Waniaye: Chosen by spirits to be imbalu surgeon

With utmost precision, the first candidate, 22-year-old Badiri Mudoma, is circumcised. The exercise has lasted less than a minute! As the foreskin drops on the animal skin under his feet, he remains rooted to the spot for 10 minutes or so. The surgeon moves to the next person to perform the ritual.
Circumcision, a traditional ritual referred to as imbalu, is one cherished practice among the Bagisu, also known as Bamasaba. In this practice, after the candidate is circumcised, they dance away in triumph as the surgeon changes equipment for the next umusinde (loosely translated candidate).

This day, Sulait Waniaye, 59, a dark-skinned man sits in a group of about 25 surgeons in isolation from crowd that danced to the arrival of the candidates. He is engrossed in a conversation before he turns his focus to four surgeons.
From the look of things, Waniaye seems to be taking the surgeons through final tips before the circumcision ceremony kicks off. He speaks authoritatively. His audience is a group of middle-aged men, perhaps in their mid or late 30s. They sit attentively facing him.

Meeting the surgeon
He is one of the longest serving surgeons. His new trainees consume his expertise to better their game in the field. When I step forward and ask who would be the right person for me to talk to about the ceremony, it is by default that he comes forward to listen to me.
“Young man,” he says as he walks towards me, “How can I help you and your camera?”

“I would like to speak to Mr Waniaye,” I humbly request.
“You have him before you, sir,” he replies with a smile.
We start to speak about his work that has been earlier praised by one of the former candidates, Solomon Wakalanga, who gave me leads to him.
“I have no regrets in making boys men. It has made me popular. I have done it for 39 years now, which is fulfilling, isn’t it?” he says.
Waniaye can hardly remember the number of boys he has seen cross to manhood in more than three decades he has been a surgeon.

Initiation
So how did he become a surgeon? Edirisa Wanzala, 82, an elder from Budadiri, says one becomes a surgeon by choice of the spirits of the forefathers.
“I know some people have started to dilute the norm. The spirits were in charge of who should be initiated as a surgeon and you would tell,” Wanzala says, adding: “For instance, a young man would be possessed in their early teens and the elders would start monitoring him. When identified, he would go through an intense training before he becomes a surgeon. We also give the person some herbs called ityanyi to calm them down.”
Waniaye, from a family of more than 15 children, was the “lucky” one to have been chosen by the spirits at 12 years. The elders quickly noticed it. They introduced the herbs to help him calm down before starting the training.

“I now have nine children, five of whom are boys but none has received the same gift as myself. This happens in an isolated way. When you get possessed, the elders help to prepare you for the job. I had to drop out of school in Primary Four to start my training,” Waniaye recalls.
Despite the onset of the spiritual “attacks”, Waniaye’s parents were pessimistic about him rising to this role as none of their clan members had previously taken on such a task.
“My parents did not believe what happened to me. They thought it was just a disease until the elders confirmed my calling. It was a dream come true for them. They had longed to have a-umuchebi in their clan for generations,” Waniaye relates.

Training
Like any condition that involves cutting of skin, veins and creating a wound, Waniaye says he spent a lot of time in training to make sure that no mistakes are made. He followed and observed the surgeons at work for two years before he was taken through the basics of sharpening a knife, handling it and making sure it is kept clean for the next job.
“By the time I started sharpening the knives, which is the initial step, I had mastered what others do through observing. After a year of sharpening knives, I was then taken through the ‘grinding’ of ash. My most challenging stage was mastering the speed. I had to carry out the initial surgery of removing foreskin. My trainer would then leap in to finalise the circumcision by removing the ‘under skin’. All this was meant to last less than a minute, that speed was overwhelming for me,” he narrates.

Much as the tedious training takes more than four years of doing the samething over and again, Waniaye says it comes with fulfilment when you finally can do the right thing without any problem.

After mastery
“The aftermath of training,” he says, “comes with jubilation. The four years may seem long but the rest of your life will be celebrated as a remarkable man. After a couple of years, other trainees are sent to you. You get to even learn more through continued practice.”
Anthony Mukungu, one of Waniaye’s first trainees, says the process may become easier depending on who the trainer is.

“I took a shorter time to train because my trainer uses a simple procedure. He allows enough time to experience things as well as practice. Waniaye has since become the best trainer after he trained me and I also trained others using his methods,” Mukungu says.
Mukungu adds, “When my parents referred me to him, he was fresh in the field.
The expertise he exudes as he trains always earns most people’s confidence. He is a great trainer who does not complicate things. Many of the people he trained have grown to become awesome trainers and surgeons.”

How to keep clean as a surgeon so as not to spread diseases amongst candidates is one of the training processes surgeons go through. One is supposed to sterilise the knives; by boiling them at a high temperature to kill all the germs, they say.
“Aids is real and we make sure we protect our candidates. You are trained to make sure you kill the germs and keep the knives clean. A knife is supposed to work on only one candidate. We make these knives from hand-saws or new pangas,” Waniaye explains.

Privileges of a surgeon
The saying that, “man eateth where he worketh”, resonates with the surgeons. Waniaye says out of the “clients” he meets daily, he makes a livelihood and his pay is dependent on how trusted he is by people.
Madoma (not comfortable to reveal his other name), is one of the clients on this day we meet him. He is expected to give Waniaye a cock and flour, among other things.

“When you are working on a client, the care and patience you give them makes them either trust you or not. It is through this that I have been able to pay my children’s school fees, family upkeep and I have built a home. On a good day when it is imbalu season, I circumcise more than 30 people. This is not common because others work on fewer people,” he says.
On the day we meet at work, out of the seven candidates circumcised, Waniaye has worked on three despite the presence of more than 27 surgeons.

“We are more than 1,000 surgeons in this region but what makes you stand out of the crowd is the diligence you put to your work,” he says.
When we meet Madoma after circumcision. He says, “I feel relieved that Waniaye is the one who has worked on me. When other surgeons work on you, you fear for many things but, everyone seems to trust and prefer him. I can now go and begin the healing process assured of no problem,” Madoma says as he dances off with his bleeding manhood.

Wanzala says traditionally, every surgeon is entitled to a chicken (cock) or two, cassava flour, a bunch of matooke and other presents.
“These people are supposed to be paid because this is their income. Some of them do not have time to work in their farms so they spend all their time circumcising people. Whoever he circumcises is supposed to give you all the respect that there is because you will have become his father,” Wanzala notes.

Challenges
Waniaye says there are not many challenges since most of those that may arise can be dealt with easily.
“Some people do not want to pay, others want you to take a lot of time on their patient and yet others give little of what they are supposed to give for appreciation. We usually make appeals to them to change their attitudes, but the biggest problem is the fact that it is a seasonal job. When we are out of the season, there is no work,” he says.
Many of the surgeons interviewed also raise the same issues and say it is worse when you are a starter in the field.