CIRCUMCISION

CIRCUMCISION 

Cultural ceremonies demand that a man swallow his pride, loose his suit and tie, roll up his sleeves and get rowdy with his mates. Then the act of drinking with a reed straw from the communal pot of broth is considered ordinary.

As a kid, I never imagined this possible with my father. I always fancied him as a calm composed man who never got up to  antics. Such antics. Ever serious and brief.  My opinions were however shattered and I gazed in open mouthed fascination at my circumcision ceremony as my father who is an introvert by nature was carried shoulder high by females (his sisters and a bunch of their friends) for a considerable distance. At the same time singing profanities that to my 8 year old mind were akin to the shocker of my life.

I remember walking for long something I was not used to. Accompanied by a majority of people I had never met who were chanting the Kisii circumcision song which by far is full of profanities. I remember trying to sit down because I was tired and getting forced to stand up because I was a warrior of the tribe now and I was a man. (8 years old then). One of the guys I knew by virtue of the fact that he was among the neighbors you were always asked to go fetch to come help in restraining the cows when the vet came around told me that during their time, they could cross ridges and mountains just to inform the world that they had become men. During their time too, a man never got circumcised alone but the whole age group got circumcised and as such there were always a group of rowdy youths who had just been enclosed for close to a month terrorizing the village hens and raiding the village farms. This is despite the fact that they had an abundant supply of food.

I remember my grandmother spitting cuddled milk and cow’s blood on my face, I remember being asked to carry meat from one room of the house to the other, why? Culture, I could not enter into any house unless this was done. The spitting I was told was a blessing, so a grandmothers spittle is a blessing… I remember being passed around a group of old women my grandmothers age who told me that I was now a robust young man who was supposed to do the community proud as the first born.

Had I been a stranger I probably would have run for my life as a group of women adorned in leaves and twigs over their clothing wielding machetes and slashing plants in their way while chanting and ululating led by my mother came to receive us. I had never seen my mother dressed thus and looking so alien. I remember her jubilation. On that fateful day I learnt what the word ‘egetoro’ meant. To translate it roughly, it means a present given to the hosts lady by other ladies in debt. It is to be paid back to the giver if she ever has a ceremony. Failure to reiterate in the same vein is enough to make you the village gossip topic for a while.

 Then came the teasing of the ladies who were slightly older than me. Those who knew the purpose of the tool that lay between my legs. The slightly older guys were no mercy though as they called me nyokeu. If you ever were in a Kenyan high school, you know what the name njuka means. I have no idea why that name always makes you feel hot faced but that is what the name Nyokeu in Kisii did for me.

So beer (busaa) did flow and the drunks did make idiots of themselves.  The food that was served in trays was cleared away neatly by a multitude who are experts at turning up at events and making the best of it. People you never knew but people whom you bumped into at any village ceremony nonetheless.

At the end of it all, I did come out as an 8 year old man who could not even wash his own clothes. Blame it on the numerous households employed by my mom.