The circle of life

Birth and death... the one inevitably follows the other.

This afternoon my latest niece was born. She's the first niece from Graeme's family - Nellie has 13 other cousins from my side of the family! She was born in Hungary, by water birth, at 4.30pm (approximately) and weighed 3.05kg. As yet, she has no name, but her parents are working hard on one. Needless to say, we are all thrilled at her birth, and thrilled that both she and mother are doing so well.

But I have to admit to pangs of intense jealousy and grief. Because of my APS, I am forever denied a water birth... which I so desperately want. I should also already have 2 little girls under foot, not one. It seems to unfair that some women are denied easy labours and births, while others are forever doomed to have difficult and traumatic ones. (Did I mention here that my friends who had come to SA for an IUI lost their baby just before the weekend? My heart breaks for them!) It also seems so unfair that my dear sister-in-law should be having sleepless nights now because she has a gorgeous baby to look after... it should have been me. And it's so unfair that I can't seem to let go of this grief and that it should spoil what would otherwise be a perfect piece of ecstasy.

Which isn't to say that I'm not happy for my sister-in-law, or my in-laws, who now have a real grandchild of their own (everyone knows that only your daughter's children are really your grandchildren!) ... sorry. That was bitchy and completely uncalled for.

OK - let's move onto death then, since I can't seem to deal with the birth part of life too well this evening.

Death. Here in SA we have this lovely culture of rites of passage. Our traditional cultures all have a tradition of sending their boys off into the bush to be circumcised, followed by a 9 day fast, to undergo a spiritual awakening of some sort, and to then return as 'men'. It's not the age of the boys that makes the difference between being a boy or a man - it's whether you have participated in such a ritual.

Tonight I learnt about one 'boy' in particular. He was 25. He went to one of the most prestigious boys' high schools in Cape Town, if not in the country. He had a BSc degree from UCT. He had a fantastic job with a very good company in Cape Town. His name was Buntu Majalo. (I hope I got his surname correct!)

In Dec 2007 he went off to the bush because the people in Gugulethu (the township where he grew up) still viewed him as a boy, because he hadn't participated in the initiation. He died in hospital, reportedly from a botched circumcision and some torture that he experienced.

According to the report I watched, during these June/ July school holidays (2-3 weeks), 20 boys have died during initiation ceremonies.

While I have no problem, in theory, with initiation rites, it blows me away that the death toll is so high. It's not that the ritual is bad - marking the move from childhood to adulthood is important to every culture. It's the manner in which that ritual is played out that shocks me. For 20 boys to have lost their lives over the past 2-3 weeks to the same mindless abuse is simply not okay.

Although the other provinces in SA have laws to ensure that the "surgeons" and "nurses" involved are properly trained and registered, our province (Western Cape) does not. However, despite this, the death toll in other provinces is as high as it is here in the Cape. Obviously, even legislating to prevent corruption is not achieving the desired outcomes.

Apparently, some of these "surgeons" are raking in R4000 per boy they circumcise. To put that in context - our tenant is paying us R4000 per month in rent for a 3 bedroomed townhouse next to a major highway. A visit to a medical doctor for a circumcision at a state hospital will cost you about R400.

Those boys who slink off to the hospital if they suspect something has gone wrong with the circumcision are ostracised when they return. They are not considered 'real' men, because they are seen to be weak. Yet, many of them lose not just part of their penis, but the entire thing, when proper medical care is not given to these boys and either gangrene or sepsis sets in.

If this were happening to girls, the world would be up in arms, demanding that the government put a stop to this inhumane treatment. Yet, because it is boys, the world averts its eyes.

Buntu was the only child to a single mother. Having lost my baby, I can tell you that her grief knows no bounds. I don't know what I can do, as one individual from the white community, but I know in my heart that to stand by and do nothing is to say that Buntu's life was worth nothing. If I count his life to have had any value, then I cannot sit idly by and allow this atrocious abuse of an otherwise useful ceremony and ritual to continue.

But what do I do? I don't even know where to begin. I feel helpless and frustrated, and very very sad for the families of these poor boys.