“Wumi kisatsa, uhulaa? Kisatsa!”
Be strong. Do you hear me? Be a man.
Those words have stayed with me for years. Spoken in my Maragoli dialect, they carry a meaning that is difficult to fully capture in English.
I heard them on the day I underwent circumcision, an important rite of passage in my community.
Circumcision was a big deal where I grew up. The ceremony came once every ten years, usually during the long school holidays. When my turn came, my father and I spent two mornings trying to beat the queues. We failed.
There were simply too many boys.
On the third day, we heard that another circumciser had arrived nearby. We rushed there and found a long queue of boys waiting.
I still remember watching them step forward, one after another, and emerge without making a sound.
I told myself I had to do the same.
Wumi kisatsa.
Be strong. Be a man.
When my turn came, it was over almost before my mind had processed what was happening.
I had not cried.
My mother was informed and, as tradition demanded, she let out a loud ululation. I was praised for being strong.
Looking back, I realise that something much bigger was being taught that day.
As boys, we are introduced very early to the idea that being a man means enduring pain without complaint. Be strong. Do not cry. Keep going. Take responsibility.
There is value in resilience. But there is also a danger when resilience becomes silence.
June is Men’s Mental Health Month, and it offers an opportunity to ask a difficult question: What happens when a man is hurting but has been taught that admitting it makes him weak?
I have seen this play out around me.
One morning, I received WhatsApp photographs from a close friend. They showed knife wounds he had suffered during a domestic dispute. He eventually walked away from that relationship with little more than the clothes he was wearing.
I was there when he started again.
I helped him buy a thin mattress and a kerosene stove as he settled into a small one room house.
He had lost almost everything, but he was determined to rebuild.
Today, his story is very different.
But another story did not end so well.
I once had a neighbour whose relationship with alcohol worried many people around him. He drank heavily and often. Years after I had moved away, I saw his obituary in a newspaper.
He had taken his own life.
Two men.
Two very different stories.
Both reminded me that sometimes you simply cannot tell what someone is carrying by looking at them.
I have had my own difficult seasons too. Moments of doubt. Fear. Uncertainty. Times when responsibility felt heavier than I wanted to admit.
And perhaps that is another reality of being a man.
We are often expected to provide, protect, lead and solve problems. When things go wrong, we are expected to figure them out.
But what happens when the man who is supposed to have the answers has no idea what to do?
Some disappear into work.
Some turn to alcohol.
Some become angry.
Some withdraw.
Some simply keep smiling.
A friend once told me, “Every day, we are fighting all sorts of demons.”
I think he was right.
The difficult part is that many of those battles are invisible.
This is why conversations about men’s mental health matter. Not because men are weaker than anyone else. Not because their struggles matter more.
Simply because men are human.
And human beings need support.
Perhaps we need to rethink what we tell our boys.
We should still teach them courage. We should teach responsibility, discipline and resilience. But alongside “Wumi kisatsa”, perhaps there should be another message.
It is okay to say you are hurting.
It is okay to cry.
It is okay to ask for help.
It is okay to admit that you do not have the answer.
It is okay to sit down for a moment.
Because being strong does not mean pretending you are fine when you are falling apart.
Sometimes strength is making the difficult phone call.
Sometimes it is sitting across from a friend and saying, “I am not okay.”
Sometimes it is walking away from something that is destroying you.
And sometimes, it is allowing someone else to carry a little of the weight.
Maybe that is the version of masculinity we need to pass to the next generation.
Not a man who never breaks.
A man who knows what to do when he does.
Because perhaps the bravest thing we can teach our boys is not simply how to endure pain.
It is how to say, “I need help,” and still know that they are men.
