The wonderful joy of becoming a brand new man

I write about brand new men while I run.

I have noticed brand new men in their school uniforms, signature caps and hats, marking their recent rites of passage into manhood.

I ponder writing about them, and I decide subjective observation, which doesn’t seek to position me in a role, or as being in possession of forms of knowledge, would be a preferred stance.

While I run, I create the structure and how it can all hang together. I rewrite, adding and discarding.

There are some stray strands, like where my interest in cultural practices first began.

I recall white and red flags, on wobbly bamboo poles and paw-paw trees, in the gardens of my grandparents’ neighbours placed there to show the number of marriageable and married-off daughters.

Moving into the Eastern Cape, I caught glimpses of abakwetha in the far-off veld, and then learnt to spot the temporary hut or ibhoma, watching it change over the years from thatch to plastic, and abakwetha seeming to become more visible.

And the blanket, the white blanket with the red stripe, so emblematic of the white that turns red which Thando Mqqolazana writes about in A Man Who is Not a Man.

I remember the line of young men in their blankets with their sticks in Mthatha in the 90s, who would enter a doctor’s rooms, opting for medical circumcision.

I didn’t know how much this decision might bar them from a circle of legitimacy as

Sakhumzi Mfecane writes about in Ndiyindoda [I am a Man]: Theorising Xhosa Masculinity.

He talks too, of generating African ways of understanding initiation or ulwaluko because Western ways of knowledge creation may miss salient and important parts of this valued custom.

In the early 90s, as a young woman with a camera, doing a filming task of some of the processes of ulwaluko with Mandlakayise Matyumza, a researcher at the then University of Transkei’s Bureau of African Research and Documentation, I received a gift of bearing witness.

I track down Matyumza to tell him I want to write about these experiences, and we share delight in recalling the project.

I am reassured when neither of us can recall a finished product. It was more than 30 years ago. Since then, Matyumza has become an author, publisher and deputy chair of isixhosa National Language Body under the Pan South African Language Board.

Our filming took us into a bhoma built on the banks of the Tsitsa River in the village of Lower Kroza where a group of young men sat in languid silence.

On a different filming occasion, it was a full daylight run down to the Tsitsa River for the abakwetha to wash the clay off their bodies that had renewal and new beginning to it.

I can still smell the river and composting leaves from the overhanging trees in it.

Young, lithe bodies running in celebration.

Then the finality of the burning of the bhoma, which created a heat that required moving further and further away from it. These are returning memories.

Matyumza remembers that an umgidi we filmed was probably the following day and that it was also in Lower Kroza.

I thank him for the passport I was given, through his presence and engagement on reasons for the filming and their consent, to bear witness to young men’s journeys from boyhood to manhood.

It was only later that I began to fully understand what a gift his passport had been when I used to cover a department of education, HIV and Aids directorate gathering of young people.

Here the discussion of circumcision would be emphatic about the exclusion of women. I also wanted to hear some wisdom on ulwaluko, so I turned to psychologist and author Onke Mazibuko and from his answers to my questions this shone as the kind of wisdom that might be shared in the rite of passage.

“My father taught me two important things during the time just after my initiation.

“First, he told me that the bush is vast, and thus there are many differing practices involved in the process of turning boys into men.

“I should never feel less of a man, or a Xhosa for that matter, just because I have heard of things others do in their part of the bush that were not done in our part.

“Second, he told me I should never feel less of a person just because in my life I have had other strong influences such as modernity and westernisation.

“That was useful advice that not only helped me to feel complete, but also allowed me to understand that the world is always evolving, and us with it. From the start to the finish my initiation felt like a celebration.

“There was great excitement that my time had finally come. I had anticipated it for many years.

“My father was happy for me and it was a way of uniting us and changing our relationship forever.

“The entire process felt like a mentorship of sorts, with different men of all ages coming forward to share their wisdom. I benefited from having men I knew tell me for the first time of their experiences in life as men, as well as strangers coming to share with me what manhood meant to them.

“Part of the beauty of the experience is learning from all those who have gone on before you and being able to sift through the silt to get to the gems of wisdom.

“As long as men continue to learn about the society they live in they will have all the resources they need.

“I would hope that the experience helps them to feel more connected to the world around them, and the world beyond this one.”