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.