Farmer to Pharmacist

understanding of his journey.

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Looking back at my life it feels surreal that I am now living a life beyond my wildest dreams. From that statement, you may think that I am a rich millionaire. I’m not. However, I do feel very rich and as I tell you my story perhaps you will understand why.
My journey begins in a small village in Uganda called Kabaseke. This was the place I spent the first ten years of my life. My mother, a young village girl at the time, gave birth to my sister and I before she was eighteen. Unable to provide for two young babies, she left us with my father. He was a much older man with a family home he shared with my stepmother and my half brothers and sisters.
My father was a very promiscuous man and in line with local custom, each woman that he got pregnant would bring the child to his marital home for him to look after. Most of the women did not have much and leaving their child with the father was often the best choice. By the time I came along, my stepmother had been through this process of strange women bringing children born out of her husband’s extra-marital affairs several times.

Six months after giving birth to me, my mother was thrown out by my father from his marital home at the age of eighteen. Without anything to her name and two young babies aged ten months (my older sister) and six months (me);, she was asked to leave. Faced with the lack of financial security and with nowhere to go with two young babies, my mother made the tough decision to leave us with my father. He was rich and had the means to at least provide food and shelter for my sister and I. She made the hard decision to leave in the hope that one day she will return for us. As an adult I can understand why my mother had to leave, all the other women were dismissed in a similar manner. For the longest time I was angry that this happened to me, but had she stayed what kind of life would she have been able to provide for me?

Growing up as the youngest of such a large family on my stepmother’s terms was very difficult. I still remember the place I grew up very vividly. The family home was situated on a large compound. On this compound was the big house in which my stepmother and my father stayed along with all my siblings from their marriage. Each of my siblings from my stepmother had their own room in the big house. All the other bastard children, me included, were forbidden from entering the big house unless we had permission. Instead we stayed in the small rooms surrounding the big house. These rooms are referred to as boys’ quarters in Uganda and are often reserved for employed workers that stay onsite. The boys’ quarter rooms were not enough to house everybody so I grew up sleeping in the kitchen. Residue heat from the open fire meant it was always warm in the kitchen; which was fortunate for me as I did not have a blanket to cover me so the residue heat protected me from the cold. My bed was the straw in the kitchen which was often used as kindling to start the fire when it was time for cooking. For a pillow, I used a small rock to prop up my head. I was the youngest of all the children, so with my mother absent, my father uninterested and my stepmother hating the very sight of me; my bastard siblings became my stand in parents. Apart from my sister I was significantly younger than the rest of my half siblings and grew up being pushed around by everybody. Our stepmother was not interested in any of us and only spoke to us to set tasks that she wanted us to complete. I remember her being a cold woman who was the only mother figure I had from the day my mother left. She would often beat me unprovoked and send me to bed with no food. Being young and looking for any...