Mbekeka makes bricks from her wheelchair

A man helps Mbekeka at the brick-making site.

We reached Florence Mbekeka’s home in Namusera, Wakiso District, at 11am. An unswept, bushy compound with overgrown trees welcomed us. The only window on the house was almost falling off its hinges and the roof was almost flying off.

Mbekeka had not yet gotten out of the house and there was no sign of any meal being prepared for the children (about three) who all seemed below five years old.

She slowly crept out of the stuffy and messy sitting room, which also acts as the cooking area, to the doorway to welcome us after a notification from one of the children identified as Nsubuga, who looked to be seven years. Nsubuga, like his siblings, had uncombed hair, wore dirty torn clothes, and walked barefoot. Their feet had been invaded with jiggers and carried wounds.

Forty two-year-old Mbekeka is a widow with eight children. Although she is crippled, she manages to take care of her six sons and two daughters by laying bricks, as she shares.

Disability strikes
“My life has been challenging since childhood. I was born normal but when my parents separated and my father married another wife, my life changed,” she says.

At three years, Mbekeka got sick, was treated and felt better but when she was taken home, she fell sick again and this time she could not walk.

“My lower limbs got paralysed. Whenever I was taken to get treatment or be prayed for at Church, I would walk for some distance but when I returned home, I would fall and could not walk again,” she narrates.

Her parents did not seek further treatment or find out what was crippling her. She believes they did not care about her because she was handicapped.

“Since then, I would crawl to reach for whatever I wanted. I was never liked at home. One day, my sister got sick and my stepmother brought a witch doctor to cure her. He tricked my family to go and fetch water as part of the cure and when they all left the house, he raped me.”

She conceived from the incident. “I could not tell my family because they would not believe me. I was seen as an outcast but I could not terminate the pregnancy.”

Getting married
Three years after she had given birth, she got married to a man with who she lived with for 25 years.

“This man was my liberator. A lady who stays in Wakiso town offered him this place and house to take care of the surrounding land, from which we have been making bricks,” says the mother of six.

Unfortunately, the house is almost falling in, the roof leaks and the couple has never tilled the land since they were only given the house and not the land.

“We worked and catered for the children together with my husband but when he died, life became more challenging. I am able to feed the children by the mercy of well-wishers who sometimes pass by and drop us something to eat.

“My husband did not fall sick. We just woke up and he was no more. I gave birth to 13 children but only eight are alive. I am not able to send all the children to school. Only one (Nsubuga who is in Primary one) goes to school.

How she does it
I hire some people to arrange and burn the bricks at Shs25,000 every day and we are able to make Shs4,000 to Shs6,000 bricks and after burning, sell each at Shs130.
Initially, I used to sell cigarettes and sugarcanes. I would send a boda boda rider who would stock and bring them here but there was little profit, so, I thought of going on with the business that I used to do with my late husband.

“My first time to see her was when I came to visit my sister here in Wakiso. Her husband would fetch water and lay bricks and she, with the children would help out,” narrates Justine Kaye who has known Mbekeka for seven years now.”
She adds that, “Even able-bodied women - and some men - may not be able to do her kind of job because it requires a lot of energy.

“Without anything in form of an inheritance from her late husband, she still manages to survive from making bricks. I think she is an extra-ordinary woman.”

Mbekeka tips
“If you are committed, the bricks can help you earn money but the problem is that the people who buy them cheat me. They can sometimes load 1500 bricks but lie to me that they are 1000 so I make losses.

From the bricks, I have been able to send four of my children to school and I spend shs 320,000 for their school fees every term.

My challenge is that in the dry season when there is no rain, it becomes very expensive for me because I must buy the water.”