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Kekikatu is 100 and counting
Celebration. Kekikatu is a centurion. Photos/Perez Rumanzi.
What you need to know:
- Longevity. Tereza Kekikatu used to till her land to educate her children. She celebrated her 100th birthday this year and tells Perez Rumanzi about her life.
Clad in a snow white dress, two women walk side by side of an elderly woman as if to support her. She stops and stares sternly at them.
Noha owabagira ngu munkwatirire, nimbasa kwetambuza (loosely translated “who told you to support me yet, I can walk by myself).
She finally bends her knees and with the support of her walking stick sits on a mat near the house.
“I feel younger than 10 years ago. Previously, I felt like I was growing older every minute, but not anymore. The only challenge is that I no longer work, I wait for my children to give me money to buy home basics. I fear poverty and, when I don’t have money I feel so bad, and almost wish I could get bad to work life,” Tereza Kekikatu notes.
The centurion never attained formal education but, she jokingly remembers when rain caught her up and she took shelter in a classroom, that was the first and last time she ever was at school.
Because she grew up in a marginalised environment, Kekikatu struggled to have her children educated. She tilled land and made local gin to pay her boys’ school fees.
“I realised it would be an end of the illiterate generation if I took my children to school. Our (Rev) Father (a Catholic priest) used to tell us that education was the key to a better future,” she notes.
The mother of 16 of whom four are alive is still astute, can tell stories and jokes.
One of her sons Quillino Bamwine is the Honorary Consular General, Kingdom of Eswatini to Uganda. The other children are spread across various government departments and business world.
Her children testify of how she worked hard to see them get better despite having a father who was never as supportive. Kekikatu says, she never took photos in her heydays because it was a luxury of the rich.
Born in December 1922 in Rwera Village, Kitashekwa Parish Rweikiniro Sub-County Ntungamo District, she was named Kekikatu by her parents after the episode of mass vaccination of the animal herd in Kigezi and Ankole by Ntarushokye, a Mukiga veterinary medic. The immunization was aimed at ending the spread of nagana and anthrax which had wiped almost 80 per cent of the herd.
People in the region thought it was because of the syringe size that the animals died and they referred to it as Ekikatu kya ntarushokye. This is one of the incidences that closed the Word War I that is remembered by most elders born at that time.
She was baptised five years after her birth at the foundation of the oldest Catholic Church in Ntungamo, Rwera which was in her neighbourhood and named Tereza (Theresa).
Her elder sister Josephina Kebitaka, who is three years older, still lives and looks younger than her sister.
“God chose to keep us alive to hand down the stories to the young ones. Who else can think a woman of my age should be living, seeing and talking? I believe it is only by God’s will,” she remarks.
Kekikatu says she loves sharing the little she has, gives the vulnerable and to church as a sign of thanksgiving. She likes keeping in company of people and her neighbours near her home so that they hold conversations.
“I have eaten all kinds of food, seen all things and been both happy and sad. Above all, I have lived a full life my son. Now, I love to see other people happy and whenever I have money I want to share with them so that they take their children to school, or feed well and to give to the church,” she says.
Tereza Kekikatu, her sons and grandchild on her 100th birthday in Ntungamo District.
Diet
Kekikatu feeds on unique diet.
“Our mother does not like food, she says she wants to cook by herself, claiming that the food we cook is bland. She takes mainly porridge and waragi. She does not take flavoured waragi, she wants premium. We have tried to wean her off waragi, but she insisted that it is her survival. Even then she believes she was the first person to make waragi in Uganda thus cannot abandon it,” Bamwine says.
While she occasionally eats local foods, her handlers says she prefers drinking to eating.
She is vegetarian.
“I have never taken dairy products, beef, mutton, pork or chicken,” she adds.
Kekikatu raised her children in poverty as reminisced by Bamwine.
“We lived in a small grass-thatched house, which used to leak whenever it rained and we would be drenched that at times we would run out to take shelter in the trees at night. However we had a big chunk of land and a banana plantation which we tilled to raise school fees and our other needs,” he recollects.
Kekikatu’s sons excelled in school and attracted bursaries in secondary school which enabled them to study further. Only four of her 16 children are still alive namely; Bamwine, David Rwomushana, Dominic Tumwebaze and Ponsiano Barigye.
“I think one of the reasons our mother has lived this long is because she never interrupted her system with birth control. Also, tilling for much of her life was exercise enough,” Bamwine opines.
Health
Kekikatu had never gone to hospital for medical attention until recently when she started suffering from old age-related ailments. However, these are mainly managed by diet and physiotherapy with the family employing a personal physiotherapist.
“She complains of bodyaches, especially shoulder bones, maybe because she used to do labour-intensive and physically strenous work during her young age. She did had at first resisted the idea of physiotherapy but she still loves her life,” Bamwine notes.
Free time
Much of her pass time is on TV where she watches soap operas and other dramas, music and says she enjoys Sheba Karungi’s music so much. Without the aid of spectacles, she beads, weaves mats neatly.
At the beginning of this year, her family organised a big birthday party which was attended by the who is who in the country. Holy Mass to celebrate her birthday at Bamwine’s home in Rwera, Ntungamo District was presided over by Kampala Archbishop His Grace Paul Ssemogerere. Among the guests in attendance was Austrian ambassador to Uganda, Minister for Foreign Affairs Okello Oryem, deputy Attorney General Jackson Kafuuzi.
David Rwomushana, one of the sons, described Kekikatu’s life as a breakthrough.
“It’s just a miracle that our mother still lives, there is nothing special about her life. People with much money have passed on at a young age, she has survived many things. I believe God has wanted her to do some greater things,” he says.
OTHERS SAY:
In a booklet for her birthday, journalist Alex Atuhaire, a nephew wrote;
• “While many younger people in Uganda remember Idi Amin regime, the NRA bush war, and most recently, Covid-19 pandemic as some toughest events in history of Uganda, Kekikatu survived world wars, the Great Depression, severe plagues and Aids epidemic among others that claimed many lives in her early life.”
• Dr Gaston Ampe, a family friend, acknowledged a life well-lived despite hurdles of poverty.
• Anthony Byaruhanga, a former teacher and politician, says Kekikatu has been a referee for many years. Her zeal to educate children, till her garden and faith have been a great inspiration.
