CIRCUMCISION

Circumcision was a milestone event for us and was awaited with both trepidation and excitement. It was done for a token fee by an experienced manonoli in the community. The operation was a simple incision at the foreskin along the tip to the base of the profuse with two or three blows of a wood mallet over the foreskin stretched on the sharp edge of a tapered knife. The knife was propped on the crotch of a guava branch stuck into the ground. The quack smeared the wound with the sap of macerated guava leaves. The wound was then wrapped with a piece of cloth with the pinkish glans protruding from the hole in the middle of the square cloth.  Tying the bandage with a thin strip of cloth completed the operation. The circumcision lasted only a few minutes but it took us several hours to prepare. Before sunrise, we went down to the river and soaked ourselves in the cool water for several hours until our skins wrinkled and our lips turned white. In the absence of anesthesia, the semi-hypothermia made the circumcision almost painless and bloodless. 

All the circumcised kids wore oversized shirts lent to us by our father or elder brothers. Not wearing any brief or pant, we shuffled about with legs spread apart until the swelling of our penises shrunk. We cleaned our wounds every morning by immersing our penises in the river to soften the scab. A poultice of a powdery substance scraped from ginit (coconut sheaths), was applied on the wounds to keep it dry and to hasten the healing process.  Dressing the wounds with clean cloth completed our daily routine of nursing our wounds. Since the wound would take at least two weeks to heal, circumcision was performed during the summer school breaks.  Circumcised, we walked with our heads high and savored the exhilarating feeling of self-proclaimed manhood. In those days, uncircumcised kids were favorite objects of ridicule from peers so after our circumcision we short of gained a new stature apart from the uninitiated.