COMPARING APPLES WITH APPLES AND FORESKINS WITH LION SKINS

So I find this whole coming of age thing quite interesting.  Turns out the passage of rites is more involved than a Xhosa boy loosing his foreskin somewhere in the bush or a 13 year old Jewish boy suddenly capable of understanding the Torah after his bar mitzvah.

The difference between Xhosa youth in Transkei and white boys in Limpopo is quite evident.  Here in rural Transkei, becoming a man is the most important event in a boy’s life.  There is a lot of psyching up before the initiation and after a hearty 3 week chat from the old men in the village who visit the boys who are tucked away in a secret hut, their foreskin is chopped off.  Depending on the boy’s father’s financial position, he slaughters a goat or a chicken but preparing a meal of samp and beans often clinches the deal.  From that day on, he is expected to act responsibly as well as attend family funerals which takes up most of their Saturdays. Young men display their newfound manhood by wearing a checked jacket and/or a floppy flannel beret.  This outfit from the 50’s probably confuses onlookers into thinking the wearer’s limped shuffle, prompted by a recent slice and dice, is a carefree swagger.

Boys in Limpopo on the other hand, are treated to a weekend away with their dad, dad’s buddies, and as much brandy and coke that can fit next to the rifles and ammo packs in the back of the bakkie as they head off to the nearest game farm to find an animal to kill and turn into biltong.  Once the boy has made his kill, he smears the dead animal’s blood all over his face and eats a piece of its intestines.  He straddles his kill for a photo shot and sometimes the initiate takes the head home to mount against the lounge wall to remind everyone of his manhood.  His swagger is brought on by brandy and coke as he celebrates his newfound manhood.       

Even Japanese people, both male and female have a coming of age day.  It’s celebrated on the 2^nd Monday of January and everyone who turns 20 that year is allowed to vote, drink and smoke.  Perhaps men walk around asking everyone for a light to show their newfound manliness even though they are the size of an average 9 year old Benoni boy.  20 Year old girls probably peer at you from smouldering almond eyes as they pluck out a cute, miniature cigarette, wrapped in origami paper decorated in Hello Kitty designs which they keep in a cute little box stuffed up their kimono sleeve.         

American Indian boys go off to pray in a sauna and afterwards, a special spirit, who appears in their dreams, protects them for the rest of their life and they are rewarded with a new adult name like eagle eye, big bear or hopping rabbit.

Young men of the Buddhist faith go to a monastery for between 3 days to 3 years, depending on how dedicated they are in trying to levitate. After abstaining from sex and food but thriving on praying, you are primed for adult married life and cooled down enough to attract a woman.

In Australia, Aboriginal tribes get together for a Bora ceremony where singing, dancing and storytelling is performed.  After sacrificing something to the spirits, boys loose their foreskins, a finger or a tooth to signify their manhood.

In the Amazon, the Satere Mawe tribe push pain levels to the extreme as boys have to wear a glove of ants whose bite is excruciatingly painful but they have to repeat the exercise 20 times before becoming a man with a swollen hand.

On the Pentacost island, a little place in the south pacific, boys do bungee jumping on land with a length of jungle vines and hope to survive the fall.  If they do, their yam crop will be good but the trick is all about the length of the vine and I imagine how much impact your head can take.

In New Guinea, timid Matausa tribesmen injure themselves in order to let their mother’s woosie blood bleed out of their bodies.  They stick sharp reeds up their noses, down their throats and repeatedly cut their tongues with arrows.  Once they’ve spat out all the bad blood, they are certified brave men and probably from then on speak with a forked tongue.

Maybe you think these rites of passage are unusual and outdated.  I think that although some are a bit extreme, the concept of a passage of rites is important for many primitive communities.  To be acknowledged as a man within these communities and honouring their tradition keeps hierarchy levels in order, respect for the elders is kept alive and separates the boys from the men. 

On the other hand, every year modern, first world Danish teenagers trap hundreds of dolphins in a bay and butcher them to death.  I find this demonstration of manhood much more shocking and barbaric.

