Male Genital Mutilation

Sunday 13th September

Groot Marico

The nearest shop is some distance away in Zeerust, so we left early to get some supplies.

 

En route, my attention was caught by some giant billboards at the side of the road on which the Department for Health was advertising "free male circumcision" in a bid to discourage unsafe circumcision as part of traditional ulwaluko initiation ceremonies.

 

It is a traditional practice in many cultures for boys to go through a "coming of age" ceremony to become a man.  In Xhosa societies, this involves spending a period of time out in the countryside, painting the body in white ash and having a traditional circumcision performed by an ingcibi - the foreskin is cut with an assegai and the man shouts, "Ndiyindoda!" meaning "I am a man!"  After a further process, the whole thing culminates with the initiates washing in the river and burning their possessions and the hut in which they were staying, all symbols of leaving childhood behind.

There is something to be valued in the treasured rituals that have passed down successive generations, but the roadside sign got me thinking about the whole practice of circumcision.  We rightly condemn female genital mutilation and call it for what it is, yet when male genitals are barbarised, we give it a respectable sounding name and turn a blind eye.

Now, I'm not talking about properly carried out circumcision performed in medical conditions, and I appreciate it is an important custom in many different cultures and for many different reasons, however many men are forced to undergo this mutilation of their body against their will, and often it is done in a highly dangerous manner.

Here in South Africa, over 20 men died last year as a result of botched traditional circumcision - the death toll since 1995 is 853.  Many more have had to have their entire penis removed in order to save their lives.  Only months ago, South Africa saw the first successful penis transplant to give back a fully functioning penis to a man who had his amputated following infection due to a badly carried out coming-of-age circumcision.  Furthermore, non-sterile implements continue the spread of HIV and other infections.

The government here is taking steps to try and prevent such practices and prominent figures such as Desmond Tutu have powerfully advocated for these traditional ceremonies to employ the use of medical practitioners, but many young men are under pressure from traditional leaders and elders to have things done the traditional way.

I do not seek to judge another's culture, but when young men are dying and suffering bodily loss because of a dangerous practice, let's call it for what it is: male genital mutilation.

Off-roading in a VW Polo

Saturday 12th September

Groot Marico

Groot Marico River

I sit watching the sun go down over the hills with the Groot Marico River easy-oasying beneath my feet.  The whole day has not been this serene.

 

Not having far to travel today, we decided it would be worth visiting Kgaswane Mountain Reserve near Rustenburg where it is possible to leave the car behind and go on foot due to the low number of predators.  (There are a few leopards, but they prove very elusive.)

 

Having followed the directions to the letter, we found ourselves driving into what seemed to be an industrial estate so stopped to ask for directions.  As soon as I heard the fateful words, "It's easy - you can't miss it," I knew things would not run smoothly.  The couple then proceeded to argue amongst themselves in Afrikaans about which turning to take before dispatching us on a wild goose chase.

 

After much driving around Rustenburg and its suburbs (not always a pleasant experience) we eventually arrived at Kgaswane, around the time we had planned on leaving there.

 

It seemed as though there was little in the way of wildlife to be seen - a few distant zebra and a family of baboons, but we walked further into the undergrowth nevertheless.

 

Just as we were about to turn back, a rock at the other side of a dried-up stream looked like it moved.  Curious, I clambered down the banks to find that it was, in fact, a giant tortoise and quite a magnificent specimen at that.

 

Giant Tortoise, Kgaswane

Calmly munching away at the tender shoots of grass, it didn't mind as we got up close to examine it.  We spent a good 20 minutes in its company before heading off, already very behind schedule.

 

Running so late, we decided to get to our destination and collect the keys before venturing out to a supermarket.  We are spending the next three nights on a farm by the Groot Marico River, but hadn't realised quite how out of the way it was until the drive here.

 

Leaving Groot Marico, we crossed over 10km of rough dirt track: not unusual for this part of the world.  It was, however, particularly bumpy and took a long time to navigate.  As we turned off for the farm, a worse surface emerged - slate rock cliff.

 

An attempt at a track has been carved in to the sheer face of a slate cliff, with many sudden drops and loose rocks.  This road would present a challenge to any 4x4, yet here we were trying to cross it in a VW Polo.  Crawling along and doing my best to control the car, after 2.5km we arrived, only to be told by the owner that the nearest shop is over 40km away in Zeerust.

 

As we were heading back up that treacherous road in search of sustenance, the farmer took pity on us and offered to give us a lift in their pickup to a local petrol station where we could obtain enough supplies for tonight before tackling the road in the light of the morning to properly stock up.

