Busi and Baby-Wearing

I need to tell you the story of my last maid.

Yes, it's quite common in South Africa to have a maid, I grew up with them as did most South Africans. In fact, my sister was practically raised strapped to the back of a sweet lady named Autelia.

Anyway, I will always love Busi, my last maid, she was completely reliable. Of course, she didn't speak a word of English and my Zulu was rudimentary at best. Giving her instructions every morning before work was like playing charades.

One day, on a saturday we were getting ready to go out
shopping and Busi suddenly made a mad dash for the loo. That's strange I thought.

She came back out and carried on as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. So I told her we were leaving and pointed to the clock to show her what time we would be back, and we left.

When we got home Busi was still ducking in and out of the loo rather more frequently. It was actually quite alarming and I went to my medicine box to find some rehydration solution to give her, thinking she had a bout of gastro. She came to me and told me she was finished but wasn't feeling well and could she go home early. Of course I agreed and drove her to her bus stop.

I dropped her off with instructions on how to make up the rehydration stuff and then left her and got on with my weekend, fully expecting her to be ok.

Huh!

On monday I had a VERY interesting conversation with the maid at work who was Busi's next door neighbor.

It seems that Busi went straight to the clinic after I had dropped her off and was told that she was in labour. She was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance where she delivered a very healthy and completely unexpected baby girl. She had never known she was pregnant, she had suspected it but had been told by the nurses at the clinic that she wasn't.

I will forever love this lady because she had polished my slate floor and done two hours worth of ironing while in labour!

I gave her ALOT of time off and sent an email out asking for girly baby stuff.

Anyway, when she returned to work, her little one returned with her. She still did all her work, just with a baby strapped to her back.

Strapping a baby on one's back was a skill that I had always quite envied but had never been able to achieve...

... until I found this website.

I now have the skills!