However, she is languishing in poverty because her two children who take care of her have lost all their cattle to drought ravaging the Bobirwa region. Though she cannot tell the date, day or time during the interview, she has a clear memory of her life as a midwife. "There were no hospitals but we managed illnesses well as we were trained traditionally. Give us a severe headache and we would simply boil mophane leaves and make you inhale the hot steam. For burn wounds, no matter how bad the injury was, chicken droppings and ashes from the fire place would do wonders," she says. She says the old women of yore were so sharp they can detect a one-week-old pregnancy. In those days, a girl who fell pregnant out of wedlock would be treated in a special way. "We would separate her from her age mates to psychologically prepare her for parenthood. Then we start regular massages (tshidilo) using milk fact that is known as mongobolo," she says. Milk was boiled and the solids and fats that coagulate on top were put in containers to serve as massage oil and skin lotion. The massaging went on till childbirth and after.
Makubate says in those days she could easily tell that an expectant woman is about to deliver. No matter how excruciating the labour pains are, the delivering mother was expected not to cry. "O ne o sa kue, o belega fela batho ba tsere dikgang kontle o bo o fetsa, ba tla utlwa fela ka selelo sa ngwana," she says. In the event that the mother screams out in pain, an empty vessel or a drum was beaten loudly to muffle the sound from the delivery house. "We made sure that the new mother leaves the house in a good shape by continuing to massage her. A calabash full of hot soft porridge was placed on the stomach of the mother until the soft porridge was warm.Then the mother would eat the soft porridge lying on her stomach. This ensured that she becomes flat," Makubate explains.
