And that’s how I ended up on a hard, cold doctor’s worktop enduring anaesthetic jabs before the cut. I like to brag that I gave a pretty good account of myself. But that’s only because my grandfather, who was the only mortal present, is dead as the dodo.

But if I thought myself a hero, I was in for a rude shock. My peers who elected to wait for the next circumcision would point at me and say, "Look at him — chicken. He was cut on a stretcher!"

I thought they were a bunch of fools, and that the doctor’s cut was a lot more painful than being mutilated by some drunken dude armed with a blunt knife with chicken feathers sticking out of his hair. Until last week.

Here I was in a wildlife lodge in some remote part of North Eastern Kenya. My sleeping quarters were composed of a tent while my toilet-cum-bathroom was outdoors. After dinner, I was assigned a Samburu warrior to escort me to my tent. Boy, wasn’t that moran a sadist!

"See those shrubs right next to your tent? They were browsed on by elephants. He loves them. There is also a resident leopard that lurks about and we have two hyenas that walk all over the place.

If you must go out, make sure to carry a torch," he said casually — like we were discussing the weather.

Well, the reason I endured a full bladder the whole night and never gathered the guts to stroll out of my tent and face the leopard like a total man was because my circumciser was a fake!

|   |    |   Add Comment |    Comments (0)