HEADLINE:   Following in the footsteps  

PUBLICATION: Daily News  

PAGE NUMBER: 11

AUTHOR:     Zubeida Jaffer

DATE:       2001-03-02 10:39:51

Following in the footsteps of a pioneer

She runs one of the biggest medical practices in Motherwell and is controversially known 

for her interventions in botched circumcisions. And Mamisa Chabula is also single parent 

to 10 children.

Chabula (54) has five boys and five girls. Four of them are well on their way to becoming medical doctors. Another four are completing degrees in commerce and two are still at high school. 

"Her footsteps are just too big for us to follow," says her third-youngest son, Gugu Nxiweni. "Even if we try to emulate her, we just run out of energy."

Chabula left her husband, a Transkei academic, 13 years ago. She arrived back in her home town of Port Elizabeth with only two certificates in her possession - her MBChb certificate and her registration with the Medical and Dental Council. 

She had borrowed R100 for petrol and a change of clothing from a friend. 

Within six months, she set up her practice in Motherwell and then sent for her children. But they seldom saw her, because to feed, clothe and educate them, she worked from morning until late at night. Luckily for her, the children excelled at school. Two completed their BSc degrees before entering medical school.

Chabula had been a teacher before entering medical school. Her mother, a domestic worker, had wanted her to be secure and encouraged her to teach. Her father was a herbalist from Malawi. But a doctor was what she always wanted to be. 

She had grown up poor, working as a domestic after school every day. But excellent results led her to Fort Hare, where she completed a BSc Honours degree. 

During that time she got married and had her first three children. She had others at medical school. "I never graduated without a swollen tummy," she said, laughing. "I wore a maternity dress at every grad."

Her Catholic faith had left her doubtful about contraceptive use. "I told my husband I would bear him children for 15 years and then no more," she said.

And that is what she did. 

"I don't regret having these children. They fill my life. They are such good friends to me."

Often, she has had to rely 

on her boys to fetch injured initiates from the veld. And her second-eldest daughter, Lulek-wa, is serving her medical internship and often able to work in her mother's practice.

Gugu says: "I think my mother would have liked us all to be doctors. She loves medicine. I am sure her dream is having a whole team assembled together - one of us the heart surgeon, another the pediatrician. But some of us are learning the business side while the others practise medicine." 

Chabula's family is closely knit and she attributes this 

partly to a game she introduced called "secret pals". 

She explained that every Christmas the children would draw a sibling's name from a hat. That name would be their secret pal for the year. They were only to disclose the name again the following Christmas. They were expected to treat their secret pal well. They also had the job of buying that pal 

a Christmas present.

"I do not buy Christmas pres-ents because they organised it themselves," she said. Somehow the game helped keep harmony in the home and created a lot 

of excitement when names were revealed the following year.

The family also instituted annual awards for the best-dressed child and the best academic performer. 

"If I were to do it all over again, I would live my life just the same. It's been hard, but these children have been great."