COMING FOR AMERICA 1
The Origin
Andayi Mushenye
MIDMOST CHAPTER 17
From Boyhood to Manhood: A Journey of Celebration and Responsibility
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Night after night, the skies were ceaselessly bubbling with dazzling stars. We had successfully survived, and I was now ready to face the real world as a man. Everyone in the village waited with bated breath for the newest generation that would carry on the blazing torch of life. Even the woods, which had been so scary on the first night, seemed quietly vibrating with rapturous adoration.
At midnight, the stars were so bright that I wanted to reach out and grab one of them, but I chose to sleep and save the energy I would need for the most significant event in a young man’s life. When I opened my eyes and inhaled, a quick refreshing scent of the forest ecosystem drifted into my nostrils, ushering in a triumphant feeling that would endure for many long years.
Early in the morning, when the sky was turned to the pearly gray of dawn, we were already lined up for our first ravishing haircuts. The painless styling of our hair with scissors was a step up because, in my previous life as a child, my hair was mowed bald with a razor blade without regard to any design. I remember when the circumciser, who had transformed into a barber just for this occasion, snipped around my ear. The sound of the sharp, close clip made me jump out of the makeshift barber chair. Afraid he might cut my ear like he’d snipped my DNA distributor, I refused to sit back down. With no time to waste delaying everyone, my hurried uncles forcefully sat me back down and held my head fixed in place until the man was done fashioning my nappy hair.
As soon as the sun started to peek through the impenetrable boondocks, beckoning us to hurry up and greet the grandest event of our lives, we headed for the sacred river to take consecrated baths. When we finished and started to crisscross the forest pathways back to the seclusion hut, our appearances glistened with vivid sunniness.
When my brand-new adult clothes were handed over to me, it signaled I was indeed crossing into my maturated world because I was about to wear zippered trousers and a belt for the first time. All my life, I had worn oversized shorts with an elastic waistband. When I put them on, my legs and waist initially felt funny. It took me a few dry runs to learn how not to get my maleness caught when zipping up my revered bell bottoms.
Although I was over the moon wearing my first long-sleeved shirt, buttoning up the sleeves became complicated. I was used to an oversized, short-sleeve, three-button shirt with my name stitched by Mama on the inside of the collar just in case it got stolen from the clothesline. I spun my wrist backward to get my fingers to button the sleeve on the same hand but failed miserably. An uncle had to walk me through by showing me how to use the left hand to button up the sleeve on the right hand and vice versa.
At first, I didn’t recognize the item that was sealed in a small plastic bag until I was reminded I needed to wear the tiny tight shorts before I put on my trousers. Even after putting them on and buckling my belt, it didn’t guarantee the expected comfort from my new interior outfit. My scrotum felt uncomfortable because wearing underwear for the first time felt funny, pressing onto the center of my manhood.
The minute we were all dressed, we stood like greyhounds in the slips, ready to finally come out. Rays of sunshine that had struggled to break through the thick forest on many mornings were forcefully cracking through with full force as if Mother Earth were ushering in the first full sunlight of our manhood. When we stepped into a more open area for final preparations, the faces greased with so much Vaseline seemed to be illuminated from within.
As per custom, we always queued from the first to the last one circumcised. At the end of the line, the tall, bearded bloke who’d been captured and circumcised by force stood out. After the final meticulous inspection and with everything in its place, a shimmer of the sun had turned golden, and it was endlessly streaming through the rest of the ancient trees that had concealed us from the public for over a month. The imminent crowning moment caused a sigh of utmost contentment to rise through me—it felt like my Independence Day!
The singing and rhythmic foot pounding began in unison without further ado, and we headed out. In the distance, I could see the sunlight behind the green hills piled upon each other’s shoulders. The tribal songs we belted out on this momentous coming-out ceremony praised warriorhood and encouraged us to achieve it at all costs. The song I remember chorused, “We shall climb and conquer the mountains of life, just be cautious and patient.”
