Starting over alone: the life of a widow in Rugeyo

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Joy Kobusinge

Brilliantly coloured skirts flap in the wind, hung on a string tied to the branches of two trees that stand about seven feet apart. Joy Kobusinge sits beneath one of the trees on a flat rock covered by a straw mat. The 48-year-old looks into the distance, past the plumes of smoke rising from her outdoor kitchen where beans feverishly boil over a fuel-wood fire.

It’s difficult to get Joy to talk about her late husband and what life is like without him. Perhaps it’s the lingering sadness of losing someone she loved. Yet there also seems to be some kind of modesty that stops her from expressing the hardships that come with being a widow in Rugeyo.

“I just don’t have enough energy to keep up with all of the work,” she said, “but no one here does. Everyone is tired and hungry.”

Joy arrived in Rugeyo in mid-2007. The village is about 150 kilometres east of Kigali and is a resettlement community for 1,600 repatriated refugees who were thrown out of Tanzania in late 2006. The residents live in two-room mud huts with thatched roofs made out of what looks like dried cornhusks.

As a widowed woman, Joy has no one to help plant the seeds, tend to the crops, and harvest and process the food. That’s all up to her. She also has to do all of the usual work around the house like washing clothes, cleaning and cooking.

All of Joy’s six children study in Uganda, and she said that even though she misses them so much she wouldn’t ask them to come and live with her because there is little opportunity here.

Rugeyo is situated on the edge of Akagera National Park, home to many wild animals. Many men in the village often spend nights out in the field trying to protect their crops from the hippopotamuses, antelope and buffalo that come to graze on their food.

For any woman, spending nights out in the field is not a possibility. Joy sais that she feels like a helpless bystander when it comes to protecting her food supply.

But Joy isn’t alone in her struggle as a window in Rugeyo.

Joy outside her home

There are 19 other widows trying to remake their lives in this village after being expelled from Tanzania.

Chantal Muhimpundu, CARE’s field officer in Rugeyo agrees that the widows face extra challenges in the community.

“Before they had cows and they remember what it was like to depend on their husbands to provide for them. So being here without their cows and with all of their children is a very big challenge.”

Chantal said that CARE divided the residents of Rugeyo into groups to better organize the making mud bricks to construct the houses and to take turns fetching water. They made sure to spread the widowed women among the community groups so that they may come to rely on others who have more family support in the village.

But until all of the houses, kitchens and latrines in Rugeyo are complete women like Joy will continue to work overtime trying to keep up with the necessary tasks of the day.

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