Thousands of Bushbuckridge initiates return home safely

About 30 000 boys and girls attended initiation schools in the Bushbuckridge area, Mpumalanga, this season and they have all returned home safely.

The active participation of parents, the Ingoma Forum, and medical doctors has been credited for the successful initiation season in Bushbuckridge.

Relief as zero deaths recorded during initiation season in Bushbuckridge 

Families reunited

It was a joyous day as initiates reunited with their families after spending three months at initiation schools. 1800 initiates were welcomed at the Mathibela Tribal Authority in Oackley.

A parent and community member, Jerry Nonyane was excited about the safe return of the children.

“So indeed parents are happy, we are all excited this is an event that we are not gonna forget as parents. We wish like other initiation schools can emulate from what happened here, kids coming here and going back home healthy and sound.” he explains.

Excitement

Women ululated, men whistled and danced to traditional Sepulana songs. Kgoshi Lameck Mokoena attributed the successful initiation season to co-operation between different role players, including parents.

“If you have been given a chance to have the school what you need to do is to follow all the prescripts as dictated by our culture. What I did as Kgoshi, I was working with doctors, Ingoma Forum, parents played a role and I made sure that at my school I put only people with experience, not chancers. There’s no way someone who goes to school this year, next year I took to be in charge of the initiates- that would be disaster, hence is incident free  because i made sure that no one would take a chance at my school.” explains Kgoshi Mokoena.

No casualties

Medical practitioners were on stand-by to provide medical assistance should the need arise. Dr Desmond Lamola says they are glad that there were no casualties at all the initiations schools.

He says they have over to 15 tribal councils with initiates that are estimated to be between 20 000-30 000 and they also had a team of doctors and male nurses that we were taking care of the initiates making sure that they camped at the central location so they could respond to all emergency calls.

Lamola adds, “So this initiation school season that we are seeing going out now, is an incident free, we are happy that everybody is going home, as the medical team from Ingoma Forum, we are proud of this incident.”

The initiates are excited about going home too.

Celebrations are expected to continue throughout the weekend in various villages of Bushbuckridge.