A real man? Ndiyindoda?

To tell you the truth it’s not a walk in the park to become a real Xhosa man. You have to be strong. And you must prove it.

It is not a matter of choice. You can’t tell your parents that you are just fine as you are. If you do that you can never marry or do business with other men. As I said, it’s not a free choice, unless you want to live alone and far away, maybe on the moon. Even if you don’t have parents or they are not around, you must still do the best you can to be part of the ritual. Like in my case when I had to ask abadala, other adults, to help me – and to do my best to find my father.

As a young boy, you don’t really know what it means – to become a man. You have heard the saying, Amakhwenkwe, the boys, must go to the bush or to the mountain to become men! They are away for a few weeks – and when they come back they are real men. But what happens on the mountain or in the bush? Nobody really tells you. The women don’t know and the men will not tell you until you are ready, until you are eighteen or older, until you start shaving and your muscles and your genitals look like those of men, not like those of children.

When I was still a small boy in the rural area close to Masizakhe, not far from Graaff-Reinet in iMpuma Koloni, the Eastern Cape, I was once allowed to join a group of boys who brought food to those young guys who were on the mountain to do the ritual – they are called the abakhwetha. I was so impressed when I saw them first. They were singing in a circle, a stick in their hands, mostly naked and their bodies covered only with one blanket and white paint. I only learnt much later that this was no paint, but ingceke, a mixture of water and clay which is smeared on the body. When it dries by the wind or by the sun it becomes white.

When I became a teenager I kept thinking, will I find my father in time? What exactly are the rituals in our family and clan? I knew that they differ from clan to clan and this is important to respect. I also knew that you need money, actually a lot of money for such rituals – and who would support me with it? My mother had not been able to look after me since I was a small boy my father had disappeared in another township in the Western Cape. I had survived many years on the street before, only recently, finding a home filled with good people called HOKISA Children’s Home in Masiphumelele, Cape Town. But I was determined to make it – to be a man one day myself!