Maria
In Uganda, Africa, there is such a special family. There are 45 people in the family, but only two generations.
Such a large family was "born" by a mother named Maria.
In just 15 years, Maria gave birth to 44 children, turning the original family of two into almost the largest family in the region.
Tragic childhood
Uganda is a country in eastern Africa and remains a small developing country with agriculture as its main productive force.
Even though British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once called the "Pearl of Africa", the hat of poverty has always been on Uganda's head.
Because of the country's economic downturn, most of the people grow crops for a living, have a low level of education, and are equally conservative in their thinking.
Uganda now even retains the "polygamous" marriage system of the old society, and polygamy is recognized within the state as legitimate.
Because the average level of education is not high, coupled with the old concept of marriage, the fertility rate of African families is very high, and every African woman has to have multiple births.
According to statistics, the average woman in Uganda has about seven children, and Maria is no exception.
Maria was born in a small, poor village in Uganda, and as early as the age of three, her biological mother ran away from home because she could not stand poverty.
The mother took the family's valuable belongings, but only six children, including Maria, and a fragmented family remained.
In Africa, it is a joke that a wife leaves her husband and runs away from home.
So Maria's father immediately found a new wife, although the couple had a good relationship, but the stepmother would not love the child born to the original match.
Maria's stepmother was a rude woman, she was brutal and abusive.
Maria and her siblings often ran out of food, were scolded at every turn, and corporal punishment and inability to eat dinner were frequent occurrences.
But even so, Maria's stepmother did not show her due responsibility to the six children, but became more and more intense.
One day, Maria's stepmother broke a glass bottle and asked the six children to eat the glass shards, and Maria ran out of the house without looking back.
However, when she sneaks back at night, she finds that all five of her siblings have died by swallowing glass, and Maria has been sent to her grandmother's house by her father ever since.
When Maria was 12 years old, she heard her grandmother arguing with her father about something.
Eavesdropping, she learned that her father was going to marry her because she was approaching the age of marriage.
This is like a custom of ancient society, but it is not uncommon in modern Uganda.
"Child marriage" has always been popular in Ugandan society, and many girls from poor families have just passed puberty and have been ordered to marry.
Like commodities, they are taken to the market to be selected and bought and sold at will.
Because child marriage earns a sum of money to "sell their daughters," many families see their daughters as tools to make money.
Locally, a flower girl is worth the same as a cow or two sheep.
This time Maria's father found a marriage partner for her, a man over the age of 40.
According to statistics, Uganda has one of the highest child marriage rates in the world.
It is very common for middle-aged men to marry teenage teenagers, and even the government will encourage this behavior of early marriage and early childbearing.
Although Maria was reluctant to marry a man older than her father, she was alone, completely unable to resist and could only obey her father's arrangement.
After marriage, they continue to have children
Because she was so young and had never been educated for a day, Maria didn't know what birth control was, or the right to choose or reject.
The year after her marriage, Maria became pregnant with a child. This first child, Maria, gave birth to twins, and Maria, who had just become a mother, was very happy.
Despite her tragic childhood experiences, Maria did not choose to follow the path of her own birth mother.
She cherished her children and tried to make them motherly, but Mary's married life was not so happy.
Although she and her husband have an age gap of more than 30 years, her husband has not shown the maturity he should have, not only does not care for his wife in life, but also often scolds Maria.
Maria's husband was very grumpy and drank a lot.
Every time he came back from drinking too much, he would lose his temper with Maria and the children, and even punch and kick each other.
In order to protect the child, Maria could only endure in silence.
But Maria's forbearance did not exchange her husband's remorse, but made her husband begin to intensify.
The husband doesn't consider Maria's feelings at all in his married life, often goes out and hangs out, and even brings home women he knows outside.
Maria did not want her children to have the same childhood as herself, and in order to give them a complete home, Maria did not choose to run away from home like a mother.
She thought very simply, as long as she stayed at home, at least her children would not be abused by their stepmothers.
Soon, Maria became pregnant again, this time giving birth to twins.
Since then, Maria has had almost one child a year, and in the third year, Maria has surprisingly given birth to quadruplets.
During a check-up at the local clinic, the doctor told her:
"Because Maria's ovaries are larger than normal, her ovulation function is also stronger than normal people, and the probability of conception is also higher, which is a very easy to give birth to multiple births."
In the ten years of marriage, because of the lack of understanding of birth control, coupled with Maria's fertile physique, she has given birth to 25 children.
Every morning when I got up, more than twenty children ran all over the yard, but fortunately, the African folk customs are close to nature, and the children's physical condition is very good.
