Nature Has A Great Sense Of Humour...

Tumie Modise | Monday January 26, 2015 11:53

My first reaction; I felt hot and within seconds I then started felling cold. My motherly instincts took over I immediately put myself in this mother’s shoes. 

Not surprisingly, the report goes on to state that the couple were stunned beyond words and that for hours they just remained silent, only for the hospital staff to soon rush back inside the ward as the man, after three hours, suddenly bellowed; “What the flip?”

Good news is that the couple are said to have, after several lectures from the doctors and possibly a DNA test, accepted the baby fully as theirs and are now back home raising their little one.

God forbid should this have happened to someone in this beautiful and peaceful country. My word, what a story that was going to be? The story would have made headlines for months or even years and ultimately became a top selling folktale in many years to come!

Some years back, I must have been around seven or eight; an equally shocking story broke out in this country of a child who made his grand entrance into earth sporting a bushy man sized moustache! Maybe the baby even a full set of teeth, I am not so sure. I also recall that a song was then promptly composed to mark the bizarre incident, at the same time spreading the message that everyone should start donning women’s stockings on their heads! Does anybody have any idea of what eventually became of that child, said to have been born in the month of November?

I can almost imagine the UK white child having being born in my home village! I imagine; the ward junior chief would have been tipped off by the hospital, and in turn he would have wasted no time reporting the news to the main chief, who would have, as a matter of urgency, summoned the whole family to the kgotla!

Stern words, plus a fine in the form of a beast or two would have been imposed as punishment for the ‘disgraceful act’ and worse, the poor woman’s family would have borne the brunt of all the jeers and the embarrassment.

Returning home with the bundle of joy, that is when the real drama would have started. Because in no time, the whole village would have been aware by then! I almost imagine the mother reaching her home and finding neighbours conveniently ‘just passing by’ on her street.

Thankfully, in our Setswana culture, when a woman gives birth to her first child, culture dictates that the woman be at her mother’s house for a couple of months and convalescence there.

I know I would have had ceased that moment and never returned to my marital home because don’t we all call on our mothers when things get all messed up?

Sometimes culture is good, sometimes it’s downright bad. Just imagine if this child would have been born somewhere in the North or some other very traditional community where people still give sacrifices to the ‘gods’; where in the yesteryears we are told, some communities used to travel deep into the mountains and bushes where they would then, in the middle of the night then dump their deformed newborns, albinos or even twins in the bush as sacrifice to the gods? Apparently, back then, such children brought a ‘curse’ to the entire community and had to be disposed.

I cannot help but sympathise with the mother of the UK baby. Never mind that her child is of a different race, in the normal world (especially in Africa), research shows that a sizeable number of fathers, at some point in their lives, quietly question their children’s paternity, especially when the child looks nothing like them!

Back to the UK story, the publication quotes the father as having told a group of reporters that, “Doctors have assured us that she is not an albino. She doesn’t look like an albino child anyway - not like the ones I’ve seen back in Nigeria or in books.”

 Then to the relief of many and indeed the wife, the man continued; “Of course, she’s mine. My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn’t been, the baby still wouldn’t look like that.”

Teary eyed, I saluted this great African man, only for him to throw a curveball and added; “We don’t know of any white ancestry. We wondered if it was a genetic twist. But even then, what’s with the long curly blonde hair?”