On Pain-Free Circumcision

DISCLAIMER: This is yet another elaborate display of my ignorance. And you, oh wise reader, have yet another chance to educate me by posting your wisdom on that little space below titled “reply”

At the very beginning of the year I attended a relative’s funeral. As with all funerals among my kin, the event didn’t lack its fair share of speeches. I like funeral speeches. If the people that give them are genuine folk, funeral speeches tend to be unpretentious, sobering and sometimes funny. For as long as I live, I have purposed to hear more funeral speeches than wedding speeches. I need not say why.

So at this particular funeral, there was one unpretentious octogenarian – best friend to the deceased. He gave a detailed account of the dead man’s life and his unwavering friendship from their minion sized days. The story progressed to their adolescence and the old man made a point of informing the crowd that indeed his dead friend had been circumcised as a young boy. So important is this event among the Kikuyu community that it is included in the eulogy.

To emphasize the significance of this initiation, the speech giver even quoted a Kikuyu proverb I had never heard before. Loosely translated: To grow up and be a man is to be circumcised.

Now, I have a thing or two to say about this statement, but I’ll save my opinion for another post.

Of course circumcision means different things to various communities. And for communities that do not subscribe to it, well it lacks significance.

However, at the turn of the century, the World Health Organization noted that “there is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60%.”  Thus began a concerted campaign to scale up circumcision for HIV prevention in Eastern and Southern Africa. Perhaps that is how the Shang Ring found a ready market in Kenya irrespective of tribe or creed.

Before I go any further this is my position on the matter: If WHO says circumcision reduces the risk of contracting HIV among heterosexual males, I’m all for circumcision by whatever means and however long or short it takes.

I just have a few questions:-

1. I always thought that for circumcision to count as a rite of passage into manhood it MUST be painful. Does that still count in the 21st century?

2. Now that the act is backed by medical evidence and has been proven to achieve a greater purpose (HIV prevention) than mere initiation, cultural progression and hygiene,  shouldn’t the element of pain be done away with all together?

3. And for communities that have always valued the element of pain in the circumcision process, do they think that doing away with the masochistic aspects of it is actually “unAfrican” (kinda like how we think gay sex is unAfrican?)

4. Also, by doing away with the pain, will that further aggravate the position of the boy child who, it is claimed, is already emasculated and disenfranchised when compared to the ‘empowered’ 21st century girl child?

5. For the communities that circumcise boys at the onset of adolescence  have they begun educating these boys on the main benefit of the process in the fight against HIV or are they still lying to them that it’s all about manhood?

YouTube comments on the NTV story. SMH

6. Isn’t it time uncles, grandfathers, fathers and community elders started changing their perception of circumcision at the risk of misleading an already confused lot of young men in this country who are trying to find their place in a New World Order?

7. That said: To the men in my community who have always borne prejudices against a certain community that didn’t circumcise their boys, but who are now getting circumcised as adults in the face of HIV.., will you now see this community as people after all? Will you drop the prejudices spoken shamelessly in your vernacular? Now that they have ridden themselves of mere foreskin, are these people entitled to lead this country as much as you think you are?

Happy Mother’s Day.., to the ‘Special’ Moms

As I promised yesterday, here’s that Mother’s Day special poem.

Happy Mother’s Day to the moms still housing their 30 year old sons.Don’t worry, there’s no clear indication in the Bible when Jesus moved out of his parent’s home.

Happy Mother’s Day to the moms in abusive marriages. You make a great role model for your daughter.

Happy Mother’s Day to the moms who are ‘married’ to their sons. Why don’t you go ahead and formalize it. Someone did.

Happy Mother’s Day to the moms who give their children EVERYTHING they ask for. The world could use some more spoiled brats to shoot in the head.

Happy Mother’s Day to the the moms struggling to be ‘perfect’ moms. There’s no such thing, but keep kidding yourself.

Happy Mother’s Day to the moms that abandoned their children. Now society gets to make very difficult choices (not obvious ones).

Happy Mother’s Day to the moms that claim they got pregnant by accident yet they didn’t use protection. I never met a soldier who went to war without his amour.

AND FINALLY…,

Happy Mother’s Day to the moms that got pregnant just so they can get married. First someone came up with the mouse trap and then you invented the man trap.

Marriage over Motherhood

This Sunday we celebrate our mamas their mamas and their mama’s mama. That means we must celebrate our first mama – Eve. She who out of boredom (not hunger), munched on the forbidden fruit, making sure that for women to be called mama, they must give birth in pain, sweat, blood and tears. WE LOVE YOU EVE!!

But this being the spinster’s blog, I wish to reflect on some interesting aspects of motherhood vis a vis marriage. Allow me to share a story.

Some years ago, my mother hired the services of a house help. She was a good lady, hard working and respectful. We got along just well and whenever I was home, we would strike up a conversation. It was during one of those conversations that I learned she had a daughter from a previous relationship.

See, I always knew she had two sons since she would sometimes come with them to work. But then she revealed she had a 7 year old daughter who lived upcountry with her grandmother. I asked our help why she didn’t talk much about her daughter and why she couldn’t bring her to Nairobi so they can live together. But she said she couldn’t. Apparently, when she came to Nairobi and met her current husband (the father of the two boys), she never told him that she had a daughter. She figured that if she told him, he would leave her and she would never get married (she always wanted to get married.) So she sacrificed a normal relationship with her daughter to become.., a wife.., and a mother to a different set of children.

I am sure she isn’t the only one. You may have heard of women who have done the the same thing. Mothers who chose marriage over their own children. Mothers who hide their own flesh and blood to be recognized by society as wives. And the relationship these women have with their children is kept alive by a phone call and an M-PESA transaction.

Which takes me back to the question this blog seeks to answer. How important is marriage? How big a deal is it that children should become victims of a unholy union rather than the fruits of it? Our house help may justify that it was the only way to give her daughter “a better life”. But how is she different from that female CEO who spends her life in the office,  has little time for her children, working hard to give them “a better life”?

I know there’s nothing like a perfect mother. I just often think that motherhood is best practiced in close proximity to the child, especially in the child’s younger years. Many women say there’s nothing more fulfilling in this world than being a mother. But beyond the cliche the reality seems to be different.

So pray do tell, which one ranks higher on the scale – marriage or motherhood?

NB: If you’re a fan of my poor attempt at poetry, look out for a Mother’s Day Special tomorrow. I promise, it will be as pathetic as the last.

ION: You can look forward to a similar post in June titled “So You Want to Celebrate Father’s Day?”