In the ninth month of my pregnancy, I requested that my husband take me to my parents’ home, as it was becoming more and more difficult for me to cope with the household chores. I had already started my maternity leave.

“My dear, when you come back with the twins, the house will be finished,” said Leshata.

“I will be happy,” I said. He had already supervised the laying of the foundation and we had bought all the materials necessary.

It was tradition that when you had your first born, you went to stay with your parents so that your mother could help you with the baby. My mother-in-law agreed.

“Yes, it’s Anna’s mother who must teach her how to handle her first baby. She can go, it’s tradition,” she said, planting deposits of snuff into her nostrils, with her head bent backwards. I sat opposite her on a rickety old chair in front of the kitchen table. I stared at her as she wiped the black fluid running from her nose with a grey handkerchief. She spoke as if without her permission I could never go.

Already my mother-in-law and I had had several embarrassing episodes. On Saturdays Leshata would stop me from waking up early, saying I needed some rest. We would lie in bed until nine or even ten in the morning. I would hear my mother-in-law waking up the boys in the kitchen at seven, shouting so that I would know she was addressing me.

“Wake up, wake up, what type of people sleep until this time? You enjoy the sunrays caressing your buttocks, heh? This is not a hotel … even at a hotel people are up, going for breakfast.” Thereafter I would smell cooked porridge, moroho being cooked. Then there would be a knock on our bedroom door.

“Leshata! I have something for you, my son,” she said. My husband would jump up, put on his gown and open the door.

“What is wrong mother? We are still resting!” “Nxa! I thought you might be hungry, my son.

I brought you some porridge and moroho. Here! Take! That school that she is putting you through does not have a break. Take, my son. I don’t want you to die of hunger.”

My husband came back in with a calabash filled with porridge, dished up in neat, artistic layers, and a yellow enamel plate almost overflowing with moroho. “Leshata, did you hear that? Your mom is insulting me,” I said, tears running down my swollen cheeks. I looked at myself in the mirror of the dressing table. I could hardly recognise my ballooned face. The pregnancy had transformed me. My light complexion was gone. I was charcoal dark and my neck and breasts were scaly. I had to sleep with my upper body raised by continental pillows. I knew that the weight I was carrying was abnormal.

“Don’t worry about my mom. She is like that. I think it’s old age. Let’s eat. Mhhh! This looks delicious. You will get used to her. After all, I married you, not her. You don’t need to feel guilty. It’s me who said you should rest. Don’t worry my dear, just relax,” he said.

At home, my mother’s tears could have filled a plastic bag when I told her about the situation at my mother-in-law’s. “My girl, with the twins, that system of making you their domestic worker just won’t work. It’s just not on. They think you are a slave. I will find you a domestic worker.”

That was to be the cause of my first real fight with my husband. He said he did not believe in domestic workers. When I hired someone, he commanded me to dismiss her immediately.

“My mother is good with children. You won’t have a problem with the twins.”

I refused. He then volunteered to buy a washing machine to assist me. I still refused. The twins were a 24/7 job. When the one was awake the other was asleep. All tasks were doubled. My mother-in-law loved children. She was good with them. But still I needed help. The domestic worker issue came between us, and for weeks my husband hardly spoke to me, responding only with “yes” or “no” when I tried to engage him. Interestingly, whenever I seemed at odds with Leshata, my mother-in-law was friendlier to me.

I hired another domestic worker, and this one stayed. After a while he accepted her presence, and things went back to normal. I could see my mother-in-law was not pleased. If she found us laughing together she would give us an irritated look.

She had now moved permanently with us into our new house. It was a beautiful house, with modern finishings. We had erected a borehole and attached pipes that led into the house, making ours one of the few houses in Modjadji village that had a functional bathroom and a sink in the kitchen. But we still used the outside toilet, as the one inside was not yet properly connected. We had three bedrooms, a study, and a living room, a kitchen with a big pantry, a dining room and two garages with green doors that matched the green roof tiles.

My mother-in-law helped with the babies. She changed nappies and even washed them (disposable nappies were not popular then). Her helping us meant being with her twenty-four hours a day. She insisted on sleeping with me to help with the babies at night.

She was the kind of person who bathed properly only once a week. The rest of the time she used about two litres of water in a small bowl to rinse her face daily. Whenever she entered a room, her perfume arrived first. It was a mixture of rotten fish, snuff and other smells I could not define. I was happy when she got herself a foam mattress. At least I no longer had to share the bed with her. Leshata had to sleep in the other bedroom. That too, I was told, was tradition.

We were always so busy that I hardly had time for my husband. That is when the coming home late started. On some occasions I did not even hear him return. Most of the time, he came home drunk. Every time my husband came into our bedroom to see the babies, my mother-in- law would rush back in, if she was not already in the room. I did not understand this. She would sit there until he left.

When the girls were three months old I asked her to go back to her bedroom in the old four-roomed house, declaring that I was now strong enough to cope with the twins.

“Mama, it is now better because they sleep through the night, only waking up for milk,” I said to her in a respectful tone.

“No my girl. For as long as you are breastfeeding, I sleep in here,” she said adamantly.

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s our tradition. You can’t sleep with your husband until you stop breastfeeding. Otherwise you will kill the babies,” she said.

“What!” I knew they were expecting me to breastfeed until the twins were at least two. I didn’t mind this, as I knew the breastmilk was good for them. Most women in the village breastfed until their children were four or five years old. The child would go and play, then come back and call out loudly, “Mama! Where are you? Come, I want the breasts.” Still, I was taken aback about not being able to sleep with my husband for so long.