
I was born in 1994. I am told both my parents were drunk at the time I was born and there were rarely sober throughout the pregnancy. My parent’s house is part of the homestead in grandpa’s compound so our home is less than half a kilometre from grandpa’s house. My father was the first in a family of six children. He was the first graduate in the village and I am told that as he ascended in education, people in the village followed up his education story; and they were convinced that he was going back to transform their lives.
As he studied the more, he also started travelling to other countries and the village found it very impressive. He drove his first car home the day after he graduated from the University of Nairobi. Multitudes of people congregated at my grandfather’s home just to greet him and they were all invited to the graduation party, which was thrown later that evening. According to my grandma, Nana, the event was a village affair, people carried all sorts of gifts, in form of food
and others volunteered labour.
According to Nana, my dad was a big deal. Shortly after the big ceremony, he left for Kampala where he was employed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later posted to the United Kingdom in the Ugandan Embassy. He was his parents’ gem. He remained the gem, until he married my mother.
My mother came from the neighbouring village, Pakoi. She was a grade 5 teacher and a seasonal drinker. Nana says she did not approve of the marriage but she was not listened to. The couple took a little bit of time without children, which must have exerted a lot of pressure on them. The few times Nana visited them in London she was not happy with the family status, and she describes the home as a battle ground.
Five years down the road, mum got pregnant. Dad was transferred back to Uganda to a position, which was lower than the one he held in London because he was reported to be drinking excessively. My mum drunk even more. Back in Kampala, mum was not working, she was pregnant, and she would spend time at home. After a series of family meetings, in trying to bring peace between my parents, my mother confessed that the pregnancy had turned her into a miserable drunkard.
The day I was born, Nana was already in my parents’ house to receive her first grandchild, and so was my maternal grandmother. My mother was driven to the hospital; unfortunately she had bottles of liquor in her bag. The two grandmas had grown tired of talking about the drinking habit and she was simply being tolerated. She had a normal delivery and I was named Mercy.
My father died four years later in a road accident. He was drunk and his car was knocked down by another motorist, who was in the same state of mind.
My mother moved to the village around six months later. “She must have been frustrated,” Nana says.
My mother turned into a woman who drunk anything alcoholic. She always came home late in the night and her arrival was always announced by her noise. She would shout right from the bar, which was about to three kilometres away from home. This would be hours after midnight and she would shout through the quiet night as she addressed her unsolicited speech to those who she knew hated her, those who bewitched her etc. She did this every night. I was lucky to have been picked up by Uncle Joe.
I was studying from a school near home. My mother was, and still is well known in the village. They call her Jamero, my mother tongue for drunkard. In addition to staying up till late every night, waiting for my mum to come staggering into the house, I would listen, like the rest of the village, to her late night rants which were usually insults to her haters, whose names she would sometimes give and sometimes about her sexual escapades and other things that would be on her mind. I can’t explain what it felt like at school the next day when I would find my peers retelling what my mother said then turn to me for a comment since I was Nyiri janmero (a daughter of a drunkard) as they referred to me. She was a good mother when she was not drunk. She made good meals, she would clean, knit and spend time with me. And then she would head back to the bar.
By the time I turned 10 years old, I had turned into a mini adult.
I knew that she loved me; one minute she was showering me with compliments, the next minute she was screaming, swearing and throwing things at me. I felt I couldn’t do anything right and that I was never good enough. On some level, a big level, I felt I caused her drinking.
Alcohol transformed her into a loud, angry, aggressive, violent, abusive and destructive person. She would scream at the top of her lungs about ridiculous things or things that had nothing to do with me or her parents, or even the neighbourhood. She’d throw things across the room. She would hit me. She would take off for days. I would fear she was dead. And most memorable, she would say the cruelest, hurtful things. The hurtful words were far more impactful as they echoed in my mind and scarred me.
In tears, I would close myself in the house and plead to God to make her change, but she became worse. On the final day of my first school term, I was approaching home from school and I saw my uncle’s car in the compound. He had come to pick me up. Together with Nana, Uncle Joe had managed to convince mum to let me stay with his family. She went to the bar that night and came back towards day break, this time she was insulting Nana and Uncle Joe for conniving into taking me away from her. Her talk that night made me feel guilty that I was leaving her behind; I worried about her.
I was a loner. Even in my uncle’s house I would spend some time by myself, worrying. It all would get more uncomfortable whenever the household would receive visitors from our village who would refer to me as the daughter of a drunkard or even share current and ugly stories about mum in my face.
As I joined my mid teen years, I grew to be a perfect rule following child. I was the oldest child in the household and I would occasionally be the one to take care of the other children and I would also carry out house chores. I performed my duties well but I also was a very insecure young woman. I was sexually abused by my math teacher often, who, I think, saw all my insecurities and took advantage of them. I have never told anyone. After my first two years at university I started drinking. Alcohol seemed to temporarily fill a vacuum inside me. I would still feel empty and horrible, following rebukes from our chaplain and a few friends, I stopped the habit and changed friends.
I am now a fresh graduate, I visit mum almost every weekend just to make sure she is okay. It is sometimes very depressing. She looks so old and pale, she still drinks, she still shouts her thoughts for the whole village to hear. Nana still gets depressed by her character