Abandoned, stigmatised but still standing tall

Babirye with three of her four children, who she’s struggling to raise alone after her husband walked out on her.

What you need to know:

Annet Luwambo Babirye. Forty-year-old counsellor was told that her hands had to be amputated when she was nine months old. Her parents abandoned her and the world nicknamed her mulema. Yet, she beat it all to complete school, get a job and become a mother of four.

The first time I talked to Annet Luwambo Babirye was on phone to make an appointment to meet her in person. Her voice was loud and lively. Eventually, when we met at Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA) offices in Kamwokya, I noticed Babirye lacks both hands.

As she ushered me into the board room of the FIDA offices, I asked her how she had managed to receive my phone call (without hands).
“Did someone help you?” I asked.
“No one helped me. I received the phone call by myself using the aide of my stumps,” she told me.

Once we sat down, she demonstrates how she did it by using the stumps to pull a phone out of her handbag and thereafter placing it against her left ear. I’m amazed by her ability to do things herself.
The other things she tells me she can do by herself are mopping, cooking, carrying a baby, bathing herself, typing and even writing. To prove her point, again, she pulls out a pen and book and starts writing. The words she writes are neat and clear.

“The only things I cannot do by myself are peeling and carrying heavy items,” Babirye, who is smartly dressed in a blue outfit, says.
"What about shopping for clothes, do you do that by yourself as well?" I ask. “Oh yes. In fact, I go shopping in downtown Kampala and I never try to hide my stumps under long sleeves. The way you see me right now is the way I normally move in town,” she says.

A victim of measles
When Babirye was nine months old, she suffered from measles and was rushed to a nearby health facility somewhere in Bunamwaya before she was later transferred to Mulago Hospital. “My maternal grandmother, the late Anna Nakiwolo, told me that some of the medicine was administered through a drip. A few days after that, both of my hands started rotting and my toes started falling off one by one,” she recounts.

To save her life, the doctors advised that both hands be amputated as well as her toes. “My family had no choice but to follow the doctors' instructions,” she says.

Unable to handle her daughter’s new state, Babirye’s mother abandoned her. Her father had barely been present in their lives even before that. “I hardly know anything about them except for the fact that they named me Babirye because I was born a twin. I’m told my twin brother died shortly after birth,” she says, adding that she has not seen or heard from them to date.

Life with her grandmother
Nakiwolo took on the responsibility of raising her together with eight other cousins at her home in Mutundwe, Kisugula. Nakiwolo worked as a house-help in various homes and used her earnings to look after the family.
“My grandmother looked after me very well. She taught me how to bath and feed myself. When I started getting menstrual periods, she taught me how to take care of myself,” she says. Her cousins helped her as well, save for the times she says they refused to travel with her claiming the journey would not be good for her health.

School and stigma
“One thing I remember that hurt me was when I was joining Senior Five, and the then head teacher of Entebbe Senior School doubted my Senior Four results. She wondered out loud how I had managed to scored 39 aggregates without both hands,” she says. Babirye was eventually let off the hook after the head teacher found her writing by herself during one of the class lessons. Meanwhile, Babirye says most of her school mates were understanding and did not bully her in any way.

“The only people who called me names such as mulema (lame) were people I bumped into as I made my way to and from school. That used to hurt,” she recounts. Babirye resorted to hiding her limbs inside her pockets, wearing long sleeved shirts or sweaters.

“But one time, I attended a disability conference where I saw people in a worse state than mine. I promised myself as I walked out of that seminar never to feel shy or feel bad about my disability,” she recounts. From that time onwards, whenever someone called her mulema, she says she would just continue walking so as not to give them more liberty to provoke her further. Eventually, she got used to the name-calling and it did not bother her anymore.

On her children and estranged husband
In 2000, while at a training workshop in Gulu District, Babirye remembers receiving a phone call from a person who introduced himself as James Kiyingi. “He said I had a very lovely voice and he wanted to meet me in person which was something I found rather strange because I had no idea who he was,” she says. “I ignored him but he persisted with the phone calls.”

After one of her female friends advised her that it was probably time for her to settle down and have her own children, she gave in to Kiyingi’s advances and started dating. It was during this time that she conceived and later gave birth to their first child, now aged 13 years.

“It was a caesarean birth and James was nowhere to be seen through the whole process,” she says. Attempts to reach him on phone remained futile as he was not picking up the calls. Kiyingi eventually showed up a week later. She narrates; “He stayed for some time until I conceived and gave birth to our second child, a girl, who is now 10 years old. Afterwards, he left without any notice.”

Having felt that enough was enough; Babirye called Kiyingi and gave him two options. To either walk away for good or legalise their relationship, an option he eventually accepted. The duo had their introduction and wedding concurrently in 2005. The ceremony was financed by close family members and friends. The happiness was, however, short-lived when Kiyingi abandoned her after the birth of their third child, now aged eight years.

“Again, Kiyingi just left without telling me where he was going. He came back a few years later,” she says.
She took him back again after some of her close relatives reasoned that it would be for the good of her family. Like before, he abandoned them again after the birth of their fourth child, three years old today.

“I have never bothered to call him. I have decided to let him be since he has put me and the children through so much pain. He does not care about us,” she says. Babirye says sometimes, the man’s relatives call to abuse her by referring to her as a curse to the family. “I have learnt to ignore them,” she says. Right now, she says she is focusing on raising and educating her four children. The family stays in a two bed-room fenced house in Bunamwaya.

The 40-year-old says she managed to put up the structure from her savings. Now, topmost on Babirye’s list of wants is bursaries for her children’s education and finding a way to advance her studies.

Babirye’s message to other persons with disablities

• Accept your disability because it will never go away. Let people see you the way you are. Of course, there are those who will talk and call you all sorts of names. Let them. Whenever you answer them back, you are giving them the liberty to provoke you further.
• Do not use your disability as an excuse of going to the streets to beg. Many times, I have seen disabled persons who are not even as badly as me begging on the streets. I never give them anything by the way. If I can work and earn in such a state, how about them?
• Build your own self confidence and esteem. No one else will do that for you.
• Love yourself and always try to be presentable by being smart. Again, do not use your disability as an excuse for being shabby.
• Get a personal counsellor to advise you accordingly whenever you are going through tough times and at the same time, hang around supportive family friends and relatives.
• Find a way of utilising every part of your body for doing something because people are not always going to be there to help you. For instance, I use my mouth and shoulders whenever I can.

Education
Babirye attended Aunt Ssali Nursery School where her fondest memory was using scattered left over chalk pieces to practice writing her name whenever there was no one else in class. She went to St Tereza Primary School in Bunamwaya where she completed Primary Seven. She completed Senior Four at Kitebi Senior Secondary School in Wakulukuku in Kampala District and Senior Six at Entebbe S.S. Babirye later advanced her studies at Makerere International Institute of Environment, Development and Practical Skills where she did a two-year diploma course in environment and Development Studies and graduated in 1997.

Work history
After her stint at Makerere International Institute of Environment, Babirye joined the National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda (NUDIPU) where she worked for a year as a counsellor and trainer. She later joined Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE), where she worked for about six years as a trainer, before moving to Action for Development (ACFODE). In 2005, she joined Send a Cow, a charity organisation that works with African farmers, as social worker until last year. Today, she works as a freelance counsellor based at FIDA offices.