The closer we got to the outside world, the more the scent of wild roses snuck in with every breath of the freshest morning air of my life. By the time the thick forest started to thin out, the new scenery had caused us to confidently march ahead. We were dancing, singing victory songs, and holding up the indispensable fighting poles that were not only used for offense and defense in combat but to lever open our way in the bushes in search of food. Within a few steps, the obliqueness of the forest had waned entirely, and I could see that the low hills on the forest horizon had worn a haze of inviting blue skies.
At long last, we appeared at the outer part of the forest, and the whole celestial landscape became instantly suffused with the convivial glow of the risen sun. A sea of exuberant people who had massed along the route waiting for us detonated with joyful rounds of applause.
I knew there was no going back when I heard all the praiseful handclaps, songs, drums, whistles, and uproarious screams. This realization caused me to feel like the earth was also dancing under my feet in synchronization with my new manly footsteps. These welcoming sounds finally marked the official end of boyhood and the beginning of manhood. For the first time in my life, I felt like a hero!
The coming out day was the most anticipated occasion among all mothers, aunts, and sisters who had missed their sons, nephews, and brothers. I thought Mama was going to be extremely angry with me. But the moment she saw her only two sons, whom she hadn’t seen in over a month and wasn’t sure she would ever see alive again, her hurrays went up an octave.
Our grande dame exploded on her feet and charged toward us like an arrow fired from the crowd. Her outburst told me she had just let out the breath she had been holding until the day she got to see her boys back home again, safe and sound.
Everyone understood her uncontrollable hysteria because no one informed any mother of her son’s death during this man-making sojourn. Worried that disclosing a boy’s death would upset our ancestors, jinx the rest of the group, or cause a bad omen to the whole tribe, the elders secretly and hastily buried the weakling late in the night without the benefit of a casket, prayers, or his mother’s knowledge. It was not until the coming-out day when she did not see her son, that they revealed the sad news and cleansed the family of the curse.
Even if the grief-stricken mother wanted to know about the cause of his death, there were no answers to tell. If her utter anguish threw caution to the side and continued to mourn and insist endlessly, the elders simply told her, “Your weakling was killed by death.”
End of the story because they could not mention the name of the nonentity or the actual cause, like drowning, disease, snake bite, hypothermia, lightning strike, bleeding to death, or any other. They could not point out anything else about the letdown because his evil spirit would think it was being called back to avenge its death. For this reason, no elder wanted to be blacklisted by the whole tribe as the one who jinxed the evil spirit to befall his family or the community.
I was still caught up in the ramifications of these burial rituals and theories when I saw high-strung Mama trapped but furiously elbowing through the massive crowd. With her eyes locked on us, she made a quick beeline, got to the tiny space she needed, and practically sprinted toward my brother and me with tears of utter delight bubbling in her eyes. When she got to our side, the charming air of vigor and vitality had engrossed her victorious cheers and rapturous dance.
As she moved closer, I could swear I saw tears of extreme joy finally dropping from her glittering eyes. Even as the boisterous crowd forcefully jostled for a better view of the brand-new men, she remained by our side as if she would never ever hand us over to anyone again. In retrospect, Mama was the perfect picture of the mother hen that doesn’t leave the nest when she hears her chicks’ first cheeps until they are hatched. She had heard her boys sing, and now she wasn’t going anywhere until she got them back home safe and sound.
The instant the jam-packed path opened up, she let out an extended, triumphant exclamation that I was afraid she was about to run out of oxygen. Caught off guard, my brother and I looked her way, and by then, she had already gotten a little jiggle room. When I saw the extreme jubilation in her grateful, ecstatic, and shoulder-breaking traditional dance, I couldn’t believe it was the same architect of our lives who had sternly castigated me to shut up and go back to sleep the night I escaped from home. This day was the only time in our entire lives we saw her celebrating motherhood with seductive and acrobatic moves by exuberantly twerking her rear end up and down.
Bowled over by the intricate maneuvers of her gluteus maximus and before the ecstatic skit edged in my mind as the most astounding episode of the day I bid goodbye to my boyhood, she sang along, quaking her shoulders thunderously.
When I joyfully sang as well, she caught me off guard again. She stopped and expertly arched her backside until she was bottom up. There and there, she rhythmically twizzled her nethermost extremities lasciviously. At the sight of her incredibly flawless ability to pull off such back-to-back erotic mischiefs right before us, I nearly fell over, but our village’s free-wheeling and ultimate jamboree of the year had to go on.
