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MATEMBE'S LOVE STORY: It has been 37 years since that first encounter on the dance floor
The Matembes, married for 37 years, pose for the camera at their home in Port Bell, a Kampala suburb. Photos by Abubaker Lubowa.
What you need to know:
Miria and Nekemiah. They are as different as chalk and cheese, but you could not find a more compartible pair. The Matembe’s let Full Woman into their home and shared their love story with Gloria Haguma.
We all know Dr Miria Rukoza Koburunga Matembe. That outspoken former Woman Member of Parliament for Mbarara District and ex-minister for Ethics and Integrity that many men hate for always picking on them and woman love for speaking out on their behalf. However, the one we seem not to know much about is Nekemiah Matembe, her husband.
I first met “the original Matembe” as he likes to refer to himself, at a Women’s Day celebration dinner at Serena Hotel Kampala. He came off as jovial and quite charming, speaking with so much hype and pride about his wife, who he referred to as the “duplicate Matembe”. His wife laughed along with the audience at his jokes, “the original and duplicate Matembe” notion seemingly amusing her the most.
When I meet Mr Matembe at his home at Port Bell, I am quick to notice he is as charming and witty upclose as he was in public at the dinner. He warmly ushers me into their home, and offers me a glass of juice. Their home is simple but beautiful. The walls in the living room are covered in family portraits of the couple on their numerous wedding anniversaries, their children on their wedding days, and even those of their grandchildren. They have four sons and one daughter, all married except one who is engaged. They have five grandchildren, including a set of twins.
Matembe shows me what he refers to as the “women’s corner” in the dining room, donned with pictures of his wife and all the other women in his life; the daughter, granddaughters and daughters-in-law. On these walls are but a few of the memories the Matembes have created over the 37 years they have been married.
On the dance floor
“I saw this young man that was dancing away on the floor, and when I inquired about him, my cousin told me that he was called Matembe,” Miria says about how they met. It was at Matembe’s cousin’s bachelor party in 1973 at Old Kampala.
Miria was at the university at Makerere and Matembe had just returned from Scotland where he had been to pursue further studies, and he had noticed Miria too. “I noticed a young girl on the dance floor and I was mesmerised. It was her perfect figure eight and beautiful shapely legs that caught my eye,” he recounts. He quickly reaches for my notebook to draw out the eight-shape when I ask him what “figure eight” is exactly.
The beginning of our lives together
Matembe recounts how he went ahead and asked her to dance, and here, the accounts differ. Miria’s version is that she only danced with him so she could hitch a lift with his friend back to campus. “He said he would only take me if I danced with his friend Matembe. So, I agreed to dance with him, but not because I wanted to. It was only so I could get a lift,” she says.
Matembe, however, says she accepted the dance, and even commended him for being a nice dancer! To him, this dance represents the beginning of their life together. Their next meeting was at the wedding the next day, where again they ended up dancing together as everyone else was paired up. “I think he had already told all our friends that he was interested in me, and it seemed that he was looking for a girl to marry,” she says, quickly adding that marriage was not on her mind at the time, something Matembe also noticed. “She wasn’t responding like I had expected. When I’d tell her that she had impressed me, she simply answered with a question, asking how she had impressed me,” he says.
They were soon dating though and on July 12, 1975, after Matembe plucked the courage to ask her to be “his friend for life”, they were married. Thinking back to their courtship, Miria points out the contrast between then and today. “We were very self-respecting, not materialistic, and not in any hurry to marry, especially those of us that were in school. This sugar-daddy business was not very common. My dating experience was very good and I can attribute it to the fact that I grew up in Christian family, and morals were instilled in us,” she says.
