Mazel Tov!

Mkuseli, our after-school youth director, and his wife, Nosibabalo had a baby at 11 on Monday night. When he showed up to work (only an hour late) and mentioned the news, we were floored. There had been no announcement of the pregnancy and no indication this was imminent. In fact, he had traveled to Grahamstown with us only two days earlier! They have one other daughter but she is seven.
I went up to see the baby, a healthy 3.5kg girl named Ungawu, and offer my congratulations.

We did some asking around and it turns out that not announcing a pregnancy in advance is more customary around here than making the big deal of it we do in the U.S. and Canada. I think it has something to do with fear of losing the baby and perhaps not jinxing the pregnancy.

Anyway, things are different around here.