Big white tents stood like giant mushrooms in the middle of a bushy area near a small river in Chambuta Village under chief Masivele of Chiredzi in Masvingo Province. Several other smaller tents on the opposite side carried banners inscribed with messages about male circumcision. Small boys accompanied by a parent or guardian, teenage boys and some older men formed a long meandering queue and were being attended to by several health workers.
Meanwhile, a Population Services International employee conducted group counselling under a tree to those who had just arrived. Cars carrying men from the Voluntary Counselling and Testing site to the circumcision tents and others from a second camp in a nearby village drive up and down the dusty road.
These are the sights and sounds at a circumcision site where the Shangaan have merged modernity with tradition. The unique circumcision site also has an HIV and Aids voluntary and testing centre.
This is a rare marriage between the Shangaan people, the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, National Aids Council and UNAids. The parties coming from two different worlds and beliefs recently entered an agreement that would merge modern and traditional forms of male circumcision, making the process safer and healthier.
It has been successful as the honeymoon stage saw over 754 men undergo both HIV testing and circumcision.
