Musician Ronald Mayinja's wife Asha has confirmed that she has never left the musician and they are still married.
In a rare, hour long interview, Asha, who likes to stay out of the limelight, shared how the 'Tuli Kubunkenke' musician wooed her and won her heart for life.
She talked about the challenges the couple has faced and what has enabled her to put up with them.
How Asha and Mayinja met
Asha said that Mayinja started wooing her in the early 2000s while she was still a secondary school student and he was on the verge of making his name in the Eagles Production band.
Still living with her parents in Najjanankumbi, Asha was at first not even aware that Mayinja was a musician.
She first crossed paths with Mayinja the day he had come to her village to check on his singing friends; Mesach Semakula and Fred Seruga who had been her immediate neighbours.
She recalls being green about the trio's music careers at that time but that they used to hear rumours they were into music.
When she met Mayinja for the first time, not many words were said to each other but instead, he handed her a cassette tape of his music and invited her to attend one of his music shows.
"He gave me a cassette tape of his music but still I wasn't convinced it was his voice in the songs. He later invited me to a music show to see him perfom," she says.
After being convinced by Semakula and Seruga, Asha and her aunt finally accepted to attend a music show that Mayinja and other Eagles band artists were to perform at Ggaba Beach.
"On the day, they gave us three tickets and money for transport. We were there by 1pm but the show took too long to start. I was worried about not getting home before 5pm because we feared our strict father would beat us for coming back late. But my aunt suggested we needed to risk it all and stay around until Mayinja performed."
Asha and her aunt's goal was to confirm if indeed true Mayinja was a singer like he claimed. After hours of waiting, Mayinja finally hit stage at around 9pm.
"Immediately after hitting the stage. There were a lot of cheers from the crowd. We were surprised to discover that all long he had been that famous. Everyone was talking about him wherever we were. We only saw him perform his first song and went back home because it was getting late," Asha narrates.
The following morning, Aisha and her aunt were so quick to ring Mayinja to to let him know they had been at the show, and that they left when he had performed only one song.
"Three days later, he came around and we narrated to him how we had been heavily caned by my father on returning home,"
From there, they built a friendship, started talking often and subsequently fell in love with each other.
She shares that their relationship was not that serious until in her senior six when Mayinja introduced plans of marrying her.
"He told me he wanted me to be his wife and was willing to wait until I completed my A level studies. He even promised to sponsor my studies at University. He was very supportive even in my senior six studies," Asha narrates.
Tired of her father's strictness at home, Aisha says she could not wait to join university as that would present a chance to freely meet Mayinja.
However, she says it was not easy being in a relationship with Mayinja at first, considering many girls were attracted to her because of his celebrity status.
"Good thing, he was so protective of me because I was still young. It is when I started staying with him that I got to see all these girls he was moving out with."
When the results came out, she had passed highly and was admitted on government sponsorship, meaning she would only have to pay for hostel.
In an effort to solidify her relationship with Mayinja, Asha says she kept the money her parents had given her to pay for hostel, and instead chose to start staying at Mayinja's place, and that marked the beginning of their marriage.
"He treated me like a parent. He would drop me at campus every day. He even used to follow up on my academic performance,"
After months of staying together, Aisha found out she was pregnant in her second year at the university, and recalls sitting one of her exams when she had just given birth.
"I sat that exam while he sat in the car outside with the newly-born baby waiting for me. The child was one-day old. I could enter the car, breastfeed and go back to the examination room,"
Choosing to stay with Mayinja
Upon learning about their relationship status, Asha says her parents especially from her father's side were agitated by her decision to move in with Mayinja. They did not like their daughter being with the singer because they doubted a music artist would build a fruitful marriage.
She says her family denounced her and told her not to come back home unless she dumped Mayinja.
"Between 2003 and 2011, we were at loggerheads with my father. They thought my marriage would fail since singers were known for not building stable relationships. I insisted they would either accept him as my husband or I never returned home forever,"
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In all this, she maintains Mayinja was always there for her and comforting her.
After years of feud, her father finally accepted Mayinja into the family. She says they had an introduction ceremony shortly after, and that for the years that followed, they sired more children together.
Asha said that she has managed to remain in her marriage with Mayinja because, "We have an understanding. I listen only to what he tells me and not what others say. The day he goes back on his word is when I can be disappointed. He has always been honest with me. Even when a woman dropped a child at the gate, he did not did deny it was his. That showed me that he cares for his children and family because he could have denied the child but he did not. Also the woman bringing the child to our gate demonstrated to me that she knew I was there. That he is committed to me."
She, in fact, says she has raised several children of Mayinja's from outside their marriage because, "By nature, I love children. It is not the fault of the child. Our house is always full of children because I love children and he has not hidden his children from me. It hurts when a man goes out but I know he will come back and he cares for us. Even when we had little money, he never abandoned us and he never abandons his children. I appreciate that."
