Today’s activities haven’t really included any of my normal American Thanksgiving other than making squash rolls with some rather strange African pumpkin. I started my day returning to the infamous public maternity clinic (more to follow below…). Instead of watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I got to watch Veggie Tale’s David and Goliath with the 3 preschoolers: Jonathan, Isaac and Maria. And I’ve spent the day passing on my greetings of “Happy Thanksgiving” to my African friends who really have no clue what I’m talking about or why I am so excited that today is a holiday. But the day will still end with me gorging myself on the meal that all my compatriots have been slaving over. And for that I am very, very thankful!
So more about my trip back to the maternity clinic… I decided to get there much earlier this time than a month ago. I still went with Elton’s auntie in tow just in case they forgot that I was actually allowed to be there. I was only number 5 in the queue this time and it surprisingly went WAY faster than last time. Once they finally started seeing patients at 9:30, I was in and out by 10:30. Unfortunately, they did NOT have any blood results and did little more than poke at my belly, tell me I’m carrying very low and tell me to come back December 11th. Kind of frustrating and very uninformative…. Fortunately, I had been to the private doctor earlier this week that had done a more thorough exam and has cleared me to fly next week.
Being that our little tadpole is progressing, I’ve been searching out baby names on the internet. Of course, my life is never normal and finding baby names for an American-Namibian baby is no easy task. The only Lozi baby name book I can find mentioned anywhere is “Lozi Names in Language and Culture” by Mukumbuta Lisimba but it seems to be out of print and completely unavailable anywhere except snippets of it on google books. Most Lozi names seem to be very dark and depressing, so I feared the worse when I googled Elton’s name. Both his first and last name: Mubuyaeta (resting one) is the name that signals peace and emotional stability. Now I know my mother is saying, “Amen” to that because she thinks he is a very peaceful person. I’m sure my friends are snickering at the irony that my husband’s name means “emotional stability.” (And I know you’re thinking that he’s going to need that being married to me.) His nickname is Simbotwe or Paddha which means frog. Anyway, the search will continue for the perfect name.
http://books.google.com/books?id=mNNtAAAAMAAJ&q=mubuyaeta