“Poverty vaccine!”

By Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka

POVERTY is a disease. One wonders, ‘is poverty contagious?’ Contagious or not, poverty is curable and preventable. In other words, poverty can be immunised against.

Poverty has a vaccine, ‘Poverty vaccine!’ And what is poverty vaccine? Is it effective? The poverty-stricken couple below has an answer (if not testimony) to those questions:

Besides hunger, the desire for essentials of life that uncle Tyson cannot afford accelerates his jealousy imaginations. His wife is pregnant with wishful thoughts!

Their despondent situation is refreshed by continuous destitution. This family mainly depends on water fetched from the neighbour’s ‘muddy’ lagoon. Generous neighbours occasionally grant them some beans to substitute their daily “meal” of water!

The stench of the goat’s dung and urine dominates their unventilated four metre-diameter hut. The ground is covered with dry grass that serves as a bed for Tyson, his wife, children and their goat. His wife’s two tattered and stinking wrappers are used as blankets at night.

The nanny goat that provides them with a litre of milk daily was stolen last evening! Tyson stands behind the hut, looks at the goat’s peg and laments: “God, why? Is this a curse or a test? What have I done wrong?”

The property that Tyson possesses is the quarter-acre piece of land he inherited and a dilapidated grass-thatched hut plus its trifle compound. Inside, there is a dirty basket that is in shreds, a broken pot and another pot cracked on top, a calabash and one three-legged stool.

There are also two yellow but dirty plastic plates, and four filthy tins used as cups. Before the three-legged stool, there is a torn, black goat’s skin, perhaps used as a carpet. Tyson stands outside, leans on his walking stick and contemplates. He often shakes his head as he ponders.

The dark, tall and small Tyson complains of dizziness emanating from the combination of misery, hunger and thirst. Resting his head in his right palm, he stares at his indigent spouse like a dog nursing another!

No body has the guts to chat. Tyson has forgotten how to laugh neither does the word ‘smile’ still clicks in his vocabulary! This is the same story with his wife. It is like funeral here.

Perpetual yawning is this couples’ form of conversation. They console themselves by complaining and blubbering. They impudently accuse each other for being ‘illiterate!’

“If you had gone to school we wouldn’t be suffering this much,” the brown, small and slender Tyson’s wife complains. The puny Tyson listens for a moment before he answers: “Don’t insult me. Why didn’t you study and take good care of yourself? Nonsense!”

Ultimate pangs of hunger trigger off deafening wails of the two vulnerable children. They hug their equally helpless mother for relief! As these infants cry, the mother’s agony is being exacerbated. Tears roll over goose pimples on her cheeks!

Ceaseless grief is observed on the faces of these antagonistic parents like they have lost a relative. The starving wife staggers, especially after breast-feeding! “Thirsty,” she mumbles.

Tyson, a ‘Mukiga,’ one of about 56 tribes in Uganda, warns his Mukiga wife against quarrelling frequently. Whenever his anguished wife craves for meals, Tyson retorts. The vicious circle of indigence fuels this couple’s acrimonious character.

“Husband, at least look for some food please. We are dying of hunger,” the wife begs. “You are a fool. Where do you expect me to get food? I don’t even have a coin and you know it!” Tyson disgustedly barks at his wife.

Outrageous tax collectors storm Tyson’s hut at 6 o’clock the next morning. They furiously accuse him of defaulting graduated tax payment for the last five years! The trembling, speechless Tyson is hustled to police and thrown behind bars.

The haggard Tyson slowly turns and stares up. He murmurs, “Oh God, why do you subject me to this obnoxious life? Why suffer this much? How have I offended you?” Such lamentations seem to have become his daily prayer!

He releases tear drops and grits his teeth! His emaciated wife is left home wrestling with the worsening misery alone! The only clothes she can improvise for her daughter and crawling son are swaddles to wrap around the genitals.

