Tag: langa

The Death of Ritual

20 July 09

Today was a down day during which we debriefed the previous two weeks with Edunova and then had time to ourselves to decompress. Decompression and stray thoughts lead to what’s below.

Becoming a Man:

At 18, Xhosa males are taken into the bush where they become men. According to Khonaya, our guide for our township tours, this ritual is about “learning the identity of the tribe” and “grasping the true essence of ritual.” During their time in this conclave, the boys are circumcised.

During the ritual, Khonaya told  us, the boys are not allowed to flinch or show signs of pain. “Being masculine,” he said, “you have to handle the pain.”

This was just about as much as he could tell us about the ritual as the men are not allowed to divulge or describe what happens once they return.

In fact, during yesterday’s braai, when Terry asked one of the Xhosa Edunova facilitators about when he was taken into the bush, all of the women at the table excused themselves and Terry was told men weren’t allowed to talk about what happened in the bush. 

“I have a younger brother,” Khonaye had told us, “and all I can do is support him when the time comes.”

Sharon asked if there were any differences once the men returned home. Khonaya said sometimes “circumcised boys in the classroom expect to be treated differently” especially by female teachers.

I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around all of this for over two weeks now, and I just don’t think I can. More to the point, this is one of the pieces that creates a breech in my ability to understand the culture here. I’ve no basis for comparison. While I’m certain this ritual and others like it have far-reaching social implications, I simply don’t know what I don’t know.

When I see the community that exists here, the strength of the social structure, I begin to worry that the plurality of America also means we’ve watered down or lost our rituals along the road to coexistence. While I’m not suggesting the adoption of this particular ritual, I do wonder if the lack of a shared threshold experience leaves most of our youth without a clear sense of whom they are and where they come from.

Nothing is Simple

 

As promised, I’ve been working on processing the first few days of our time here in CPT.

Here’s a thing that struck me. It struck me strongly and quickly. On our tour of Langa Township, our guide Khonaye commented on the children running around. “You’ll notice they’re everywhere,” he said. “Children here will play 5, 6 blocks away from their homes without danger.”

They don’t need to worry about abduction, molestation or violence, he told us.

The community policed itself.

We stood incredulous. Why don’t they have to worry? How does the community police itself?

“If someone does something, there is vigilante justice.”

Let that one settle in.

Now, I’m no proponent of vigilanteism, and I’m all for following the letter of the law. That said, the most heinous thing I can fathom is a crime against a child.

Here, where three families would co-habitate in one room, the children were safe.

In the suburbs of some of the squeaky cleanest of America’s communities, parents forbid their children from crossing the street alone.

Amber Alerts happen too frequently. They happen at all.

In Philadelphia, violence directly impacts my learners with a disturbing regularity.

This is not to sugar-coat things. One of the first things Captonians will tell you is their city has the most violent crime in the world. Mugging stories are omnipresent.

Still, within the cobbled together communities where corrugated metal is a frequent building material, the children can play safely.

It’s far from perfect, but it’s striking.

Given such community protection of the children, where is the ire when thieves steal entire labs worth of computers or dig up and steal the wiring and ethernet cable? These tools offer gateways allowing learners access to the rest of the world. Ignoring computers, where is the community fundraising to provide pencils, paper, books and erasers so that teachers can create gateways allowing access to the worlds that exist within learners’ own minds?

I’m not dictating what should be done. I’ve seen the dangers of outsiders pronouncing edicts for improvement on existing systems.

What I’m trying to do here is think aloud to bridge the disconnect going on in my mind.

Nothing is simple.