"Pains of pain!"

By Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka.

SHE stinks!

Always alone and miserable. Everyone she approaches for a discussion just frowns the nose and walks away!

“You stink like hell,” one man who is bypassing her at Mbarara High Street, tells her in public! The stench and loneliness have married her at an early age of 14.

She helplessly releases drops of urine wherever she passes. Physicians call this condition, ‘urinary incontinence.’ Her torn, filthy dress is wet at the buttocks. Pairs of flies follow her all over the place. Disgust and hopelessness are clearly read on her gloomy face.

Her self respect and love have been replaced by domestic and public denial and disgrace. Her dark and swollen cheeks are always decorated with tears. “Whenever I look at her tears, mine flow too,” one pedestrian sympathises with her.

“Oh God, what have I wronged you to deserve all this,” she laments, looking at the heavenly clouds. Rumourmongers publicise it that her gall bladder has been damaged in the process of abortion! Doctors call this condition, urinary incontinence.

Asked about her ordeal, the poor girl, only known as Deborah, narrates: “I was in senior three when a 43-year-old stranger defiled me. He is the cause of all this suffering.” Deborah says that the defiler waylaid her on the way from school.

She says she was coming from school in Kampala. She had left Kampala a bit late, at 5:30pm. They reached in Mbarara town at 9:00pm. On her way home to Biafra, she met a stranger between Memory Pub and Makhan Singh Street.

“He seemed to be bypassing; only to hear his hard arms grabbing me. He tore my knickers and raped me!” she reveals. She adds that afterwards, the defiler ran away and she didn’t recognise him.

Deborah goes on: “Besides loosing my virginity, I saw my tummy bulge three months after I was defiled. A month later, Mummy broke the ugly news to Dad. Immediately, Dad disowned me on grounds that it is abominable for a Mukiga girl to get pregnant.”

“This girl has instilled public disgrace in this reputable family. She has disgraced me; the whole Local Council Chairman. She is no longer my daughter. It is a taboo in our ‘Kikiga’ culture for a girl to get pregnant at her father’s home,” the irate father grumbles.

“I didn’t know what to do next. I was confused. I couldn’t afford to look after the baby after delivering it. I decided to abort it. Little did I know that I would ruin my bladder in the process!” Deborah regrets. Asked how she aborted, Deborah says, “I took nine tablets I didn’t understand. Maybe they are the ones that damaged my bladder.”

“Aside from disowning this innocent child, did her parents curse her too? Why can’t they take her for treatment, at least?” Lillian Amaguru, a second-year student of Development Studies at Mbarara University wonders. Her course-mate replies, “Perhaps she is bewitched. Besides, is she HIV free?” “God knows,” Amaguru responds.

She asks Deborah, “Have you gone for an HIV test?” “No,” Deborah replies. Can I give you some sh3,000 and you hire a boda-boda? I mean, take a motorcycle taxi and go to AIDS information centre for a test?” Amaguru shows interest to help.

“No thank you. Even if it is free of charge, I won’t go for an HIV test,” Deborah answers. “Why?” Amaguru asks. Deborah answers, “Do you know how it feels to know that you carry the deadly monster in your blood when you are innocent? I don’t want more misery. The denial, stigmatisation, discrimination and isolation I’m facing are enough.”

“Okay, stop blubbering. Am sorry for suggesting such an emotional idea to you,” Amaguru apologises. Deborah says that even if she went there to know her sero status, still she wouldn’t afford to buy the anti-retroviral drugs in case she tested positive.

“How about treatment? Apart from your parents, do you have any relative who is ready to sponsor the treatment of your bladder?” Amaguru asks Deborah. “No. they all neglected me. They accuse me of playing sex at a tender age. None of them believe my story that I was actually ‘raped,’” she discloses.

“Why can’t you see reverends for assistance? Which religion are you affiliated to?” Amaguru asks. “I am a Protestant. But the leaders in our church don’t know me. I never used to go there. I only used to attend Sunday services from school,” she says, adding that her father doesn’t go to church either. She says that her mother can’t help too.

“Although mummy is still sympathetic with me, she is to poor to foot my treatment bills. Neither can my Dad afford to pay. “Even if I got the money for treatment, it is rumoured that chances are slim to get treatment in Uganda,” Deborah loses hope of survival.

Amaguru counsels Deborah that she could get treatment from Masaka in central Uganda. “There is a doctor I know in Masaka who can treat you at an affordable cost,” Amaguru nurses her despair. “All the same, I can’t afford to pay for that ‘affordable cost’ you are talking about,” Deborah says. She hugs Amaguru and starts crying.

Deborah is the only daughter in a family of two - and the only child alive! Her elder brother died of pneumonia at an age of six. Deborah is lonely now. She has no helping hand. She has no relative, no friend!

The streets and garbage skips are the only relatives and friends she associates with. Her illness has worsened her body weakness. She decides to dodge coldness on the streets and goes to hide in Mzee Tabaaro’s dilapidated kitchen, downtown Mbarara.

Hardly did she know that Mzee Tabaaro’s dogs are ruthless like a wounded lion! As she approaches the kitchen, the eldest dog of the three; jumps onto her thigh and bites it! She screams and limps back to the streets.

“Don’t you think she has rabies? If the dog has rabies, that means she will start barking like dogs and even start biting people too,” a manicurist tells a pedicurist, adding; “Now she hardly walks. How would she move to ‘scavenge’ in the garbage skips around town?”

Food leftovers in the garbage skips can’t satisfy her. She is tempted to steal three oranges from Mbarara central market. The mob arrests her, clobbers her to coma. On resuscitating, Deborah discovers that her right hand is broken!

She yells to the traders: “Just kill me. I don’t deserve to live! I am helpless, homeless and lonely.” She lowers her voice and adds that, “Is this the punishment God has given me for committing murder in the name of abortion?” She wipes her tears with her dirty hands.

Deborah shuns the advice of one sympathiser, Anent Gyimuhe that she should accept Jesus Christ as the redeemer of her miserable life! “Why should I get saved? Take a good look at me. I am gone…” she bemoans. Her eyes become watery again.

She looks more emaciated and fatigued. Her wrinkled stomach is recoiled to the spine. She has been staggering but now she limps. She hates herself. With her disgusting stench, she cries as creeps towards the bushes. She hangs herself on a mongo tree!

Ends.
Word count: 1,212.