The sun hides behind the horizon. Darkness accompanied by merciless frigid weather engulfs the village. Coldness hits the languishing woman and her children. They rush for some warmth in their ‘dry grass-mattress.’ They taste the test of a sleepless night. Their wrinkled stomachs, full of hunger, are rumbling almost like a buzzing throng of flying bees!

At around 3:00am when digestion is at its climax, they complain of acute and persistent stomach-aches. The perturbed wife, Aaliyah regrets marrying Tyson. “Marrying a poor man is tantamount to falling in a 50-feet ditch! I wish I had died!” She utters out obscene words that are ridiculous to translate here!

As this exasperated woman wishes to die, a swarm of notorious safari ants storm their ‘bed.’ They bite their nude bodies! The children yell like squirrels. The mother grabs them and jumps out of the hut grousing, shaking and scratching the bitten parts.

They seem to be practising ‘break-dance,’ a dance style of early 1980’s! They can’t return inside and slumber. There is ‘no’ candle nor a torch they can use to fight the pathetic insects! Regrets over Tyson’s failure to afford a candle, ferment in their minds. Alas, Tyson spends seven days a week, 30 days a month without earning a coin to save and purchase a candle.

Wearing gloomy faces, the poor family stands outside for the remaining quarter of the night. “Is this witchcraft or a curse from our ancestors?” the irate wife qualms. They quarrel all day. At dusk, they go to bed. Mosquito nets are a myth to these needy villagers.

The malevolent mosquitoes quench their thirst on blood of malnourished children. ‘Nothing for nothing,’ people say. In this respect, perhaps, the ruthless mosquitoes pay ‘malaria pandemic’ to their ‘blood donors’ - after all ‘exchange is no robbery!’

Consequently, the one-year-old baby boy, Jon dies after two days of sickness. This tot pops off of untreated malaria! The groaning four-year-old daughter, Joan, wets her bed daily with tears and mucus! She is on the verge of death over the odious diarrhoea and malarial pains!

The death of Jon hurts Aaliyah like a toothache. She tries to find anything to sell off for a penny to save her remaining child. She desperately ‘filches’ hens from the neighbourhood.

Unfortunately, vigilant villagers nab her in the act! They flog her as if they are killing a venomous snake! “We must kill this bandit! She humiliates our village,” a stout, bare-chested herdsman remarks. They whip Aaliyah’s back with huge fresh stems of cassava plants.

“Don’t kill me, my ‘sons!’ It’s poverty…!” Aaliyah pleads, raising bleeding arms to shield her brown face from more injuries. The mob continues clobbering her until one bypassing Reverend intercedes, “Forgive!” The punishers abandon her. Rev. Tom lugs to her home.

Subsequently, she uses dry banana fibres to swathe profusely bleeding bruises. The beatings and injuries are her supper this memorable evening! After healing a week later, she sells off the small compound in front of their hut at Sh0.2m (about US$100). She goes to bail Tyson, who has spent a month moaning from prison.

She bribes the prison authorities with Sh153,000 (about US$76.5) before they release Tyson. She uses the balance of Sh47,000 (about US$24) to buy drugs for her malaria-stricken child. They remain with land only enough to accommodate their hut.

Life goes on for three weeks. Soon after, a thief breaks into one of the neighbours’ houses using an axe and robs all property. Tyson, a blatant slave of poverty, is the prime suspect! The next morning, five-armed policemen and residents besiege his hut.

Tyson comes out and glares at the cops in an open-mouthed fright. “What have I done this time? Please, give me a break,” he says. “You are under arrest,” the policeman declares. Though innocent, Tyson is re-arrested and taken to serve six years in jail!

A fortnight elapses, the pregnant ‘grass-widow’ starts walking with her daughter to Kampala! She walks for about 30 miles per day until she is done with 163 miles! Fortunately or unfortunately, she has no baggage. She only carries her daughter.

She goes begging for food and water. Some sympathisers give some milk to her child. Others offer her food or leftovers. Some chase her away! On the fourth day, it rains before Aaliyah takes shelter in a brick-kiln beside the road. The next day, she reaches Kampala, limping.