 

We have food, of a fashion, and will make do until tomorrow, although the climb back up the face of the cliff in our Polo is already a challenge filling us with dread.  For now, though, all is peaceful and well with the world.

Cradle of Humankind

Friday 11th September

Rustenburg

The news here over the last two days has been dominated by the announcement of the discovery of a new species of hominid fossil at the Cradle of Humankind, the UNESCO World Heritage Site where "Little Foot" and "Mrs Ples" were found.

 

Although back in the direction we've just come from, we decided that such a momentous announcement warranted a visit.  Beginning at Sterkfontein, the caves where Little Foot was found, we donned hard hats and headed underground.  Clearly not seasoned climbers, a lot of bum-shuffling over the rocks led us eventually to the lowest reaches of the cave.  The caves are so dark, it is believed they have never been inhabited, but rather that Little Foot fell to his death through an opening.

 

At the site of the discover of Mrs Ples, we discovered that "Mrs" was actually a "Mr", but the original name sticks - nice to know that our distant ancestors needn't have been gender binary.

 

At the exhibition centre, coach loads of school children arrives and showed great fascination and delight at the first glimpse of something they'd never seen before: not the ancient fossils, but the wonder that was an automatic hand dryer.  A queue of young boys dared each other to place a hand under it, then when it started, to run away giggling.

 

From here, we headed to Maropeng, a name meaning "returning to where you came from".  Here, an exhibition guides through the history of the earth and the evolution of life to its current stage.  Interestingly, if the history of the Earth were compressed into one day, human beings wouldn't appear until half a second before midnight.

 

Homo Naledi

At the end of the exhibition came what we were here for - sight of the new hominid fossil.

 

It showed a remarkably intact, very small person-like skeleton of a type never before discovered.  It has not yet been dated, but if it proves to be over 2million years old, this will be the oldest 'homo' species ever discovered.  If it proves younger than that, it will show that more than one species of 'homo' lives in southern Africa at the same time - either way, a remarkable find, and a privilege to be amongst the first to see.

 

The exit from this exhibition posed the great existential questions "What is life?" and "What do you believe?" Pondering these may while away a sleepless night, but a piece of wall art brought home a more stark reality: "We need to find ways to fight poverty and sustain the environment: over 800m people know what it feels like to go to bed hungry."

 



Elephants and Greedy Hornbills

Thursday 10th September

Rustenburg

We had planned to spend today in Rustenburg, but the call of the wild was just too irresistible, and we found ourselves heading to Pilanesberg for some animal spotting.  We hadn't planned on visiting here until later in the trip, but we thought it wouldn't do any harm to have a sneak preview today.

 

And I'm glad we did!  We were barely one kilometre into the National Park when we spotted some elephants by a water hole.  It was a herd of about twelve, mainly young, including some of the smallest babies I've seen.

 

Elephants, Pilanesberg

As we pulled the car down a small track to the edge of the water, a second herd, again about 12-strong, began to approach the water.  They spent quite some time sussing each other out, the leading adults from each herd going to meet first, with the others protecting their young and then an 'all-clear' signal was given and the two herds mixed, sniffing, feeling and playing with one another at the water.

 

As if this wasn't impressive enough, a mother and baby hippo joined the scene, plunging into the water beside the elephants, while a bearded jackal prowled around to complete the African picture.

 

Just as we were about to leave, yet another family of elephants arrived, coming round the opposite side of the water, right by where we were parked.  One adult female came right up to examine the cars, perhaps a little too close for comfort.

 

It's difficult to know when to leave a scene like this, but as two of the elephant families moved on, so did we.  Giraffes were the next encounter - a family of six parading along the road.

 

Pilanesberg has a number of small hides where it is possible to get out on foot.  At the first of these, Mankwe, we were greeted by a (very young looking) crocodile, some terrapins and all manner of birdlife, including a pied kingfisher and a fish eagle making a catch.

 

The Offending Hornbill

At lunchtime, we headed to Pilanesberg Centre, where a rather greedy hornbill finished off my boerewors before I had the chance.  There was a huge commotion as someone claimed to see a lion, though I remain sceptical.

 

After a lot of driving, we saw a herd of wildebeest chase off a small jackal.  There were plains game aplenty, including a comical scene of zebra crossing the road.