Her lewd acrobatics were not all there was to the show. In the dancing rainbows of the bright sunlight, the ecstatic village lassies contending to be our future suitors had thronged both sides of the road to witness and dance for their potential husbands. The young missies, dressed to entice and celebrate, were flaunting and shaking every inch of their bodies, trying to outdo one another to catch our attention. At the sight of their well-executed sensual finesses, the rapid oxidation of erogenous sensations I had fantasized about during the month in seclusion rioted through me.
Despite the tumult of pride and delight that had besieged her quintessence, Mama quickly realized the young girls were also there for the same show but for different reasons. The morals enforcer, who was adamant we were not allowed to have sex till after we got married and had children, tactfully hung back to give the euphoric young women room to dance for their newest boys-to-men group. The excited future brides continuously crisscrossed ahead of us and circled around, outdoing one another and breezing by us to touch and feel their covetable studs.
The first time Ankasa touched me, a volcanic eruption of imprisoned passions made me miss a step, but I quickly recovered. Grinning from ear to ear, she looped a complete circuit like a lioness scent-marking her territory, tweaking her teenage hips and quaking her shoulders expertly. Right at that moment, seeing all my attention locked on her, she tugged on my brand-new long-sleeved shirt for validation, and the thrill of her attention caused my pounding heart to skip three to four beats.
On this special occasion, the girls didn’t wear underwear because they wanted to celebrate their fertility and signify their readiness for motherhood at the most opportune time. When my youthful mind thought of the sensual possibilities that lay ahead, I smiled wide and danced wildly.
The night before we departed, I followed a few of us who snuck into the woods to dig out a yellowish root locally known as mukombero (botanically, mondia whitei). The stem is famous for its eye-popping libido-boosting effects. Caught up in the rhythm of the intimate moment, I tapped my pocket to make sure the root was still there and smiled widely at her. She nodded promisingly, romping and jollying just a few inches from me as if she had a sixth sensual sense.
With perfect timing, she purposely pumped her frolicking hip into my overhauled turbo engine, and it warmed up right away. Feeling the electrons from the completed circuit, I responded with a well-timed tap on her quaking backside. She gave off a mellifluous moan and scrammed off, dancing and celebrating feverishly. A few feet away, with all my attention locked on her and hers on me, she circled and repeated the entire flirtatious sequence, which finally triggered another hot and more massive internal combustion. By the time she whooshed off, leaving my engine revving, Ankasa had summarily etched her territory.
Thoroughly imbued with a vernal freshness, the frenzied match and dance went into a higher gear. It was as if my DNA structure had been secretly fused with an ecstatic rhythm right from conception. We boogied just as much, trying to outdo each other for the girls to take notice of the best dancer.
Upon Ankasa’s persistent sneaky touch and tuck, my mukombero-powered engine automatically switched into cruise control mode and stayed there. I couldn’t believe this part of my adolescent essence was animated and vibrating with a surge of passion I’d never imagined would resurrect in me, especially after all that gory etching.
The joyousness sparked by our heartthrobs pushed us to step up the game with unparalleled confidence. Feeling like I was on cloud nine, the most jubilant occasion resulted in my best, most full of joie de vivre dance ever. The victory songs and dances confirmed I had earned the title of a man, once and for all. I was no longer a child to be shoved or pushed around by anyone. People would listen, consider, and respect my opinion for the first time in my life.
My manhood was confirmed when we finally got home, and, for the first time, Mama gave me my own bottle of soda: an orange Fanta. Before this day, we’d only seen soda in the home when Mama was expecting an esteemed visitor. The first sign she expected guests was when she took out her ceremonial ornamented linens stitched with interwoven patterns and covered all the living room seats.
When she donned the matching tablecloth on the dining table, and the rest of the embroidered pieces on the chairs, that part of the house was officially out of bounds for us. The moment the chinaware that was only meant for visitors finally appeared, we knew the visitors were just around the corner. From then on, we couldn’t leave home, because we wanted to see who would come. When the visitors arrived, it was not unusual for sodas and cakes to appear on the table out of nowhere.
