I live in the seaside village of Scarborough, near Cape Town, at the tip of Africa.
It is rather idyllic; small, safe and beautiful. I live in a simple wooden shack near the beach. Life is simple but good.
This morning I went to see a pregnant client at her home in Glencairn. It is about a ten minute drive. It was overcast and drizzling but warm. We sat at her table, sipping rooibos chai and chatting while her nearly two year old daughter played around us. I left after an hour or so. All was well with mother and baby. We hugged and said our goodbyes.
I drove back to Scarborough and at the bottom of Red Hill, a young mother from the settlement was hitch hiking with her baby on her hip. I stopped and with relief she hopped into the back of the car and told me she was travelling to Ocean View to the clinic there. Her baby had a rash and she needed to have it checked out. I apologised that I was only going to Scarborough ( I had another pregnant client to see there) but could at least take her that far. She said she was happy with that.
I asked her how old her baby was and where she had given birth to her.
“She is seven months…I gave birth to her in the Eastern Cape,” she said.
I asked her if this was her first child.
No, she replied, this was her second. Her eldest child was already eight years old.
“This is a baby of rape,” she said matter of factly.
I was not sure what to say. I turned around and looked her in her eyes and said,
“I am sorry.”
I am still not sure if that was the right thing to say.
But what do you say?
I then turned back again and looked at the baby. So sweet and innocent and beautiful, sitting in her mother’s lap.
“Your daughter is beautiful.” I said.
She laughed and agreed.
When she got out of my car I asked her what her daughter’s name was.
She told me.
I repeated it back.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
” It means, ‘We are Friends’…”
Then hoisting her daughter onto her back, she slammed the car door, smiled, waved, and walked away.