 

As the sun began to set, we returned to Pilanesberg Centre to see of there was any news of the alleged lion, but there wasn't.  There was, however, a solitary male elephant drinking from a pond just 10m away from where we were standing.  He had found something on the ground, which he proceeded to break into small pieces, and then using the finger on his trunk picked each up in turn to eat.  It always provides a special moment to stand so close to such a magnificent animal.

 

Having found our way to Pilanesberg so easily, we hadn't expected such a difficult journey home.  We took a wrong turn somewhere and before we knew it, were completely lost.  With the help of one of the roadside sellers who can be found at every set of robots, we managed to find our way back to Rustenburg and from there to our accommodation at Woodridge Palms in Millvale, though if I never have to drive through Rustenburg in the dark again, I'll be a very happy man.

Home is where the Harties

Wednesday 9th September

Rustenburg

We're back!  We hadn't planned on returning so soon, but South Africa takes a grip on the heart strings that makes it incredibly difficult to stay away.

The strange thing is, I couldn't say what it is - it's difficult to identify anything in particular that draws me here, but it only takes a few minutes of Jacaranda FM, four way stops and boerewors before it feels like coming home.

It's rather fitting that this trip starts exactly where our last one finished - Hartebeespoortdam.  After collecting our car from OR Tambo Airport, we took a rather long and winding road to Harties, very nearly ending up in Diepsloot on the way.  (Don't ask...)

Hartebeespoortdam

We ascended the Harties Aerial Cableway to the top of one of the Magaliesberg mountains - a frighteningly steep cable car to a very high summit, but with vistas worth every second!  As well as the magnificent view across the dam, there was a reasonable amount of small wildlife to see - lizards, bearded dragons and even an elephant shrew.  Admiring the variety of landscapes around us, it suddenly felt like we'd never been away.

A drive over the dam itself is a rather special experience, though it was much quieter and less eventful than our last visit here.  Hartebeespoort lies incredibly close to the 'Cradle of Humankind' and certainly has a feeling of Eden about it.  If I could choose one place on earth to live, the little cottages along the side of the dam would be in with a good chance.

We'll be returning to this area in a couple of weeks, but for now we're in Rustenburg and heading through North West as Botswana is calling.

I may have just done something foolish...

If the commentariat are to be believed, the upper echelons of the Labour Party have gone into panic mode as the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn being elected their next leader increases.  The accepted wisdom seems to be that a "left-wing" candidate like Corbyn would be "unelectable" and would be, according to the Spectator, a "coup for the Tories".  The Telegraph suggests that were Corbyn to become leader, Labour would face "20 years in the wilderness".  Cue countless comparisons to Michael Foot.

This view is predicated on an analysis of Labour's election defeat which concludes that the electorate did not trust Labour to manage the economy well, that Labour appealed too narrowly, that Labour did not occupy enough of the central ground, that Labour did not have enough to say to the "aspirational classes", whatever that means.  Many have claimed that Ed Milliband was "too left-wing" - "Red Ed" they dubbed him.

There seems to be an unchallenged assumption that in order to become electable, Labour needs to occupy more of the traditionally Conservative ground.  Over the course of the last parliament, and especially since the election, Labour has adopted the policy of austerity and largely accepted the economic argument put forward by Osborne and company.  They even happily adopted the Conservative line that Labour had spent too much, despite the fact that until the banking crisis, Labour had run a smaller deficit than Thatcher did.  And yet, the Labour front bench were falling over themselves to say they'd spent too much and to distance themselves from everything to do with the previous Labour government.  I was even more astounded on Sunday to see Labour's acting leader say that they would not oppose the changes to social security and tax credits in last week's budget.

If this analysis is correct, then yes, Jeremy Corbyn would be an electoral disaster.  However, I just don't buy this narrative.  While the reasons for the Conservative election victory are many and complex (for example, the Tories successfully played on the fear some parts of the English electorate had of what a Labour-SNP coalition might look like), I would like to suggest that the reason for Labour's defeat was much more straight-forward... they were just the same as all the others.

During the election campaign, I chuckled as the suggestions on Twitter read "Similar to Ed Milliband: David Cameron, Nick Clegg".  It told a truth that few were willing to admit.  Reading the manifestos of the Conservative and Labour parties, I struggled to work out where the difference was, especially on economic policy.  Both offered cuts and austerity, both offered little to the most vulnerable in society, both tried so much to occupy the so-called "centre ground" that they stood for very little.  George Osborne's budget last week could have been lifted straight from the Labour manifesto, and that is very telling.

When the Labour Party stops standing up for the poorest and most needy in our society, is it any wonder that Scotland opted for the (more "left-wing") SNP and that England agreed better the devil you know?

