WHAT MAKES A MAN?

Well, I have been asking myself this question for a while and you won’t believe the answers I’ve got. But as a man I can’t help but ask, do we all deserve to be called men? What distinguishes men from boys?

For starters I thought to myself that the cultural rite that we pass through involving the cutting of skin in hard-to-mention organs or removal of teeth and such is what makes a man, or is it not? Then what about those that circumcise their boys at one week? Does that mean they are men from the age of seven days?

Some say that growing a beard makes you a man. Well let’s see how true that is; I met one, drunk to a stupor, wet with pee, unable to speak or walk. Quite a man, huh?

Now if drinking like a fish, irresponsibly neglecting your family, having mipango za kando and you all know the list, makes a man then I think I’m on the wrong world.

I’m not one to judge and neither do I have authority to draw the line that separates the men from the boys but I believe that character makes a man. Honesty, hard work, responsibility, resilience and above all the fear of God.

I rest my case..

©E. Karanja