A struggle to survive against all odds

By Caroline Ariba

COMBING through a hostile and slim path, I trace my way to blind John Okabale’s home in Kapang village, Kacumbala sub-county, Bukedea district. And there he was, under a tree; face up, teeth out, knitting a rope, bit by bit, like his entire life depended on it. His body, immensely frail, covered in tattered clothes, exposing his pale skin. 

His eyes are sunken and his entire bone structure is a picture of severe starvation. His hands look like a worn-out tyre, scratched to the core, and nails so dark and beaten. Determinedly, he blindly completes the rope he is knitting, so he can sell it at sh250. He has just sold one.

His wife emerges from a crowded, tiny hat and sits beside him, her lips look like an open wound, her tiny frame no different from her husband’s. She watches him complete the rope so she can find a buyer and later peruse the trading centre for a vegetable or two.

But it was not like this for this couple when they started out in 1979.

“John was a very handsome man with bright white eyes that melted my heart. In fact, the day I met him, he told me he wanted to marry me and I said yes immediately!” His wife blushingly narrates in Ateso. At the time she met him, he was a successful fishmonger. Okabale recalls that he made 100% profit from fish sales; he was a hardworking, young man with a bright future.

Then one evening as he sat in his compound, basking in the moonlight, he heard voices that turned out to be rebels fighting against NRM. His head was hit with a machete. He awoke the next day at Atutur Hospital to a mist of darkness. The doctors said as a result of the trauma to his head, he had lost his eyesight.

That was the beginning of the end of the happy days for this family. How on earth could he carry on?

The family, with four children, then depended on his wife who would labour in people’s gardens for daily meals. She toiled until a strange illness attacked her a few years later.

Her lips started cracking and bleeding, her bones hurting and she could barely stand under the sun without feeling like she was on fire. Visits to the local hospital have proved fruitless, yet she has no means of seeking more medical help.

The couple needed a means of survival, so Okabale stepped in. “I asked my wife to escort me to the bush to cut wild thatch and pick me when I was done.” e family, with four children, then depended on his wife who would labour in people’s gardens for daily meals. She toiled until a strange illness attacked her a few years later.

Her lips started cracking and bleeding, her bones hurting and she could barely stand under the sun without feeling like she was on fire. Visits to the local hospital have proved fruitless, yet she has no means of seeking more medical help.

The couple needed a means of survival, so Okabale stepped in. “I asked my wife to escort me to the bush to cut wild thatch and pick me when I was done.” 

He continued to help his wife whenever he could because his sickly wife could not even blow firewood due to her hurting lips. 

Sadly, thatch in Teso got extinct. That was how he wound up knitting ropes.

“Each rope should go for at least sh400, but people know that we need the money badly for the daily meal, so sometimes they pay less,” Okabale says. 

He makes three to four ropes a day and when it gets bad, his wife braves the sun to labour for an extra sh1,000 or sh2,000.

When their daughters got married, they were given two cows that their son used as bride price to marry a woman who fled shortly. Their son, who they say left for Jinja as a casual labourer, does not help them much. 

Today, the couple struggles to pay fees for their youngest son who is sitting S4 this year. The young boy must walk close to 10km to Kongunga High school every day with almost nothing in his belly, as the parents cannot afford the sh42,000 needed per term for food at school. 

Okabale has not paid the sh87,000 needed for the boy to sit his exams. When he thinks about his plight, Okabale’s son almost always breaks down in tears. He wants to study, but what can he do? His mother suffers a strange illness; his father is a broken, blind 70-year-old.