Each tribe has a system that works for them, some just differ from others but some just are not acceptable no matter how you look at it.  

COFFEE BAY

Living in Qolora takes a certain kind of person with a certain kind of character and it’s not recommended for the faint hearted. I’m not referring to the Xhosa people who stem from the Transkei and are a part of this land as the anthills, the rivers and the grasslands are. I’m referring to outsiders like myself. I absolutely love it here, and I find the simplicity of Xhosa life much more fulfilling than city life but I do miss things like a get together with a girlfriend and a glass of wine. I miss being able to have an intelligent English conversation with someone. Theo and I spend too much time together so we don’t really have much to say to each other.

Occasionally, when it’s not windy or when there aren’t any students for lessons or I’m not preparing lessons or sitting behind the computer, I get a chance to sit quietly outside our rondavel and listen to the afternoon sounds as dusk sets in and quietness settles over the village. I find the sound of children happily singing at our neighbours house 400 m away (sound travels here), boys whistling at their cows as they herd them home with a whip or a stick and the birds preparing to settle down are the most soothing noises I could imagine.

The young children, with their smiley faces are a treasure to have around, so long as it’s in a controlled environment and so long as they are not more than 6 or 7 and all wanting my attention at the same time. One particular little 8 year old girl has crept into my heart. I always get a big open arms hug from her if I haven’t seen her for a while. She has enormous eyes and a sweet croaky voice which often breaks into little giggles if I pull faces at her or mine Inkosi Sikeli after line 3 since I don’t know the rest of the words.

As rewarding as this is, we have decided that we need time out occasionally so last weekend we decided to take an overnight trip to Dwesa Nature Reserve which is about 100 km’s away and supposedly a fantastic place. The weather looked ominous once again, but this time, we were prepared and I packed my rainponcho and Theo packed his rain suit although he only found one glove so they got left behind.

After the first 50 km my bum was aching and Theo corrected my assumption that we don’t have shocks. Turns out, I sit on them. Go figure.

We arrived at Idijwa and asked for directions. We really should prepare ourselves on these long trips, especially here in Transkei where there aren’t any bike shops to stop for spares or SOS roadside assistance or a tow truck service or such like. Next time we should at least take a puncture repair kit, a cell phone charger or a map or something to make us seem a bit more organised.

Anyway, we were told that the road which turned off the N2 at Idijwa was 90 km of gravel and not too good. On impulse, since my shins were complaining already and the soles of my feet in my worn, oil coated takkies were bruised from being bounced around on the footpegs, we decided to stay on the tar road and continue to Coffee Bay instead. A bit of a spur-of-the-moment decision which turned out to be a further 220 km’s but who’s counting. Well, my bum sure was. Theo did his best to avoid the massive potholes decorating the road for the last 50 km’s before reaching Coffee Bay. We laughed at one hole which was so big that a handful of duck heads peeked out the top as they tried catching a rainwater splash bath.

We eventually arrived pooped and stiff. The trip definitely was worth it and we had a fantastic time and ended up staying an extra night to recuperate aching limbs before returning. Everyone in Coffee Bay was either a surfer, a hippi, stoned or all of the above. We felt the Ja love and it would be easy to confuse the place with Jamaica. There are close to a dozen backpackers in Coffee Bay, all doing a roaring trade from the Baz Bus regularly unloading young people from all corners of the world.

I chatted to a young German girl who was a qualified Waldorf teacher as she sat behind her sewing machine on the stoep of the back packers where we stayed. She told me she used to teach at a school locally but that didn’t last long since she didn’t agree with the techniques of the Eastern Cape schooling system. We discussed corporal punishment which still takes place in schools here. I found it shocking the first time I saw a teacher whack a kid on the back of his head in class. At our school they still get cainned on their hands with a “switch” for arriving late, not singing loud enough at morning devotion, chewing gum in class, talking in class or even not giving the right answer sometimes. I found it unsettling at first but am embarrassed to admit that it works for keeping discipline in class. Shouting and hitting students who don’t try expressing themselves in English only aggravates the problem as I’ve diplomatically tried telling the teachers but when it comes to discipline, I don’t interfere. Anyway, Beta, the German girl had hooked up with a Xhosa guy who worked at the back backers (and who is world’s apart from any of the Xhosa people from our village) and she was quite happy exploring her other talent which was sewing.

