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I knew the boys, er, men would be returning from initiation school soon, but nobody seemed to know exactly when. Then one day there they were. Down from the mountain. Skin painted red, a burdensome load of necklaces on, barefoot, wearing earrings and grass hats and trinkets pinned and sparkling all over their red blankets.

When I first saw them they were kneeling together in a half dozen separate circles out near the village soccer field. Their heads were down like dogs as they ate ferociously, bread, mutton from sheep freshly slaughtered for the occasion, and 'motoho', a sour drink made from the sorghum grain. Numerous villagers were gathered round to watch. Then they all rose and formed a single organism, held their knobkerries above their heads, and marched under a makeshift tent where they sat together and began singing. I had been particularly interested in meeting the 'makolonyane', as newly circumcised boys are called, upon their return because two of my 9th grade students were among them, Mothibeli and Phenethi.

Initiation school and circumcision school are used synonymously. The boys go up on top of a nearby mountain for a few weeks to a few months where they learn to be men and get circumcised. The specifics of what they do up there is not readily available to the uninitiated, like me. (As a matter of fact, I wasn't even allowed to take photos facing them. I did, however, get permission to have someone else use my camera to snap photos and roll video.) Men who have gone through it, and these days not all boys do, have a special bond between one another and keep the happenings up on the mountain mostly to themselves. Whatever it is they do, the boys return subdued and matured, as evidenced by the makolonyane in my classes last year. Those boys from last year were among the best behaved and performed well academically also. Mothibeli had been starting to be a punk last year, so I'm hoping his initiation taught him a thing or two.

He sure sounded grown up that day. The young men sung in voices so deep that the groans came from the sides of their mouths. And the tunes were often more similar to chants than songs. The seemed to be in a trance-like state at times as they rumbled on together. Every so often the music would be interrupted by, "tsoeli!" A young man from a previous year's initiation group would invite the onlookers to give the boys something: "gift!" I had not brought anything, but a girl allowed me the pleasure of giving one of her earrings as if it were my contribution.

Dogs with red stripes painted on their spines wandered around them and barked. Mothers punctured their sons songs with screams of praise.