Mariam Nabatanzi, 39, from Uganda has had to raise all her 38 children alone for the past two years because her husband left her.
She had such a large number of children due to the fact that she gave birth to twins six times, triplets four times and quadruplets five times. Moreover, six of her children died at a young age, and therefore now she has “only” 38 left.
And these were all natural conceptions, not IVF.
Mariam Nabatanzi never thought that she would become such a mother with many children. She got married at the age of 12, which is not uncommon according to Ugandan traditions, and a year later gave birth to her first twins. Then she continued to give birth to several babies approximately every two years.
Immediately after the first birth, Mariam went to the gynecologist and there it turned out that she had unusually large ovaries and they were producing a lot of eggs. However, the doctor did not give her any medicine, because this could lead to a deterioration in the health of the then very young mother.
Together with her grown-up and young children, Mariam lives in four makeshift houses covered with corrugated iron sheets in the village of Kasavo, 50 km from Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The village lives off growing coffee.
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In Uganda, on average, each family has 5-6 children, but even in Uganda, the Mariam family is incredibly large. The last time Mariam gave birth was two and a half years ago, and her pregnancy passed with complications. One of the twins died during childbirth.
After that, her husband, who rarely appeared at home either, decided to leave his wife and children altogether, accusing Mariam of the child's death. Now his name is like a family curse and Mariam speaks of him only with a lot of curses.
Mariam worked as a hairdresser, decorator, collected and sold scrap metal, brewed local gin and sold medicinal herbs. All the money went to food, clothing, medicine and school for the children.
On the dirty wall of one of the houses there are portraits of those Mariam children who were able to graduate from school.
Ivan could not finish high school, as his mother ran out of money at that time.
Mariam herself, at a very young age, experienced a family tragedy, her mother abandoned her and her father with five children, as soon as Mariam was born. And when his father married a second time, the evil stepmother poisoned five of Mariam's brothers and sisters by mixing crushed glass into their food. Mariam miraculously escaped reprisals, escaping in time to a distant relative.
Then Mariam grew up with a desire to have a strong family with six children, but fate “exceeded her plan” several times.
Every day, Mariam uses about 25 kg of cornmeal to feed all the children. Sometimes children get fish or pieces of meat, but this is very rare. Food is sorted out on a board on the floor, and food is boiled in pots over an open fire.
Space availability is also a big problem. All four houses are small and more like small rooms. Children sleep on metal bunk beds with thin mattresses. There is almost no other furniture in the house. The walls of the house are dirty, although the children try to clean up when their mother does not have enough time for this.