A START IN LIFE
OUT OF AFRICA
On a chilly November morning somewhere in Africa many, many years ago, a
young woman gave birth to a 9lbs baby girl in a hut in a native reservation.
She was alone with her mother as a dusk-to-dawn curfew had been imposed by
the then rulers. This meant they could not send for a birthing
midwife and, at the same time, the young woman’s husband was in a detention
camp.
About one hour after the baby was born, the mother and daughter heard loud
noises outside and, minutes later, the door came crashing down. Two young
British soldiers came through the door demanding where the freedom fighters
(troublemakers, mercenaries, etc, to the occupying British forces) were hiding.
When the women said they didn’t know, the young soldiers became agitated
and one placed a sharp bayonet on the young woman’s breast, threatening
to cut off the baby’s food supply so she did not survive. The women
were terrified and the older one threw herself on the ground where she lay
prostate,
begging them to kill her instead of hurting the innocent baby who had yet
to live her life.
The soldiers, finally convinced the women in the little hut knew nothing about
the men they were hunting, left. The two women wept long and hard in relief
and anger but the baby slept blissfully throughout the ordeal. That baby was
me and what I describe is my somewhat dramatic entry into this world.
Years later, I would try to convince my mother and grandmother that the young
British soldiers may just have been having some cruel fun at the expense of
two lonely women and that at least they harmed no one. But it seems the seeds
of fear and mistrust planted that day will take a long time to erase from
their minds – if ever. After a couple of months, my mother had to report
back to work at a sisal factory in a small town near the village where she
worked as a labourer.
As there were no childminders and everyone over eight years had to go out
to work on the coffee and pineapple plantations, my grandmother stayed in
the
village looking after my sister, brother and a large retinue of cousins in
similar circumstances. My mother had a sister
working in the same factory who did not have children and together they organized
how they would take care of me by arranging for the one to work the day shift
as the other worked the nightshift. During the changeover period, there was
no one to take care of me. However I am told that as I loved water,
I was placed in a basin with some water outside on the veranda where I would
play happily until my minder appeared.This may have marked the start of my
long fascination with and love for water. When the political situation in
my country improved, I managed, under the tutelage of the self-same British
who so abruptly gatecrashed by birth, to go to school for a good number of
years. This education enabled me to work in the water, sanitation and environment
sector for close to 20 years.
But the course of my relatively settled life was about to change dramatically
and irreversibly. And yet again the British would play a key role in that
change and the route I would now be taken on. During a visit to the UK I was
rushed to hospital with excruciating headaches. There I received the shock
of my life when doctors informed me that I had meningitis – one of the
Aids-defining illnesses. The rest, as they say, is history.
