The Road Less Traveled : Circumcision?

This is a weird topic. I know this. You know this. We all know this. So why are we talking about this? Truthfully…I don’t really know. All I know is that I didn’t have much to say this week, so instead I turned to a subject that is a bit unusual (for lack of a better term). Oh well…lets get started.

The particular tropic of circumcision entered my consciousness some time last October when I was talking with my counterpart, Paea. While I am always interested in learning new facts about Tongan culture, I had never put much thought into the Tongan practice of circumcision. I knew most Tongan boys were circumcised and that was all I felt that I really needed to know.

Regardless of my feelings, somehow this topic came up between Paea and I. Seemingly out of nowhere Paea told me that Tongan boys don’t get circumcised as babies, but when they are between the ages of 10 and12. I was pretty shocked by this information, not understanding why parents would do this, and asked Paea why the parents would subject their kids to such a painful procedure at that age rather than as a baby? He simply shrugged and said that it is just how Tongans do it. I asked if there was a cultural reason for it, and he replied that he didn’t think so.

I was surprised by this news. I was curious enough to want learn why, but I also didn’t want to ask people I knew around the village why Tongan boys waited. I felt that I couldn’t just go up to someone in my village and say, “Hey, so….why do Tongans get circumcised at age 11?” That would be even more awkward than writing this post. I couldn’t do it.

Thus I put the subject on the back burner until it unexpectedly came up when I returned from America in January and visited my Tongan home stay sister Kalo in ‘Eua. Kalo is the only doctor on the entire island and on my first day in ‘Eua, Kalo, my home stay brother Sione, some of their cousins, and I walked to the wharf to hang out. As we passed a group of boys swimming in the wharf – a common sight – Kalo, again out of no where, told me to never swim with young boys during the summer school break because they were all swimming to help relieve the pain from their recent circumcisions.

I hadn’t expected her to say that. I asked what she was talking about, and she told me that as the only doctor she spends most of her time when school is off performing the surgeries. She further told me that you could always tell who was recently operated on by seeing how the boys walk funny for a few days afterwards. As she was being so forthcoming, I asked Kalo why Tongan boys waited until they were older to have the surgery, and her only answer was that it simply wasn’t part of the post-natal treatment, so the parents just decide to wait.

I don’t have any particular insight to add to what I have just written. I think the practice of waiting seems a bit odd, and to prove that I try to show Tonga in all of its glory to my readers, I wrote this post. I hope you….liked it?

Thanks for reading. The photos below were taken when Peace Corps staff came to my school to watch me teach.