The emphatic breast

It is the end of the day. The weather has turned – it has been raining and we have all worn jumpers for the first time this year. I amble back through the residences. The nursing Matron is standing in the doorway of her flat chatting to a couple of teenage blokes – perhaps family members. She calls me and waves. I wander over.

“Sawubona. Gunjani?” I say in my broken Zulu ("Hello, how are you?"). She smiles benignly.

“Siyapela!” she replies (“We are fine.”) “Dr Moran, you are learning Zulu?!” I confess that I try a couple of words a day but my progress is poor.

“But,” I say with some pride, “I worked out how to ask whether the babies were drinking well: ‘Uyaphuza kahle na?”

“Hauw! Good! But you need to ask whether they are sucking well.” She rattles off a phrase and illustrates it by grasping her own breast through her clothes and waving it to illustrate her point. The family members grin at me as I repeat the phrase a couple of times. It does not stick in my mind – I am a little distracted by the emphatic mammary tissue. I can feel myself beginning to flush with mild embarrassment and make my hasty broken-Zulu farewells. “You will be speaking properly soon – Zulu is very easy!” Matron calls after me as I back away.

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