Musa Hasahya Kasera has so many youngsters he can’t keep in mind most of their names.

The Ugandan villager is struggling to supply for his huge household, which he says contains 12 wives, 102 youngsters and 578 grandchildren and now feels sufficient is sufficient.

“At first it was a joke, … however now this has its issues,” the 68-year-old stated at his homestead within the village of Bugisa in Butaleja district, a distant rural space of jap Uganda.

“With my well being failing and merely two acres [0.8 hectares] of land for such an enormous household, two of my wives left as a result of I couldn’t afford the fundamentals like meals, schooling, clothes,” he stated.

Hasahya, who’s presently unemployed, has change into one thing of a vacationer attraction. He stated his wives now take contraception to cease the household from increasing additional.

“My wives are on contraceptives, however I’m not. I don’t anticipate to have extra youngsters as a result of I’ve realized from my irresponsible act of manufacturing so many youngsters who I can’t take care of.”

Hasahya’s brood lives largely in a dilapidated home, its corrugated iron roof rusting away, or in about two dozen grass-thatched mud huts close by.

He married his first spouse in 1972 at a standard ceremony once they have been each about 17, and his first baby Sandra Nabwire was born a 12 months later.

“As a result of we have been born solely two of us, I used to be suggested by my brother, kin and buddies to marry many wives to provide many youngsters to increase our household heritage,” Hasahya stated.

No preventing

Attracted by his standing then as a cattle dealer and butcher, Hasahya stated villagers would supply their daughters’ palms in marriage, even some beneath the age of 18.

Youngster marriage was banned in Uganda in 1995. Polygamy is allowed within the East African nation in accordance with sure non secular traditions.

Hasahya’s 102 youngsters vary in age from 10 to 50 whereas his youngest spouse is about 35.

“The problem is I can solely keep in mind the title of my first and the final born, however a few of the youngsters, I can’t recall their names,” he stated as he rummaged by piles of previous notebooks searching for particulars about their births.

“It’s the moms who assist me establish them.”

However Hasahya can’t even recall the names of a few of his wives and has to seek the advice of one in all his sons, Shaban Magino, a 30-year-old schoolteacher who helps run the household’s affairs and is likely one of the few to have acquired an schooling.

To resolve disputes in such a big household, Hasahya says, they’ve month-to-month conferences.

A neighborhood official who oversees Bugisa, a village of about 4,000 folks, stated that regardless of the challenges, Hasahya has “introduced up his youngsters very effectively” and there was no preventing, for instance.

‘Barely sufficient’

Bugisa’s residents are largely peasants who increase cattle and are concerned in small-scale farming of crops comparable to rice, cassava and low.

Many members of Hasahya’s household attempt to earn cash or meals by doing chores for his or her neighbours, or they spend their days fetching firewood and water, typically travelling lengthy distances on foot.

These at dwelling sit across the grounds, some ladies weaving mats or plaiting hair, whereas the boys play playing cards beneath the shelter of a tree.

When the noon meal of boiled cassava is prepared, Hasahya saunters out of the hut the place he spends most of his day and calls out in a commanding voice for the household to line as much as eat.

“However the meals is barely sufficient,” says Hasahya’s third spouse, Zabina. “We’re pressured to feed the kids as soon as or, on a great day, twice.”

She stated if she had recognized he had different wives, she wouldn’t have agreed to marry him.

“Even once I got here and resigned myself to my destiny, … he introduced the fourth, fifth till he reached 12,” she stated.

Two of his wives have left Hasahya, and one other three now dwell in one other city about 2km (1.2 miles) away due to the overcrowding on the homestead.

When requested why he thought extra of his wives didn’t abandon him, Hasahya declared: “All of them love me. You see, they’re pleased!”