Perhaps Labour's key to electoral success might not come in another carbon-copy leader and more of the same austerity narrative.  Perhaps Labour's best chance lies in returning to its founding values, in a leader who stands up for the poorest, in... dare I say it... socialism.

And so I may have just done something foolish... I've just registered as a Labour supporter (it only costs £3) so that I can vote for Jeremy Corbyn as leader.  I'm not doing this because I admire Corbyn's leadership skills or agree with everything he says.  I'm not doing this because I believe he is the solution to all Labour's problems.  I'm doing this because this country needs a Labour Party which is prepared to stand up for the most disadvantaged.  This country needs an effective party of opposition.  We've already got a Conservative Party - we need a party which offers an alternative vision.

Maybe thinking that Corbyn could be electable is foolish, maybe those who say Labour should seek "power rather than purity" are wiser, but then again, maybe the "foolishness" of wealth re-distribution is just the sort of foolishness we need to become a fairer society.

And they'll whisper to you, "socialism's dying...  

you cannae sell it at the supermarket till."   

But while there's fifty left like me,  

we'll make bloody sure they see  

that ideals are the hardest thing to kill. 

For everyone born a place at the table

In July, the children of our church will be leading all of the services, so last week I sat down with a few of them to begin planning.  "You're in charge," I said, "What would you like to do?"  I couldn't possibly have expected the answer that would come:

"Can we have Communion?" asked a seven year-old excitedly, then all the others started joining in.  "Oh, can we, can we?" 

As we talked, it became clear that for many of these children, sharing in the Lord's Supper is a way they experience the living God and has played a major part in their faith development.

This caused me to reflect on my changing experience of Communion.  When I was the age of the children I was talking to, Communion was a mystery to me - not in a "holy use and mystery" way, I just had no idea what it was.  When Communion Sunday came round, the children were all sent out into the hall.  All I knew was if I arrived at church to see a cloth over the table, we'd be going out to do some colouring-in.

When I reached about 11 or 12, we were allowed onto the church balcony to watch the spectacle of Communion taking place, but it was made very clear that we were not welcome to participate.

A few months after my 15th birthday, I participated Communion for the first time.  I found the whole experience a bit strange: lots of silver and pewter, a sombre silence and a procession of strangely-dressed elders distributing the elements with military precision using some secret code of imperceptible nods and winks to ensure that each side of the church progressed at the same rate.  Of my peer group (which was quite large in those days), I was one of only three who stuck around the church long enough to share in this bread and wine.

Over the last few years, my experience of Communion has been hugely different.  Within the context of our all-age worship service, we have shared bread and wine in many and varied ways, and each has been a moment I will cherish.

Typically, I've found myself sat on the floor, surrounded by children and people of all ages as we share the story of the institution by asking and answering questions.  There's no sombre silence - stories of faith are shared and explored and challenged, as adult and child learn from one another.

Far from a procession of suited elders, the elements tend to be shared round by young children.  On one occasion, a three year old girl was handing out glasses of wine and as she handed each one to its recipient, she pulled her skirt over her head, danced in a twirl and shouted 'Hooray!'  Surely to such as these belongs the Kingdom.

Rather than everyone taking a very prim and proper square of bread, my experience of Communion is more of a buffet with the bread and wine shared until all are satisfied.  As one four year old boy likes to shout as he eats the bread, "God is good!"

The presence, questioning, sharing, joy and challenge that children have brought have transformed my understanding of the sacrament and have made this celebration a place of encounter with the risen Christ.  Clearly, these are proving to be formative and transformative experiences for the children too.

And yet, statistics show that only a tiny percentage of children in our churches participate in Communion and there are still relatively few churches who routinely welcome children at the Lord's Table.  Fewer still will break with traditions in order to create a space where children and adults together can meet God through the sharing of bread, wine and story.

To deny a child a place at the table is to deny their place as a disciple.  Is it any wonder, then, that most of them don't stick around?  If Communion is the meal of the family of God, what does it say about that family if we do not make room for all to be present and participate fully?

I am convinced that removing children from the celebration of the sacrament has contributed to the decline the church has seen, and that embracing the gifts that children can uniquely bring to the celebration of the Eucharist would transform the church.  The time has come to embrace the vision of Shirley Erena Murray's hymn:

For young and for old, a place at the table, 

a voice to be heard, a part in the song.  

The hands of a child in hands kind and wrinkled:  

for young and for old, the right to belong.  

And God will delight...