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August 20, 2005
Twenty -six
I heard the scream before I even saw the woman. There was blood all over her. She came running out of the mud hut waving her hands like a woman possessed.
There were sixteen of us sitting in the back of the Bedford troop truck. We were exhausted after a day of machine-gun training at the firing range near Potchefstroom in South Africa.
We had passed many little huts with thatched roofs where countless African workers were relegated during the apartheid era.
The driver stopped the vehicle so suddenly that most of us fell off the side benches and slid onto the floor.
I don’t even remember scrambling off the truck, but I found myself along with my friend Colin Abrahams (who sadly passed away a few years later), trying to calm the woman down.
She was too hysterical to speak but kept gesturing toward the hut.
Colin and I looked at each other and without thinking, rushed through the door…
The scene that greeted me is permanently burned into my mind.
On the floor of the hut lay a writhing woman also covered in blood.
As we reached her she let out a long haunting scream that shook my entire being. She reached beneath the bloodstained sheet that was covering her.
Then I saw something I will never forget. A squiggling mass of mucus and blood in her hands.
“She’s just had a damn baby!” yelled Colin.
“Get some water,’ came a calm voice from behind me. “I’ve done this before.” It was our instructor Bombardier Kasper Heunis. Neither Colin nor I could move. We were in total shock.
“Maak gou,” he yelled. “Ons het nie die hele donderse dag nie.” (Hurry up. We haven’t got all damn day.)
The lady who first came rushing out of the hut and was now standing behind us, suddenly dashed out of the door and came back with a pail of water.
“Wag buitekant,” barked Bombardier Heunis. (Wait outside.) He pushed both Colin and me out of the door.
We stood outside, two nineteen year-old soldiers with mouths agape. The rest of our contingency joined us and we all waited.
A few minutes later a smiling Bombardier Heunis appeared at the door. Wrapped in a tattered towel and cradled in his arms he held a brand new baby boy.
According to the journal I kept during my army training, today is that little baby’s twenty-sixth birthday.
Happy birthday to you. I hope you are leading a happy and rewarding life.
Sala kahle! Wami umngane.
Posted by trevor at August 20, 2005 05:17 PM
Comments
Wow--what a moving story.
Posted by: nicole at August 21, 2005 02:57 AM
Love your stories, what a range of experiences to draw on (literally). And I'm intrigued by the bubbles here. If it's not an artist's secret, could you post how you make them? They lend a textured quality to the drawings that I really like. Thanks!
Posted by: nita at August 22, 2005 12:43 PM
Did you know there are about 20 people at "everydaymatters" http://groups"dot"yahoo.com/group/everydaymatters/ wondering how you "did the bubbles" in this illustration? I am thinking soap on fingerpaints... but there have been guesses that include masking fluid, salt etc. etc.
Hope you don't mind my asking....
Posted by: Dana at August 23, 2005 11:36 AM
Thank you for such a wonderful story. To be able to find your journal 26 years later is equally awesome. Your writing has inspired the four of us to restart our own journals (...and, to not lose them this time)!! Thanks Trevor.
Posted by: from our family of four at August 26, 2005 12:05 PM