This is the Ingcibi, the traditional surgeon, a very Important person for my people, the Xhosa people.

The Ingcibi is the one who performs circumcision in our Initiation ceremony. Its through this ceremony that a XHOSA boy becomes a Man. Right now there is much talk of failed circumcisions, of infections and deaths.

But this ingcibi Melibhungu Nobinjana, has a reputation for being good at what he does.

MN: Let’s pretend I am an initiate. The boy should sit like this. He must open his legs like this. The spear should be about this size. Because this fits easily between his legs. You hold the penis like this. You slice with the sharp tip of the spear, not with the middle of the blade. “Ut”

My name is Zukile Mancunga. I was born in the Eastern Cape but now live in Jo'berg, I have a family here and a job.
But today I'm going back to my roots. I have read in the newspapers that our young men are going to hospital because of botched circumcisions. I read that 90 initiates died after botched circumcisions last year. This concerns me because I care deeply about our customs. So I'm on a journey home to find out what the problems are, I'm working with Special Assignment who want to help me tell my story.

This is the place where I grew up. I think about my life as a boy here, how I use to play and ride homemade bicycles.The people who live here were very good to me.

I also remember when the time came for me to be initiated, it happened in this area. We went to the bush and were circumcised, then we stayed there for about a month.
We were forbidden to see anybody except the Amakhankatha – the guardians – who looked after us and Taught us discipline. It was very good.

But in some places the tradition is under pressure. I'm going to Bisho now to talk to people there about these problems.
On my way to Bisho I meet these amakrwala. They've just become men and they're back in town

They are wearing special clothes. You feel so dignified when you wear them. It's a whole new world out there, full of cars and girls.

ZM: So guys, have you got lucky lately?
LUBABALO GWATYA: Yes, I did. I thought I was going toHave problems but all was in working order.
MZUKISI HAWU: Like I didn’t have a girlfriend before I leftfor the bush.But on my return I got one – I was in luck! I have evidence that fortune smiles on men returning from the bush.

The community now respects these young men. Their clothes are a sign of their status. They have give away their boyhood clothes. The new outfits are gifts from their parents. They now have responsibilities. And they have no time for boys.
ZM: Tell me how do you treat someone who has been Circumcised in hospital?
LG: He’s not a man. You just tell him, no, you can’t wear Those clothes because you are not a man.You’ve never been to the bush, stayed there and endured The pain and suffering.Instead of facing up to the pain, you went to hospital.Those boys who go to hospital should de sent back to the Bush.
MH: A real man is a man who can take pain.So if you do not go through the pain you are not one of us.In hospital they inject you to numb the pain, but they’re in The bush, you feel everything.
ZM: So in other words you can’t be together and go along With someone who is from hospital?LG: NO, he can’t associate with us because he’s not like Us.He didn’t endure the pain like us and he missed out on Bush life.
News has spread about this meeting in Bisho. Many have travelled far to be here and discuss the problems around circumcision. In particular, new laws and new methods.
It is considered an important meeting, because the King of the Amarharhabe is also present.
Amen

The meeting starts but the subject of circumcision makespeople uneasy. And the men are uncomfortable, because men are not meant to speak of these things in front of women.
So the woman are asked to leave. They are upset and hurt. So they console themselves outside.

DR MC: My six boys have been circumcised and none of them came to me with problemsBut we know the problem is with the cutting and with the caring for the wound.But there is nothing wrong with the tradition as such.

Dr Mamisa Chabula explains to the woman that they. Must give the men space. Its part of the woman’s strategy to make men feel comfortable. It will do no good to fight with the men about circumcision. It will just create more problems.

DM: The men should have their little talk. If we were there, he would not call a spade a spade

ZM: Mrs. Mhlauli, do you think, in your view, woman should have more say when it comes – particularly when it comes to circumcision?DM: Zukile, I can’t say more say, I can just say fifty fifty.Because when the problem comes the mother of the child will also be involved there to decide what to do. I told you that I am the only parent, so if the problem comes, it will come to me.

The government is trying to bring changes to the way Circumcision is done, but today the discussion is inconclusive.

So I decided to go to Port Elizabeth to visit Dr Mamisa, to ask her what she thinks.

DR MAMISA CHABULA: I think I understand how menFeel, because it is an indictment on them, because they are the custodian of custom, but something has gone wrong, in their looking after the custom and the tradition.

DR Chabula saw her first case of botched circumcision in 1998, the same year I was initiated. She sees the infections, the mutilations and the pain firs-hand. She wants people to understand how bad the problems are. Many don’t believe her.
DR MC: You know the boys that go to hospital are the tip of the iceberg, what people are doing now, if they don’t heal after four weeks, the take them out, nice jubilationand ululation’s, Saturday. Monday evening they are at asurgery and one has to attend to unhealed wounds, those are not recorded in the hospital statistics. This is the trend, now how does the boys listen to all the words of wisdom while they are in pain, they won`t and we can because we are all soused with the traditional beer and so on, so everything is good about that, but you don’t feel for that boy who is in pain, he does not listen toanything, he is waiting for Monday to come. (13.18) What I am saying is that the public is running away from facing the reality of the situation. If it were your son who had a complete penictomy, if it were your sonwith a partial penictomy, if it were your son or you who died, you would not be saying anything because you know what has gone wrong. And it is us as public refusing to admit that things have gone wrong, and they have gone terribly wrong.

These are pictures DR Chabula insists on showing the world to bring her point home.

I am now at Cecilia Makiwane hospital in East London, because I have heard there are sick initiates there and I want to talk to them myself. But when they see us they hide from the cameras, and wemust get information from the matron.

