I am Mai from Mbale. I am 17 years.

When mother past away, I had to be strong for my father. the past two weeks had been hard on him. He grew abnormally quiet. Late in the nights when he thought everyone was asleep, he would sneak out of the house and find a place to cry. I told him we would get through this together. I sat with him on the nights he cried and made sure he had something to eat.

A few weeks later my father’s behavior drastically changed. He seemed to have gotten over my mother’s death but there was something strange about him that I could not quite place a finger on. He became easily irritable and did not want to see anyone near him, including me. When I greeted him in the mornings he did not respond.

One night he returned home so drunk and came banging at our door.

Fearing that he might wake the rest of the children, I jumped out of bed and opened the door. He asked me who I was. I did not respond. He demanded I answer his question. I told him I was his daughter Mai. ‘Wrong’ he said, ‘you are not my daughter. You are a bustard who I out of kindness decided to bring up for 17 years. Say thank you and leave my house first thing tomorrow morning.’

Father staggered to the living room and continued to sulk about so many things most especially on how mean the world was to him and about us -the burden my mother had left him.

As I drifted off to sleep, my only consolation was that I knew my father too well. In the morning, he would realize he was in the wrong and apologize (Father never said sorry but he could act it and you would know he was sorry).

The next morning he stormed into our room and told me that he was leaving but when he returned that evening he should find me gone.

When he returned, I was still there. I would stand my father’s insults and beatings but I was not going to leave my siblings alone. They needed me.

Then my father did the most unexpected of things, he abandoned us. On top of denying me paternity and school fees, he denied us food and stopped coming home. Many days of going without food put us in a desperate state. I had no job and feeding 6 siblings daily with various other needs was not easy. I could not beg any more the neighbors were tired of the daily begging knowing that my father was capable of providing for us. Yet he preferred to drink.

A woman in the neighborhood advised me to visit one of MIFUMI’s partner organizations, DRIDA. DRIDA together with the clan elders summoned my father.

I think the counseling MIFUMI offered him worked.  My father returned home one day and apologized for abandoning us. I am back in school and currently pursuing my Advanced Level certificate of education.

Life can never be the same without mother but father is trying to learn to live without her.

Thank you MIFUMI and DRIDA for bringing father home where he belongs.