Q: Did you have any embarrassing moments whilst living with the Mek?

Olly: Embarrassing? Not really. Although wearing a gourd is always a little unsettling especially when all the ladies are laughing at you. Rightly so, we did look like Englishmen in vegetables. I never quite worked out how they managed to look so sartorial and I always looked like an idiot in a cucumber.

But there were plenty of surreal moments – not least the initiation - huddled almost naked in a tiny shelter, with four Tribal Elders: Marcus, Enos, Cornelios, and Jonaas, a young boy and a fellow Englishman being instructed in the ways of Mekmen.

Apart from wearing a vegetable, the initiation was not marked by any further physical torture, which in a way was somewhat unsatisfying. Having heard of all the rich diversity of incredible tribal initiations that go on elsewhere I was hoping that I thought I might finally have a chance to be tested, to find out if I could ever be a man amongst men.

Fortunately I can still stand firm in the knowledge that until that day arrives, I am still a man. I think it would have been embarrassing at the initiation if I had found out that I was a woman called Susan.

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