MATRON BUYISWA NDUNA: So far we have admittedThirty-six in our wards and four have died. In fact two came in as dead on arrival and the other two died in various wards

BN: When the boy came in most of them – in fact some of them are having a retention of urine – that is they suffer from dehydration. They are not having septic circumcision. For those boys we only insert Folley`s catheter. This is inserted through the penis, through the uritrea and then to the bladder so that it draws urine from the bladder. ZM: Isn’t it painful?

Matron BN: It is, it is painful.
But a catheter is the best case scenario. The worst is when the penis gets gangrenous from infection or a tight bandage and has to be cut off, leaving nothing.

BN: Its just an opening, a uritreal opening so they are unable to pass urine standing, they have to squat because its – its just a hole, I can put that away, its just a hole.
I ask matron why they avoiding the cameras?

BN: They are refusing to talk to you today because theyFeel destroyed and they don’t want their voices to be Heard by the communities who will regard them asOutcasts.
I walk passed the initiate who is critically ill, lying unconscious in his bed.

I’ve just been to the ward where they keep the Initiates. And I’ve spoken to some of them, I’ve spoken to the matron as well and I was very disturbed when I saw the one that was critical. I can imagine what is goingThrough his mind, especially when he wakes up and finds out that he is in hospital, and the fact remains thatwhen he wakes up he will find out that he does not haveUBUDODA.

I also understand why some of them don’t want to talk toMe, its because they are angry, very angry an I canImagine what is going to happen when they go back to the community, the pressure that they are going to bear fromTheir peers and their friends. I see them going back to the community, I also see them facing the challenge of not having what it takes, I see them have to face the reality of life.

I am at the cemetery, not far from the hospital. I am looking for the gravestone of a young boy who lost his penis through initiation. The family is still in trauma, and refuses to speak to us. He committed suicide and is buried here, the shame was too much.
But life goes on and change is possible as long as people fight for it.

DR MC: the problem is the surgery, and I feel intervention can be made there, because its surgery so lets look at the way which won't spoil something which will help reduce the deaths and the mutilations of our children.
Dr Chabula is trying to introduce a Malaysian invention to South African circumcision schools. It’s called the Tara Klamp – doctors say its safe and can be used in the bush. She went to Malaysia with a delegation from the Eastern Cape to test it.

DR MC: Now when you are going to the circumcision, you Insert the front part of the penis (puts paper in ). Inside that, of the organ and then you put the foreskin and you pull it there and once you pull the size of this, it becomes actually very tight, and you clamp it and once you have closed it you can cut with the blade… because I mean it’s easier surgically to do the scissors but you use it for traditional reasons, you then cut with the blade and the do whatever the do, how theydispose of it in the bush, but you leave the clamp on, forfive to six days, and then once you have closed the klamp it does not open, and then after six days there is aMembrane there that you could cut open and then youDismantle it and disconnect it and once you have doneThat, once you have cut it, this part remains, still on theOrgan, then you make it wet and it pulls off and the thing is healed without any problems and complications.It is no different, it’s just a question of change.

The government wants to bring change by making itWe were forbidden to see anybody except the possible to fine or jail negligent traditional surgeons as one way of solving the problem. Another could be with this Tara Klamp, if people can accept it.But old habits die hard .

CHIEF STANFORD SWELINDAWO:We know nothing about Tara Klamp.We are XHOSAS. None of our people were circumcised with that thing. We, in the Xhosa nation, know the spear. That Tara Klamp – we can`t accept it just jet.We don`t know whether or not it brings death.We heard about it now for the first time.

GN: The initiate must be disciplined. The surgeon must be disciplined, what they call in that proclamation, the traditionalizes must bedisciplined. The parents must be disciplined, if none of those people are disciplined you are going to have many of them die.

GN: They must take stock of themselves and look at their culture. And look at how they can sharpen their culturessuch that you can prevent a further escalation of this kinds of disasters.

So I went to the man who knows the most about what happens behind the circumcision curtain, the famous ingcibi, Melibhunga Nobinjana. He has an excellent record as a traditional surgeon. He is not that interested in the Tara Klamp but he Supports the setting up of circumcision schools to make Circumcision safer.I decided to show him Dr mamisa`s upsettingphotographs.

ZM: See how this cut goes right up the scrotum?Can you see the damage that has been done?Melibhungu Nobinjana: It looks as if he`s chopped off the whole penis!He didn’t finish the job properly. Look at it.He failed to turn the penis around, which means the circumcision has not been done properly.ZM: Do you think the spear was blunt?MN: From what I can see its a zig-zag cut, so the blade must have been blunt.
Melibhunga showed me his circumcision school. He hasadapted customs by giving these abakweta a special hut to stay in. If these changes can be made, surely other changes can be made to save lives.

DR MC: Zuki, this introduction of the Tara Klamp reminds me when I tried to introduce the concept of one boy, oneblade in my area. Initially they refused to accept it youknow, saying that the assuages were given by theirforefathers and so on but when they saw some of them slides which we have shown them of the mutilations they some of them admitted, yes we have seen this but I can assure you, you can have all the traditional surgeons andattendants of this province in this room, none will standup and admit to having been responsible for mutilation.

Matron BN: We cling to our culture and at the same timeour culture is having some difficulties. I think it will beproper that we change a little bit, even if we don`t moveaway from our culture.

On my way home, I see abakweta, livingbetween the highway and the suburb of Mdantsane, veryclose to people and traffic. They ask for money and cigarettes. Things have changed indeed.
As we drive home, my mind is full of pictures of the pastfive days.

ZM:If you didn’t know my culture before, perhaps youunderstand it better now.
If you are of my culture, perhaps you need to understandmore.
Maybe my story will make you angry, maybe, it will makeyou think.