Aaliyah’s feet are swollen like she has elephantiasis! One rich man sees her seated on the pavement on William Street. He calls her but she hardly walks. He comes close to her. “I am going to help you,” he says, hauls her to his green Jeep, then drives home.

She tells him her misfortunes. He consoles her, “Life is a process. I’m going to help. The maid I had, left. You are going to replace her and your story will be different.” Aaliyah sheds tears of joy! She smiles and kneels.

“You are my saviour. Thank you!” she appreciates. “You are welcome,” the benevolent rich man, James Mafabi responds. He buys some liniment for healing her feet. After recovering, Mafabi employs her as a maid.

She wears a non-diminishing smile to pilfer more sympathy from the wealthy Boss. Aaliyah works hard like a donkey. Nine months later, Aaliyah delivers a baby-girl from the tycoon’s home! She works for two more years. Mr. Mafabi gets confidence in this committed lady.

He buys her a plot, a crossbreed Friesian cow and its calf. He also gives her transport back home. Aaliyah returns home – smiling this time! She commences selling 12 litres of milk to vendors, everyday.

Three years after, Aaliyah has ameliorated the stature of her formerly nauseating home. Her first daughter is in primary two and the baby is healthy. They smoothly snooze in their own three bed-roomed semi-permanent house, roofed with iron sheets!

A year later, Tyson is released from prison. He finds his healthy wife rearing four exotic cows. “Whose house is this? And whose cows are those? Did you marry another man?” the stunned Tyson asks. His wife narrates everything. Tyson becomes mystified over the way his genius wife transformed her lifestyle.

Tyson gets vexed over his failure in life. He is too ashamed to celebrate his acquittal! He plans to go and scout for a job in Kampala. His wife gives him transport. Fortunately, a tycoon in Ntinda employs him as a night watchman.

He works hard, yearning to unshackle himself from the chains of penury that can’t let him laugh – or even smile. After toiling for seven years, smart Tyson returns home with a big bundle of cash. He amalgamates his money with his wife’s. They buy two acres of land and begin rearing: chicken, ducks and turkeys and pigs.

A year after, the couple starts supplying eggs, birds and pork for the hotels in the environs! Tyson, the neediest man in the entire village about 1.5 decades back, has turned a celebrity on the same locality! He has built a beguiling tiled bungalow.

The house his wife built is occupied by porters. He has 40 exotic cows and 200 Boer goats in his 53-acre farm, fenced with a wire mesh! Besides, Tyson drives a magnificent Mercedes Benz! His neighbours now call him, ‘Mr. Money.’ Indeed, Tyson, 40, is a millionaire at Ruharo, Mbarara in south-western Uganda.

Tyson’s neighbours are mystified over his wealth: “Was he bewitched or cursed? Was it carelessness or ignorance that had subjected him to intricate tribulations?” says Tyson’s neighbour, John, who seldom offered him some beans.

Asked about how he succeeded, Tyson scratches his bald head, points a finger at my face and claims, “I am allergic’ to journalists!” He says, “Anyway,” and weaves a puzzling statement: “A lot of ugly waters have passed under the bridge!” He then asks a mysterious question, “Is suffering a lesson to us? I’m leaving that question to you, young man!” “This question is a riddle,” I reply. He stares at me, nods and says, “Life is a riddle!”

“Yes, ‘life is a riddle,’” his wife, Aaliyah, chips in. “Severe suffering is not the end of life. Patience, though it pains, pays!” she says. Aaliyah, in her late 30’s, believes that stringent suffering enriches the sufferer’s reasoning capacity.

She explains, “Poverty is a disease transmitted by ‘laziness, ignorance and hopelessness.’ One can be immunised against it by the ‘poverty vaccine.’ The ingredients of this vaccine are: ‘hard work,’ ‘knowledge’ and ‘faith!’” Poverty is a disease!”

Ends.
Word count: 2,101.