This is a Baby of Rape
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...
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