The Color of My Fears [COMPLETE]

Chapter 1 - Dare to Race [#3]

For us boys we remember Tio Berto mostly as the barber who shaved our heads and cut our sideburns (patilya) clean. As a barber, he possessed a razor knife which was so sharp it could slice through one's skin at the slightest touch of the blade. I would cringe at the thought of the shaman-cum-barber accidentally slicing a piece of my ears off with the razor every time Father convinced me, after a series of endless cajoling, to get a haircut (pagunting).

If there was a day I ever dreamed of not to pass, it was the day of the rite of circumcision by the creek. And if there was one thing I ever dreaded, it was the cut of the labaha through my flesh. I was very much reluctant to go, but Father doggedly insisted.

"You're twelve years old now and still afraid of the labaha, huh? Soon your skin will be thick that the blade couldn't cut it quickly enough. That would be excruciatingly painful."

Even that fatherly admonition couldn't persuade me. Once I tried to imagine the silvery edge of the razor slicing my foreskin and I threw up. Mother was alarmed and had me drunk all manner of concoction from the medicinal herbs and leaves she was able to gather from all over the village, like the Jatropha plant (kasla) and bayabas. When I could no longer bear the bitter taste of home-made medicinal broth, I told her the reason why. 

I thought Mother would understand my predicament, but she said, "You're old enough to withstand the pain. You're no longer a child. A few years more and you'll be a man. If your friends are brave enough to do it, why wouldn't you? Besides, if the girls know you're still uncircumcised, they would tease you no end."

That's it, maternal advice did the job. I never thought until that time that circumcision was a step to manhood. I realized later it was a rite of passage.

-ooo-