Hausa moms characteristically carry their sub one year-olds strapped to their backs. Its a universal practice within the culture: indeed, if I ask a mom if she could be pregnant, she will often say "No, I am goyo baya." Then they may point to their infant, sometimes with a quizzical look for the clueless white-man. I think the point is that I should have picked up on the fact that she is breast-feeding. In a similar vein: observers often laugh seeing me walk down the street carrying E strapped to my front with a Baby Bjorn. It just seems like a ludicrous inversion to them to see the husband carrying the baby, and on the front, and using an expensive contraption when I simple cloth would do.
Goyo Baya is such a fundamental cultural concept here, that if you say you are goyo baya with someone, its an idiom meaning you agree with them. Saul is said to be 'goyo baya' with the murder of Stephen. In the contemporary translation... the more stately, antique translation (which many languages seem to have) does not express itself so idiomatically.
Anyway, here is E travelling goyo baya, though it is a very staged shot because he is really a bit old (at 18 months) to be riding goyo baya as far as I have observed, and anyway he's a lot chunkier than most local kids his age. But obviously he's enjoying it.
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