“It was a joke at first (…), but now there are problems”: In Uganda, Musa Hasahya Kesera is a father of 102 children and struggles to take care of them … or even to remember their first names.
At 68, he is the head of a family of 12 wives, 102 children – the youngest 10 years old, the oldest 50 years old – and 578 grandchildren.
He has become an attraction in his village of Bugisa in eastern Uganda, but he will stop there. “I learned from my irresponsible attitude of having so many children that I can’t take care of,” he says.
His large family lives between a run-down house with a rusty tin roof and about twenty mud huts nearby.
“With my failing health and less than an acre of land for such a large family, two of my wives left because I could no longer provide basic necessities such as food, education or clothing,” points out this currently unemployed father.
To keep the family from growing, his wives take contraceptives. “Not me,” he blurts out.
Monthly family gatherings
Polygamy is legal in Uganda.
Musa Hasahya Kesera first married in 1972 at the age of 17 in a traditional ceremony. A year later their first child was born.
“Because we were only two children (in his family), my brother, parents and friends advised me to marry multiple women to have many children and increase our family inheritance,” he explains.
Attracted by his status as a cattle dealer and butcher, the villagers then offered him the hand of their daughters, some of whom were still minors – a practice banned since 1995.
Over the years, he can’t even identify his own children.
“I only remember the names of the first and last born, most of the others don’t,” he bluntly admits, digging through stacks of old notebooks for details about their births: “It’s their mothers that help me identify them She”.
Musa Hasahya Kesera also admits to having trouble remembering the names of some of his wives. He has to ask one of his sons, Shaban Magino, a 30-year-old school teacher who helps run the family business. He is one of the few children who went to school.
Monthly meetings are organized to resolve disputes that are common in the family.
One meal a day
The village of Bugisa lives mostly from agriculture, with small farms for rice, cassava, coffee or animal husbandry.
In Musa Hasahya Kesera’s family, some try to earn a little money or food by doing chores for their neighbors, or spend their days looking for firewood and water, often walking long distances.
Others stay at home, women weave mats or braid their hair while men play cards under the shelter of a tree.
When lunch is ready, often consisting of boiled cassava, the father of the family comes out of his hut, where he spends most of the day, and yells for the family to get in line for the meal.
“But we hardly have enough to eat. We have to feed the kids once or even twice on good days,” says Zabina, Musa Hasahya Kesera’s third wife, who says she would never have married him had she known he had other wives.
“He brought back the fourth, then the fifth, until he hit 12,” she sighs.
Seven still live with him in Bugisa. Five left due to lack of sufficient resources or space on the family farm.