Shortly after the cleansing ceremony in June, my clan was ready to meet Sol’s clan to arrange our union. First Sol had to pay damages for making me pregnant. Then he had to pay lobola to marry me. Sol became my greatest gift in my hour of greatest despair. He fulfilled his responsibilities and finally we received permission to get married.

But that was not the last of our obstacles. When Mamkhulu met   the church elders of the Methodist church in Zazulwana, to which   I belonged, they told her that pregnancy out of wedlock was a religious violation and I had been demoted. It would take a year of confirmation courses before I could be reconfirmed as a full member of the church again.

This seemed unnecessarily complicated to us. All we wanted was a meaningful, spiritual church wedding. Then a cousin’s colleague introduced us to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. We paid our registration fees and we were accepted as members. Sol requested that the banns of marriage be announced for three successive Sundays. These banns were there to make sure that there were no legal or moral obstacles to our getting married – a previous marriage, for instance, or an underage partner without parental consent. Of course there weren’t, and finally we were free to say our vows.

The ceremony was to take place in East London. A few days before, I unofficially moved back into the nurse’s home, from where I could help arrange our private wedding and a small celebration afterwards.

Sol and I took a taxi to a jewellery store in the city to buy the rings we had picked out earlier. It was July 1951, the end of winter.

As we walked back to the taxis, it started pouring with rain. I got completely soaked. We had to buy me new clothes at Garlicks and stuff my wet clothes into Sol’s briefcase.

When we got back to Sol’s place, we found our friends had gathered there to help us celebrate buying our rings. One nurse greeted us, “Hello Sol! Where’s Connie? How can you dump her for this lady now?” Another chimed in, “Sol’s a charmer. He picks up women easily.” We all laughed at that.

Finally, 2 August arrived. Our wedding day. At the church were some of our colleagues, Sol’s two sisters and a cousin from Butterworth, Olga and my younger brother Pila, both from Johannesburg, and my elder brother, Sobantu, and Uncle Elliot. The reverend performed the ceremony in the church vestry. “May God give His grace abundantly to this couple, and may peace be all around them in their future, forever,” said the reverend. For some reason I wrote down those words in my pocket book; to my mind they were special. When Sol was in a teasing mood he would quote them. After the ceremony, our friends planned a small party to celebrate with us.

After our wedding, we went to live at Sol’s family home in Butterworth, where we had a traditional marriage ceremony. This ceremony took place after sunset, with elders from both our families present. The ritual was a simple one: I sat behind a door on a floor mat next to my sister-in-law and ate a special piece of meat and drank a glass     of sour milk. This was called “ukutyiswa amasi”, or the drinking of sour milk. Elders from both sides of the family then gave me words of wisdom and encouragement as I embarked on this new phase in my life. After the ceremony, I was to be addressed by my clan name, Mahlongwane, as “makoti”, the bride, or, as “molokazana”, meaning daughter-in-law.

After the “ukutyiswa amasi” ceremony I was not sure what to do in my new home. Sol was busy with the other men near the kraal. My sisters- in-law were both married with young children, so they were getting ready to go back home. Fortunately, my mother-in-law had taken a month’s leave from her job as a domestic worker in Butterworth to stay at home for the first few weeks while I was a makoti.

I was very grateful to her for being around when I needed her, and we soon developed a strong bond. She guided me like a mother and I tried to do my best as a makoti. I wore my new traditional dresses, a black doek low over my forehead and a scarf over my shoulders. I even carried my baby on my back a few times. Sol was happy to see us chatting together. He was close to his mother and I was happy to share in that warm bond with him.

Usually, a bride would serve as a makoti for four months before she became a young wife, after which she was allowed to wear a headscarf of any colour, worn away from the eyes, and to replace the shawl with a scarf around the waist. I had been a makoti for only three weeks when I received a letter. Uncle Elliot had taken our marriage certificate to the matron. My suspension had been lifted. I was allowed to resume training at Frere Hospital, but as a live-out student nurse because of the baby. I moved into Sol’s place in Duncan Village and finally resumed my life as a trainee nurse.

Sol rented one room in a two-roomed semi-detached house. We shared a toilet, a shower and a water tap with the other occupant, an elderly policeman whose family lived in the country. We were fortunate to be in such a small house. In Duncan Village there were many large houses made of wood and iron with ten to twelve rooms, owned by landlords who rented out the rooms to a family per room. These people lived on top of each other, everyone sharing a common toilet and water tap.

One day, we noticed a woman visiting our housemate. “Just a woman looking for a job,” our neighbour told Sol, but we later found out it was his mistress.

We organised a cot and everything we needed to take care of Tammie. He was already eating solids and being bottle-fed. We offered the neighbour’s mistress a job as a nanny, since she was always at our place anyway. She took the position immediately. She looked after him while I was working during the day, and during the night Tammie was with me. He was a very happy boy.

Six months later, by March 1952, Tammie was almost a year old and very keen to play. It soon became clear to us that Sol’s house and the surrounding area was not suitable for a child to play because of hard shrubbery and stones. We shared this concern with Mamkhulu. Fortunately for us, she had just been thinking about my upcoming exams and was worried that I would not have enough time to study. Tammie went to live with his great-aunt, Mamkhulu, who had already helped me so much in my life. My boy was very happy at Mamkhulu’s. He had friends to play with and the environment was clean and safe for him to play freely. He was so settled there by the time I passed my exams that we decided to let him stay at Mamkhulu’s when I took a contract position at Frere Hospital. My career as a professional nurse had begun.