In the leafy suburb of Buziga, Kampala, where bougainvillaea spills lazily over stone fences and boda bodas buzz like persistent bees on the dusty road, stands a two-storey home with large glass windows and a hibiscus-lined driveway. This is the home of Maria Mulungi—or as the neighborhood mamas whisper, “the beautiful girl who never got married.”
Maria, now 45, slender, radiant, and striking in her silence, is a name known to many but understood by few. Her journey was not an ordinary one.
Born to a headteacher father and a devout Catholic mother, Maria was the first girl in her village in Mpigi to get 6 points in her A-levels—in sciences, no less! She went on to earn an honours degree in Commerce at Makerere University, and later joined one of those big NGOs in Kampala with air-conditioned offices and mission statements nobody could recite.
While other girls were being warned about “books chasing away men,” Maria chased excellence with a vengeance. At thirty-two, she left Uganda for Harvard Business School, funded by a prestigious global fellowship, and graduated top of her class. By then, her cousins were organizing baby showers and booking appointments for their third C-section. Maria, meanwhile, was presenting strategy decks in Geneva.
Today, she works with a top multinational in Nairobi, commanding boardrooms, leading policy shifts, and holding her own among the world’s decision-makers. But every few weeks, she flies home to Buziga, where her mother waits with beans on the charcoal stove and a sermon about how “a woman’s clock is not made of cement.”
A Beautiful Home. An Empty Table.
Maria’s house in Buziga is elegant—granite countertops, wide verandahs, and imported curtains. But one thing is always missing: companionship. The house echoes. The wine glasses clink alone. The master bedroom, though stylish, feels more like a presidential suite for one.
Sometimes, after pouring herself a glass of white wine, Maria will stare out across the hills of Kampala and sigh. Not from sadness, but from the weight of navigating a society that doesn’t know what to do with a powerful, unmarried woman.
Her aunties stopped asking about marriage. They started praying instead. The family WhatsApp group is full of “we thank God for the gift of family” photos—weddings, babies, baptisms. Maria responds with a thumbs-up emoji and silence.
Sundays, Weddings, and the Empty Seat
But it is Sundays that bite. After church, as families walk out hand in hand, Maria walks alone to her car, dodging the well-meaning gazes of ushers who say, “We missed seeing you with someone today.”
She attends weddings—because she is classy—but always leaves before the cake is cut. Too many MCs make “jokes” about single career women needing deliverance. Too many relatives whisper, “Eh! This one is too educated to keep a man.”
But what they never ask is: Does she want to be kept?
Then Came the Sickness
In August last year, Maria caught a stubborn flu. Nothing serious, but serious enough that she couldn’t get out of bed for two days. There were no children knocking on her bedroom door. No husband making porridge. Just her, coughing through Netflix and calling her housekeeper from upstairs like a bored empress.
It hit her then—not the loneliness, but the lack of a plan.
The Turning Point
That same month, Maria joined a book club for “strong women who read and cry quietly.” There, she met two other women—single mothers, divorced, both navigating their own version of aloneness. They started walking together every Saturday morning along Lake Victoria, talking about aging, freedom, cravings, and whether being “chosen” by a man was the ultimate prize or just a colonial hangover.
That was when Maria decided: “I may be alone, but I will not be lonely. I will live loud.”
She set up a weekly dinner for solo-living women—cheekily called “Table for One, Please.”
She started converting her rarely used guest wing into an Airbnb to host solo travellers.
She signed up for a personal trainer, and started yoga—not for weight loss, but for presence.
She added soft jazz and incense to her mealtimes and no longer checked her phone during dinner.
Maria’s Redesign Rules
Here’s what Maria teaches now, subtly, through how she lives:
- Set your table beautifully, even when eating alone.
Because you are your first guest. - Stop waiting for a plus-one to start living.
Solo living is not a waiting room. It is the main event. - Prepare for your sick days.
Have your “circle of two”—people who will show up with ginger tea and gossip when you need it. - Convert your space into joy zones.
Your home should reflect your soul, not your loneliness. - Create rituals.
Maria prays at dawn, journals at dusk, and walks in silence every Friday evening. - Dare to dream of love, but do not shrink waiting for it.
If it comes, welcome it. If it delays, thrive anyway.
Final Scene: The Fireplace
One cool Saturday evening, Maria sat by the fireplace with her 78-year-old mother, watching the flames dance. Her mother, who had spent years worrying about her daughter’s “clock,” finally said:
“Maria, I may not understand your life, but I see you smile more these days. Maybe that is enough.”
Maria leaned back, sipped her tea, and replied with a grin,
“Maama, happiness doesn’t always come in pairs.”
Leave a Reply