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I (Rose) attentively sit in an English lesson; quietly and attentively continue to listen to my teacher, however feeling that someone is looking at me. I become completely interrupted and I turn around only to see girls observing me and my twin sister Joyce.
 
My classmate inquires “Hmm!! Rose are you a real human being, spirits or ghosts?” Perturbed by the question, I begin imagining an answer, “I have a human flesh like anyone, why does she have to ask that?”
 
My body running cold, I feel embarrassed and discriminated against. In Uganda there are many instances which result in discrimination against twins. This springs from cultural beliefs.
 
Julius Kiyemba, who lives in Nansana and is a father of twins says, “in Buganda society, twins are a blessing and a spell too. When twins are born, rituals have to be performed to drive away the spell. This involves the attachment of each twin with a spiritual twin.
 
The spiritual twins can be snakes, insects, birds, bats, and lizards, or chameleons, which are wrapped in bark cloth and kept for a long period. “The spiritual twins require proper handling,” Julius says.
 
Poor handling of spiritual twins is believed to bring about tragedy to the family. A family may experience poverty, sudden deaths, suffering, pain and sometimes a misery could engulf the entire family, until some rituals are performed.
 
Julius further explained that in the case of death twins are not buried, like other bodies. Neither are they buried at the family cemetery; instead they taken further away. “If both twins die while being delivered their bodies are placed into pots and hung in a tree” he added.
 
Kasirye, a witchdoctor in Magya village, says twins could send a spell to anyone who annoys them. He adds that it is the spiritual twins who drive the spell. They drive the spell to a person who mishandles them. That person’s skin losses pigment and becomes pink”, he argues. “When someone dies in a family or when there is moment of happiness in the family, the spiritual twins have to be informed,” says Molly, a mother to twins residing in Nansana. She adds that if the twins are not informed, the family faces a tragedy.
 
Molly also pointed out that twins cannot die just like any other person but instead they “fly”. With a sad expression on her face, Molly says when a twin dies we say that he or she omulongo obalongo babuse (two of them) or abuse ( if one dies) -- literally meaning that the twin has flown.”
 
Eric Wasswa, a twin and a resident of Mitala Maria village, was interviewed about the tradition of twins and he had this to say: “It is very embarrassing and discriminatory. People think that twins are spirits, ghosts or a spell and are immortal. How can they say that twins do not die, yet they die like other human beings?”  
 
Duncan Wasswa of the same village said he likes the tradition, although he does not believe in it. “Whenever I move with my twin brother, Pius Kato, people warmly welcome us,” he says. “I imagine they ask us to bless them, so that they can produce twins. It is really a great fun and I enjoy it,” he says happily. “People treat us like God.”
 
Although twins face lots of discriminations and embarrassment, a few people have come out to advocate for them,. Eric requests institutions should come out and sensitise people that twins are normal and true human beings. They eat, drink, laugh and die, have flesh and blood and are not spirits.
 
“People need to be taught the biological facts behind the birth of twins, so that they stop looking at them as extra-ordinary,” Wasswa suggests.
 
By Nakato Constance