“Welcome to my house, but I am not the head of the family,” says Kamaliza Menedora while inviting us into her family’s clay hut. The mother of five children is sitting on a mattress facing her three week old newborn. Suffering from serious pelvis problems she can barely stand up. “After the delivery of both of my youngest children, I had hip surgeries,” apologizes the 39-year-old with a pain-distorted face. “It hurts and I know that it will take years before I will recover from my latest delivery.”
Kamaliza knows what she is dealing with. Back in Burundi she used to work as a midwife and her husband used to be a pharmacist. But that was a long time ago. In 2007, Kamaliza’s family was forced to flee the ethnic conflict. Today, they are more than 14,000 Burundians living in Uganda, a country which has welcomed more than 600,000 refugees from other neighboring countries like South Sudan. In Rhino refugee settlement, Kamilza’s is the only Burundian family. In nearly ten years as refugees we have seen many different camps, have lived in many different houses in Uganda,” mentions Kamaliza. “I am tired. And wherever we are, we always face the same problem. We are a minority and there is discrimination against us. You can see it at water points, I am almost always the last one to fetch.”
But her health condition is something her family is most worried about. After her delivery, she got a CARE dignity kit including a t-shirt, soap and baby cloths but Kamaliza still needs to go to the health facility on a daily basis to get treatment for her wounds. The doctor told her to exercise so that she will be able to walk and move normally again someday. “Sometimes I feel completely useless. But at least I have my husband and my children who support me in washing clothes, carrying jerry cans and doing other daily chores,” explains Kamaliza. “Without them, I wouldn’t have enough time and space to take rest.”
A few months ago, the family got a second mud hut. Like more than 147 South Sudanese families in Rhino refugee camp, Kamaliza’s family received support from CARE through funding from the Czech Republic to build a new home. “We were one of the most vulnerable families who got selected. It made a huge difference. Now, we have two houses one for me and my girls and one for my husband and my boys,” she explains.
But Kamaliza becomes thoughtful as she speaks. As a mother, she wants to be the one who leads the children. “Sometimes it is really hard to see my children doing everything on their own. I can’t even show them how to do dishes, how to wash clothes or how to cook traditional meals. I can just talk and watch them while working,” says Kamaliza with a sad expression on her face.
Since she had her second hip surgery in the beginning of December, Kamaliza is not sure whether she will ever return to her job as a cleaner at the health facility and earn money for her family. Due to her latest delivery the healing process of her wounds will even take longer. “I hope that I will be able to be there for my family again someday. All I want, is to be a good mother, I want to be able to lead my children to the right path and welcome guests as head of the family again.
Media Contact: Ninja Taprogge, CARE Emergency Communications Officer, [email protected], +4915170167497.
Find out more about our work in Uganda here.