quantified. She has lost the last dignity she’s been
holding onto since she was young because the society expects….err…. demands so
much from her, 10 times more than they demand from her companion – the man. Despite
showing a happy face, catering to her husband, to her children and to the
society; she cries, but her crying is never heard. Every time she comes home,
Uganda’s unpaid woman is worried because she knows that she is coming home to double
trouble. She is free but she is a slave.
On
instances; she raises her voice high enough on those dark nights albeit within
the confines of her “safe and secure home”, no one comes to her rescue all the
while. Physically and in her mind, she runs like a fugitive. Since getting
married, she has been running and continues to run. I guess her husband can now
tap herself on the shoulder for a “job well done”. She had a home one time, but
she left all that behind to be with her husband…all she asked for was love; she
got slavery.
Seated by the
door one morning, watching her neighbor’s child go to school. Then she thinks
about her child, moving up and down with nowhere to go. Moving barefooted, no
education, no future then she thinks about him….she thinks to herself and
questions her husband in absentia, “If you don’t want children, why do you have
them? All the while, her son’s father is relaxing in the best drinking joint in
the village asking for a refill of the local brew. If you don’t have children,
why do you have them?
On
other instances; she has to give up all the farm produce she has been working
on for half a year. On this instance, she and her son will not get to reap the
sweat of her efforts. Well, it’s the man to reap the benefits since he is the “man”
of the house. She wishes she could drink the local brew maybe then she could
have a taste of her sweat.
In
most cases, the society ties her down with the chains of culture and myths. Nonetheless,
she continues to carry out her tasks, not holding anything against the society
but shedding a tear for her son and all that she has to do as an individual
while society sits back and watches.
She
thinks about her “Beloved husband” and “Beloved Society”, You can go anywhere
you want, You have all the chances on your hands, you can make me cry every
time you want to, you can make me happy if you want to, you can unchain me if
you please – it’s all up to you, not the law”.
Dear God forgive the society leaving, the women have been pushed to the extent of thinking that the world is a prison; it’s like a jail they can never leave, a broken rose giving bloom to the cracks of the concrete.
There are so many other things for them to see, so many things for them to be their history is full of tragedy and misery. In my chest I feel pain for the women who have to live in this life full of rain. I beg God to make a way for the women to breathe, show a sign and make all men believe.
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