Our graduation from boyhood to manhood was a defining milestone because, in all the previous years, she had insisted on pouring our soda into two plastic cups. My brother and I had to share the drink because we were children, not manly enough to qualify for our own bottle of soda.
On this day, though, sitting on her spotless and distinguished linen for the first time in our lives, drinking a personal bottle of soda, and chatting with adults—it confirmed the new long-awaited status. I could feel the mocking echoes of departed boyhood receding with a quickness I wouldn’t have anticipated when I escaped from home.
The orange-flavored carbonated drink, whose name Fanta is a short form of the word Fantasie (German for fantasy or imagination), was supposedly specially manufactured and meant for the recently circumcised to restore the blood we had shed. The praises of the second drink to be produced by Coca-Cola after their signature Coke weren’t just limited to my country. In Rwanda, it is referred to as virginal soda, where only virgins drink Fanta as it’s assumed to be the most innocent and virtuous of all the sodas.
As I clutched onto a full Fanta bottle in my hand for the first time and felt the kiss of the fabric of my new bell-bottom trousers on my legs that signaled I had become a man, I stepped outside and insisted that someone take a photo of me. Nobody would dare challenge me because it was my day, and anything a Fanta-glorious man requested on his first day of manhood will be given.
The convivial rituals continued until every relative had hosted us. They started with the immediate family and then a trip every day to the rest of our external kith and kin. For the next few weeks, we hopped from uncles to aunties to grandparents, covering everyone on the maternal and paternal sides. Many chickens, the main delicacy of kudos and appreciation, were stewed and grilled in our honor to signify our cherished new status. The gratified kinsfolk bequeathed us domesticated animals and other gifts explicitly meant to set us up for the next phase of life—marriage.
The variety of animals, ranging from goats to sheep, chickens, and ducks, would serve as my first form of personal wealth. Over the coming years, I was expected to studiously nurture them until they reproduced enough offspring, then put them up for sale and use the proceeds to purchase a cow. I would diligently look after it, day and night, till it gave birth to enough calves to breed and grow into a herd of cattle.
When the time for marriage came, and after confirming that my bride and all sides of our two families consented to the new union, I would ceremoniously deliver the herd as thank-you gifts to the parents who had allowed me to marry their daughter and become part of their family. This revered traditional benefaction, also referred to as a dowry, is disparaged as “bride-price” in the Western world due to their strict reliance on money-based gifts.
When I finally settled at home, I was most excited at the prospect of my own itisi, a typical round hut with a conical grass-thatched roof meant to be the dwelling hut of a young man. The father of the unmarried man typically constructs it a few years after his son has gone through this rite of passage and bestows it right after the young man sprouts his first beard. Having my itisi, commonly known as simba in other tribes, meant I would be free to come and go as I wished and could have private guests.
Typically, a young man marries while residing in his itisi, and as soon as his family expands, he builds a bigger home and leaves the homestead. The delayed transition infers that while his family is young, he needs his parents to guide him as he learns the ropes of providing, protecting, and caring for his expanding family. By the time the young man moves out to be on his own for good, he is independent, well-versed, and grounded in what it takes to be a successful provider, protector, father, and husband.
The coming-out celebration was a shining moment in my lifetime, one I would never forget—the prime of my life had finally been set in motion. Being a man was not just a matter of age, strength, or knowledge but also personal maturity and well-grounded wisdom. Unless there was a life-saving emergency, I could no longer step into the kitchen or Mama’s bedroom for the rest of my life. I was now permitted to sit among the revered old men for a chitchat or to offer my advice.
When any of my compatriots, their wives, or their children died, I would be permitted to join the pallbearers or dig a grave and take part in the final rituals of laying them to rest. If I heard cries for help late in the village night, I would be expected to get up, arm myself with a machete, and head in that direction. Since it takes a village to raise a child, I had earned the right to reprimand any misbehaving, uncircumcised young man in the village. I was now going to take full responsibility for my life. And gladly, I would no longer wear shorts meant for boys, only trousers for men.