She, however, also remembers that even then, it was about sex for most “boys”. When she met Matembe, during her second year at the university though, she says he seemed different, focused, determined and aware of what he wanted. And he taught her something. “He was the one who taught me how to drink alcohol and we used to mix coca-cola with beer,” she says, with a grin and little embarrassment on her face. Of their courtship, Matembe, at the time freshly employed with Uganda Breweries, reminiscences about picking her up from the university to hang out with friends who she usually ended up in heated arguments with. To her defense, she explains; “Arguing was part of me; I was law student.” She adds that his pleas for her to stop fell on deaf ears.
Terms and conditions apply
Matembe admits that like all marriages, theirs has had its ups and downs too, but their secret has been making the time to resolve their issues amicably. Before their wedding, Miria held Matembe to some terms of operation, which included him never beating her up. I cannot help but ask the question even Miria has heard being asked by many when they meet her husband: How does he manage such a tough, outspoken woman? “I hear people asking that and I wonder: Am I a factory or company to be managed? People need to understand that all it takes is loving and understanding one another. My husband knew from the beginning that I am a person and not a machine to be “managed”,” she says, rather agitated.
In answer, Matembe emphasises that there is no need to manage one once you understand them, and that is one of their secret. “When I married Miria, I knew of her involvement in politics and passion for women emancipation, so, I give her all the freedom she needs,” he says. Miria attests to this freedom, saying it is one of the things the success of their marriage is hinged on.
“By the time my husband married me, he knew I was the kind of person that was assertive and knew what she wanted. Not only when I began my political career, but even in the early years of our marriage. He never asked me where I was going or where I was coming from. And neither did I,” she says.
Different personas, a harmonious couple
As they pose for the camera in their compound, Miria wears a rather serious look, and allows a smile once in a while. Matembe on the other hand is very cheerful, cracking a few jokes and making faces.
There is no question about it, their personalities are distinctively different, but no one is managing the other. The difference, in fact, seems to make them more compartible. This is one couple that seems to understand each other. There is no conflict here; all I see is a couple greatly in love and admiration for one another.
We are ushered out of their home with huge exotic oranges from one of the trees in their garden by Matembe, and bananas by Miria, who also cautions me to “ensure to have a very good story”.How could I not?
The original Matembe
Nekemia Matembe, who studied biological sciences and brewing, is a retired chief brewer at the Uganda Breweries where he served in different capacities for 30 years. He is very welcoming and approachable, throwing a few jokes to make me more comfortable, it is not difficult getting him to agree to the interview.
Born in 1945 in Rubiriizi village, Bushenyi District, Matembe is a former student of Ntare School. He proudly points out some of his reputable Old Boys. “I went to school with the likes of Presidents Kagame and Museveni, the late Kategaya, and Dr Dikuz.” Matembe joined Uganda Breweries when he returned from Scotland. His retirement reward, in appreciation of his hard work, was an acre of land on which their home sits. He points out lack of motivation as what is killing the work ethic among Ugandans. He is into farming now.
My Miria, like only I know her
Mr Matembe seems surprised when I tell him about how it had been hard for me to score an appointment with his wife, and goes ahead to give me tips on how to go about it. “I had already informed her that you were coming here (at their home). So, when you call her, just get straight to the point. Tell her you have spoken to me, and you would like some additional information to complete your story,” he advises. He also jokingly asks me to have enough airtime when I call her, suggesting Thursday as the best day to get ahold of her.
And it all works. It turns out that the Miria that Matembe knows is so different from the one we publicly know.
For Matembe, his wife, who we know as the “Iron Lady”, is a soft-hearted woman, the more caring of the two of them. He tells me of how she used to have flowers delivered to his office, especially when he was still working, always the one remembering their anniversaries and big days.
When asked about this, Miria, with a grin, confirms this, but quickly points out that she stopped when the gesture was not being returned! Tough and fire-spitting she may seem to us, but at home, Matembe aludes to his wife’s humble nature as the major reason for the success of their marriage. “Miria is not materialistic and lives within her means,” he says, adding, “At home, Miria is a different person from what she is out there. She is soft, hardworking, and caring. She does all her duties as a housewife, including cooking and looking after the children.”
