African Culture for babies

Living here in Africa, I have discovered that Africans are not shy about telling you how you need to take care of your children and what you clearly are doing wrong. Recently, my dear friend and Taylor’s former nanny, Bantle, came to visit us to see Bradyn, so I thought I would ask her some questions culturally about what Batswana people do/expect after having children.

• You should stay inside your house for 3 months with a new baby. As we were coming home from South Africa and entering into Botswana, I was again reminded of this by a Batswana lady and I tried to explain to her that I was just trying to get home after having the baby. My neighbor as well told me this when she came to visit, so Bantle just said culturally the women here after having a baby will normally stay inside for 3 months and just eat, sleep, rest, and take care of the baby without going outside of the home. This is also a time in which the father is not around and can only view them from a window if he needs something. SO that said we are trying to stay in as much as we can as not to offend anyone culturally. Bantle did say if it’s the 2nd child that it could just be 1-2 months. We have not booted Brent out though, he is still inside the house helping out like the wonderful husband he is.
• Holding a baby with an umbilical cord still attached is taboo. Bantle did tell me that not everyone believes this is taboo. She did say when the umbilical cord falls off that it is tradition to shave the babies head, mommy’s head, and put all of the hair and the umbilical cord into the toilet. Wow, definitely not participating in that tradition!

All of the Africans point out how big Bradyn’s nose is, so I try to say nicely that we love his nose and it’s the traditional “Martin” nose. I am trying to just take things in stride and not be offended as it’s their culture to be very blunt. Too funny!

We truly do love living here and learning about the people and all the different cultural aspects. We definitely want to learn the culture and how to appropriately share the Love of Christ. 

Sweet “family”

Here’s a glimpse into some of our sweet visitors that came to visit us at the hospital when Bradyn was born. At times like this we miss having our family around, but these folks treated us as their family and loved on us so much. Children here call the grown ups “aunts” and “uncles” and they truly do treat our children like family.

Aunt Jane

Aunt Anna

Uncle Robert and Aunt Margaret-these are the folks we lived beside during our time in Lobatse. They came down and watched Taylor for 3 days while we had Bradyn.

Aunt Diane

Aunt Jessica

Uncle Tim

Uncle Larry

Aunt Denise

Long Summer Days

The days have become very long and very hot here in Botswana. Amanda took a phone call and all of sudden realized that Taylor had become quiet. She had fallen dead asleep on the floor with her favorite blanket. Taylor has not napped for almost a year now but with this hot weather this is her 2nd nap already this week!

Being a big sister is hard work!

Bradyn did not want the quiet time to go to waste and took a quick cat nap in his bouncy chair. Well it’s time for us to try to get in bed before the craziness starts again!

Trying to get a passport picture

It is very hard to get a correct passport picture for a newborn baby. The head and dimensions have to be correct (not easy) but Bradyn also had to have his eyes open and looking at the camera with his hands down. Here are a few tries.

Hands down, hands down

Look this way, almost

Not sure what happened on this one, not even trying!

Wake up, come on wake up, look this way

Here is the final picture – much thanks to photo shop. We used the eyes off of one picture, the head from another, and the body from a 3rd picture. We had to paint the back ground white They accepted the picture and we were able to travel home! Fun times, he had his first passport at 9 days old, traveling little man!

Home Sweet Home

Praise the Lord we arrived back home to Botswana on Saturday, October 23. Our passport arrived quicker than we had expected which was such a blessing. Here are some great friends we had at the guest house as we awaited Bradyn’s arrival.

There were 5 of us ladies waiting to deliver. The first 3 of us have all  had our babies, the last 2 are still waiting until early to mid-November. We were called “The Big 5”

Taylor and her friend Judah

Taylor and her friend Abigail making brownies

Bradyn Hunter Turner

Our beautiful baby boy, Bradyn Hunter Turner, arrived on October 12 at 1:30pm weighing 8lbs 4oz and 19 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing well and were able to come home from the hospital on Friday.

Our humble abode

We are currently in Johannesburg, South Africa awaiting the soon soon soon arrival of our little one. We thought we’d give you a glimpse into where we are staying for about a month as we deliver the baby and wait on all of the necessary paperwork. We have 2 bedrooms with a kitchenette connecting the bedrooms. Taylor calls this our “vacation house” and loves life right now because there is a playground right outside of our door.

This is the view as you walk into our front door with the kitchenette and the 2 bedrooms off of that. A little tight, but it works :)

The view from our front door. Yep, a playground, every childs dream!

The playground

Taylor has mastered climbing to the top of the slide by herself and sliding down. She has quite a few friends to play with here too, so that has been so nice.

Funny faces with Daddy

As we were waiting for lunch the other day, Taylor and Daddy decided to get the camera out and do some funny faces to pass the time away. Thought they were too cute to not show off.

Montecasino

As we wait for baby boy’s arrival, we have been trying to do some things that are not available where we live in Botswana. We have been able to eat at McDonald’s (the closest one to us in Botswana is about 3 hours away), take Taylor to some fun play parks, and yesterday we visited a place called the Montecasino. This place looks sort of like a castle and has shopping, eating, an arcade, and a really fun bird arena. We all have had so much fun the last few days as we’ve been passing the time waiting patiently.

Brent and Taylor with an African Grey bird

Feeding the birds sweet nectar

This is part of the grounds at the Montecasino in the bird area that we could walk through

Red Ibis bird

Playing at the arcade. Taylor had such a blast as you can see from her face.

Delivery date

We have finally made it to Johannesburg, South Africa and are awaiting the arrival of our little guy. We visited the doctor yesterday and he set the c-section date for Tuesday, October 12. We are so excited to meet him! The doctor said that he is already about 7 lbs 11oz and that he looks to be very healthy. Please pray for us in our last few days of trying to get things together and for mommy, daddy, and Taylor as we get ready to adjust to the newest member of the family. We’ll keep you updated on any new news!