Mainstory: A wife at every stop: A tale of long distance life

What would you do if a woman turned up at the burial of your husband with kids claiming to have a share in his properties? Stephen Tumusiime finds out? You must have heard or seen it. The long distance drivers who marry wives at every stopover. They buy all sorts of gifts to these women and use money to lure them. They spend most of their time on the road; sometimes forgetting their wives back home. They produce many children obviously not known by the other official woman at home. But when death strikes, the secret falls a part. On her husband’s burial, Sarah Kembabazi weeps. Cries for the only husband she had in life but who had just passed away. Besides her, there are three children she bore with the deceased. The kids are playing around unable to relate what is happening. They occasionally look at the coffin and giggle.The mother looks at the kids and cries even more. The relatives are in deep sorrows. Abraham (not his real name) dies of an accident while driving a heavy truck from Mombasa to Kigali. He has homes both in Rwanda and Uganda. But his official home, where Kembabazi stays is in Uganda. Relatives and friends are dropping in. All are in a devastated state. They weep and mourn. It’s a sorrowful state as they wait the burial day. But as pitiful moments pass on, while silence dwells and pain cling on the family members, a more disastrous thing sets in. Drama sets in at the funeral when one woman, equally in grief comes on the scene. No one knows her at the funeral. But she is escorted by a friend who is comforting her. “Please Harima stop crying. All is well and God knows you and how he is going to take care of you.” From the consoling words, people at the funeral get confused. One asks, “God knows you and will take care of you! What does that have to mean?” A friend tells, “I think I have started smelling a rat. I know almost all of his relatives and I doubt this is one of them.” “No, no, he can’t just die. Not now. Who knows me in his family? I have his kids and people around here do not know anything about it.” Everyone at the funeral changes attention to the sobbing woman. Two women join the one who held her firmly. They lead them to a small room. “I am his wife too. He has been paying for my rent and I have his kids,” she reveals. The echoes of her lamentations run faster and in seconds the official wife Kembabazi gets to know. Friends say Kembabazi wiped her tears off her eyes and was set for more trouble with women who would want to claim anything on what her husband had left. Later on, instead of weeping for the deceased, the two start quarrelling over property as both had bore the deceased kids. What becomes more amazing is when a second or third woman appears. She claims that she also has a child with the deceased and the kid must also have a share of his property. Sarah who knew she had a well built family that her husband at least built and some other valuable assets ended up agreeing to share some with the other children of her husband and remained with insufficient assets. Long distance drivers live a life of this tale. As they drive long distances, they make so many stopovers. But on these stopovers, they have a social life they lead. Emma Gasangwa, a heavy truck driver says that driving these vehicles is not a simple job due to the risks involved. “Life is short with truck drivers. When you enter into a truck set to go, in mind you get to know that there is a possibility of dying anytime. So, that’s why long distance drivers opt to have every good moment they come across hence having a lot of women on every stage.” Gasangwa says that he also has women who take care of him on a number of stopovers and that he will get one fiancée on any stopover. He says many women sometimes don’t know whether there is another ‘wife’ living at the other stage. “Women are fun. I drink alcohol but you can’t take a lot when you have to drive. That’s why I opt to go for women. After all, do I know when I will meet my maker?” he asks. He says as long distance drivers, their job involves negotiating sharp corners or climb and slope Mountains for days before they reach the destination. He adds: “Yes I won’t tell you their names but to be sincere, I have more than four because it takes me four nights to reach Mombasa from Kigali.” Gasangwa says that he buys food stuffs for every woman on his way. “Food is very cheap on the way. You can get a bunch of green bananas at only Rwf300 which is sold at Rwf2000 where she stays. On receiving this bunch, she feels she is the most loved woman and she would care for you like you’re a king. Now imagine four rounds of such care. It’s really fun.” Gasangwa says that women help in combating the fear of death that is always on the door when you are driving. “May be you have never been on a speeding truck,” he asks me rhetorically. “You have to drive thousands of miles. You go through forests and you have to keep your eyes wide open despite the sleep that sometimes crops in. what separates you from death is that you are not dead at that time you are thinking about it. But you are never sure of the next minute,” John Mugabe, another long distance driver. He plies Kigali-Burundi route. He says: “That’s why you need at least a woman’s tender voice and treatment to drive away the fear and to prepare you to the next stage.” From one stage, you embark on your duty a happy man-thinking about the woman you spent time with other than bothering yourself with the wretched road. Ashim also a truck driver says that first of all he is Muslim and is allowed to have more than one wife. But what is most startling is that his wives do not know each other. Ashim says that he lied to his first wife long before they married that though he is Muslim he would not marry any other woman. “Of course I can’t tell them. That’s child talk. When I am with other women they can’t ask me about my sexual life because they automatically know that truck drivers have women on stages they pack in for a night except my official wife.” Ashim says that it’s fair for a man to have one woman. But for long distance drivers if you maintain the stand of “one man one woman”, you may die a sexually starved man as you will never get enough time with your wife. However, he says that he does not trust women. Your wife can cheat on you too. What you do on the way, it is also possible your wife does it too just after you have left home. “They are also human and they would need a man beside them. Though they tell us they are trust worthy and will always wait for us.” Ashim narrates how their wives wait endlessly when ever they are left alone. When you are about to leave, she surely hates her self. She feels unprotected and will tell you. What is most hurting is that she does not know weather you are going to come back or not. She looks on so isolated when you are preparing to leave. My wife usually tells me she never gets ‘enough’ of me. I always feel sorry for her, but of course I have to go hunt for what to survive on,” says Ashim. Ashim says that they also feel the same and that’s why they opt to create wives on stopovers so as to console themselves.The question is about the driver’s wives now. Do they console themselves too in the same way their husbands do? It remains a paradox. But what is shocking most is that truck drivers never mind a lot about their wives as they say they are also human beings. When asked what he would do if he found out that his wife is moving out with another man, Ashim says that though he would react, he would find a reason to forgive her. “If you are fair, you understand that what happens with you on stopovers can happen with her too. But what would make me so bitter is when she brings another man in my house and in the presence of my kids.” But women ought to know they are women not men and it is against norm to find a woman with more than one man. Contact: tumusteve2008@yahoo.com