After 2 days of chilling, we headed back and were pleasantly surprised to receive a big box of crayons and stationery donated by a couple who visited us and who support our cause.

Now that we are rested, its time to plan the maths workshops which will take place during the Easter school holidays and which should be a great success. I wonder if the Maths teacher from Rondebosch Boys High eats mielie pap and cabbage. I’m crossing my fingers that the power and water are both on while they visit but I’m not holding my breath.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

I’m getting more of an idea of what life is like for an average child here and it sure is nothing compared to the average kid on the block back home. The fact that there is no “block” here with a shopping centre, movie house, toy shop, café, chemist or sports centre on the next corner is the most obvious difference. No-one has a proper address, like the corner of 2nd and Main Road and I haven’t learnt the names of all the settlement villages so I just refer to someone living either over this hill or over that hill. The upside of not having an address is no junk post but the downside is not getting your online order for a new mortar and pestle delivered to your door so you go without. In fact, people here kinda go without everything which city people consider essential. If you don’t happen to have your own Kenwood to crush your plantation of mielies into maize meal , then you could always load up as many bagfuls as you can carry and go to the guy in Centane who parks his cement like contraption in front of Pep Stores and will crush your mielies for a small fee.


Most people don’t farm here anymore so they just buy their maize meal from Boxer or Shoprite in Centane. Apparently, in the past, the boys used to keep the cattle out of the mielie fields but now that they go to school (well actually not all do), no one watches the cows so over time, the people stopped farming since the cattle just ate up the crops. Putting up a fence around a vegetable garden would probably cost 2 months government grant, which is the only income for most people here. Bushes and branches used to work as fencing in the past but the people seem to have lost their desire and motivation and anyway, a government grant is much easier. I’ve been told that if the boys don’t fetch the cows in the afternoons then they wonder into the forest and die from eating plants before sunrise. Either these were muslin cows celebrating Ramadam or I lost the thread of the story. The fact that there are poisonous Ink bushes growing everywhere hasn’t come up. The Xhosa people here don’t keep their cattle the conventional way of on ones property. They open the kraal gates in the morning and the cows wander around wherever they find grazing. They are not milking cows and the vet doesn’t pop around to help during calving season or tick infestations. Animal husbandry is left to nature and the ancestors.

Going to school is the highlight of most primary school children’s day. They get to see their friends and are fed a hot meal every day. (There are limited spoons at school so I’ve gotten used to watching many of them eating samp and beans with their hands, a ruler or protractor). After school boys fetch cows or goats while girls fetch water or smear a fresh layer of dung on the floor. All children over the age of 10 have to wash their own school clothes. Most children live with their grandmothers but I’m not sure how many are because their parents have died of Aids or because their parents work somewhere else. About 40% of children drop out of school before high school (which starts at grade 10). I have recently found out that faction fighting amongst the boys from different villages definitely does exist. In fact a few weeks ago, 3 boys from our school had to deal with this problem en route to school since they walk through another village to get to school. The one who was too old (twice the age of the others in his class) dropped out of school, the other moved to another family member’s home to avoid walking through the wrong village and the third, well he is still too frightened to come back to school.

Weekends consist of church, soccer, funerals and family visits. Xhosa family is not the same as the western term of family and everyone here talks about extended family. All those excuses that your cleaning lady gave you that she has to attend her sisters funeral, are probably true. Families begin with biological members and extend to just about the whole village in fact. Clan names are more important than surnames and members of the same clan are considered family. Clan names originate by someone important and all descendants of that person, even if you marry someone and your surname changes, are family. You aren’t allowed to marry your brother or sister even though they are not necessarily biological family members but you have to, without fail, attend everyone’s funeral.

Funerals are a whole topic on their own which I’ll leave for another time. Now its time for me to do another load of washing in my fancy upmarket Sputnik washing machine.