ST AUGUSTINE'S MASOTSHENI ? IS IT JEALOUSY OR JUST BEING TERRITORIAL?

STICK FIGHTING

President Nelson Mandela once said that , when his family relocated from Qunu , to his uncle's home in Mqhekezweni after his father's death , he had no higher ambitions , than to have plenty of good food , nice clothes , to become a great hunter , a champion stick fighter . Underline , "a champion stick fighter" , this tells you , already, how valuable the stick fighting skills were in the rural areas .

Most African boys , who grew up in the rural areas , have some experience of STICK FIGHTING , in one form or another . This would exclude boys who grew up much later , perhaps , in the late seventies and early eighties . In my case , the grown up boys , who were mostly school dropouts , would hide themselves along the footpaths , and wait for the unsuspecting boys coming back from school on their way home , and pounce on them forcing them to engage in STICK FIGHTING . These grown up boys , would ensure that , they carry enough stock of sticks with them , to allocate to the boys that would be expected to fight . We were all caught in these "booby traps " from time to time . Sometimes having to turn against each other and engage in a stick fight . You are walking home in a group with your friends from school , you get ambushed , and you're expected to turn against each other , and fight . Stick fighting was a well known trend even before our time . Grown up men , would display their stick fighting expertise , whenever they were traditional functions , like tradition weddings . Some of the fights among the grown ups , would prove to be fatal , some of those men would loose vital parts of their bodies , like eyes .

During our time , the bigger boys , who hid to catch us along the foot pathways , had what could be deemed as a " a golden question " in their opinion . We had to answer this question , like it or not , the question was " If you come across an enemy , will you use your pen to fight the enemy?" This was a dumb question , to say the least . We could not have carried our sticks to school , because we would have gone to school to learn not to engage in a fight with an invisible enemy . Pens were an essential , we used them strictly for writing purposes , certainly , we could not have used them to fight of the enemy . The confidence that those boys , who confronted us displayed , was unbelievable .They were determined to prove to us that , stick fighting was the only way to go . Stick fighting was going to engrave in us a sense of pride and skills to fight of our adversaries , according to them . The ambushes , ochestrated by those who were frontline drivers of STICK FIGHTING continued for a long time in my village , but it sort of , died a slow death , towards late seventies .