My Aunt Can Yell Louder Than Your Aunt

My pint sized aunt finally gave birth. I have to tell you there was a time i thought her tummy was going to rip open.

It looked so big; she was surprisingly nonplussed whilst the rest of us vicariously became her worried husbands. Since the culprit in question is safely cocooned in the backwoods of Zambia.

I wanted her to give birth on my birthday.

She missed it.

She gave birth a week later.

I missed it.

Which is no cause for tears, i was glad.

The last time i was around when she gave birth was just plain awful. For one, she went into labour in the morning, dreadful for her husband, who was around at the time. I daresay the experiences of that day drove him away. The poor man was slapped bitten and even had a clay mug hurled at him, lucky for his eye it missed. 

It’s safe to conclude that his trip to Zambia was contrived. 

(There Mr. Mr. i said it you can come back now).

He escaped the horrors of her labour by going to work.

I was there for it all

At the time she lived in Kuwadzana, in those houses where the sink is outside and you have to out to do the dishes, as i was when this began. The houses are so close together you can literary reach out and touch the house next door.

In between her and her neighbour's house was a little path every Tom, Dick and Harry used to go to and from the main road.the house had a small fence on one side and a brick wall on the other. This mismatch was due to the landlord's aborted renovation attempts, which i thought was quite dreadful.

The wall was poorly plastered and it's surface uneven, in some parts bits of it had broken off and lay strewn all over the yard (the African wind is strong).

I digress.

Now, it so happened that when she really went into labour, she didn't bother to tell me. Although i suspect she may have tried to beam it into my head for when she had walked a little way off, remember i was by the sink, and to getto that little path i described you had to go around the house.

That’s what she had done. so when she was a little way off, it may have occurred to her that whatever message she had beamed had not been conveyed so in a high pitched grunt, which was hardly audible (yes i know, such a sound is physiologically impossible, but she did it anyway)

"What are you waiting for? Go and get my bag.”

Now to be honest it never occurred to me, that she was in labour, so quite innocently i asked,

"What bag?"

Basically what followed was her telling me that i was good for nothing, stupid, retarded and idiotic. After at least 30 seconds (which is really quite a long time, when someone is yelling at you in public-remember, every Tom, Dick and Harry used the path) she told me what it was for and where i was supposed to take it.

That’s right to the clinic, situated 100 metres away.

When i finally caught up with her, the poor dear was lying prone on a hard plastic bed -you would think that arriving babies would get a five star reception, they don't.

So there she was half sitting, half lying with her legs open wide. And a nurse hovering above her shaking and nodding her head as if in conversation with the baby.

She looked up and saw me (my aunt), "where's my sadza?" she hissed.

What sadza, she'd just told me to bring the bag. So before she could curse any further, as she was at that moment, i left.

Thirty minutes later i walked into the room with a bowl of sadza, which i had cooked from scratch. 

And so it began,

"It’s too cold, how dare you,"

I went to reheat it.

"Where’s my coke?" what coke?

I went to buy one.

"I said Fanta, why are you so stupid? You never listen!" she hadn't 

I went and got one,

Until finally the nurse said i wasn't allowed in the labour room anymore, because i was bad for the baby.

Me?

And not her?

I was glad though to be locked out. To leave her to her heaves, contractions and a v-jay that was taking too long to open.

I was glad now as i am now, grateful to have missed it.

P said this birth was peaceful and uneventful, so maybe i really am bad for the baby. And after seeing Ryan i know now why my aunt looked like her tummy was going to rip open.

Ryan (2days old)
he really is quite big.