But so many children also made Maria feel sick, and the family's financial situation became tense.
Maria was multiple babies every time she became pregnant, and there were too many children in her family, and Maria had sought help from doctors in the hope of using drugs to reduce her probability of pregnancy.
However, after examination by the doctor, it was found that Maria was born with antibodies to the contraceptive pill, and taking the contraceptive pill did not work at all for Maria.
Coupled with the poor health conditions in the area, Maria could not be sterilized.
Doctors could only advise her to stop giving birth and reduce the wear and tear on herself.
But Maria's husband didn't think so, and he thought that the number of children was something to be very proud of.
This sentence is almost equivalent to judging Maria's life, and she has been completely reduced to a fertility machine.
In the days that followed, Maria maintained a one-child-a-year fertility rate.
By the time she was 36, she had already given birth to 44 children, of whom only 8 were singles and the rest were multiple.
After the age of 25, because of years of childbirth and the usual care for the family, Maria's physical condition was much worse than before, and 6 children unfortunately died.
Even so, Maria still had 38 healthy children.
At this time, the doctor also issued an ultimatum to Maria.
Years of childbirth have made her physical condition too bad, and she has taken care of dozens of children day and night after childbirth, and she has not been able to recover as she should.
Maria's body could no longer bear the burden of childbirth, and the uterus should be removed as soon as possible.
After hearing the doctor's advice, Maria was also worried. Not for her own body, but for her children.
She was afraid that if one day she really fell ill, who would take care of her children?
Will the husband also find a stepmother and abuse them every day?
The husband ran away and carried the family alone
Maria did not dare to ask her husband to be able to take care of the children, and she never shared the burden of caring for the children on her husband.
But she still did not expect that her husband would be so unreliable.
One morning, Maria woke up from bed as usual to prepare breakfast, only to suddenly find that the pot in the house had disappeared.
Maria quickly searched the whole house, and all the valuable things in the house were gone, along with them, and her unreliable husband.
Obviously, so many children were asked by her husband to be born by himself, but when it came to raising them, the husband abandoned all his responsibilities and threw all 38 children to Maria.
Maria, however, did not complain at all, she had only one thought in her mind, that is, to make her children grow up as healthy as possible.
After her husband left, Maria took on the responsibility of supporting the family.
She looked around the city for work, and no matter how hard and tiring she worked, she didn't refuse to come.
She's been a hairdresser, a decorator, a winemaker, selling herbs, and even picking up trash.
However, Maria, who wakes up early every day and is greedy, still has not been able to earn enough food for the family of nearly 40 people.
The whole family eats nearly 50 kilograms of food every day, and in order to ensure that the children survive, she only cooks one meal a day for the children.
Occasionally received by neighbors, Maria and the children were able to eat a second meal.
Even though she lived in such poverty, Maria still did not give up hope for life.
Although she had never been educated, Maria was well aware of the principle that "knowledge changes destiny".
She didn't give up on any opportunity to get her children educated, sending them to a local boarding school whenever a child in her family reached school age.
"I want my children to go to school, I want them to have their own lives." Maria said.
After learning about Maria's family situation at school, it was decided to waive some of her children's tuition fees and pay in installments, which gave her children the opportunity to receive an education.
Although the tuition fees for dozens of children combined are very high, Maria thinks it is worth it.
Fortunately, Maria's older children are now adults and have been able to help Maria share the household chores and financial pressures.
With the help of a few children, Maria's daily burden is also much smaller, at least now the family can eat a full meal.
When Maria was living in difficulty, many people once suggested that Maria also sell her daughter to reduce the burden on the family, just like other families.
But every time she heard that, Maria would have a big fight with them.
Maria said, "When someone says something like that to me, I'll pick up a stick from the ground and throw them out of my house." ”
For her part, Maria did not allow her daughters to repeat their old ways.
She hopes that her daughters will be able to learn knowledge and have the opportunity to look directly at the world.
Today, Maria's two oldest children have found formal jobs, one working as a nurse and the other on the construction site.
This is good news for Maria, because she no longer has to worry about food and clothing, and can concentrate on earning her children's school fees.
Maria said: "I cherish my life now and I want my children to be happy for the rest of their lives because I myself have never been happy and I don't want them to have the same childhood as me." ”
Maria was a great mother who grew up alone with 38 children and never abandoned one.
And she can also realize the truth that knowledge changes fate, and after experiencing the suffering of her original family, she can still love her family and cherish her children so much.
She used her own efforts to protect the lives of 38 children.
References[1] Tongzhou Daily, October 21, 2019, "A Ugandan woman has given birth to 44 children at the age of 36"
[2] Documentary "MamaUganda"