A 65-year-old virgin has revealed her excitement after she was cleared to participate in the annual reed dance in South Africa.
Ngipheni Ngcobo may be one of the oldest virgins at the age of 65, but every year in September, she gets excited as she prepares her traditional attire to attend the uMkhosi woMhlanga (reed dance) ceremony.
Later today she will board a bus, along with other, younger maidens, and travel to King Goodwill Zwelithini’s Enyokeni Royal Palace for Saturday’s reed dance.
Speaking to the Daily News in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday, she said the event was the highlight of her life and an opportunity to show off her pride at being a virgin at her age.
“Come rain or sunshine, I will be at the reed dance. Only illness or a death in my family would force me to miss this ceremony.”
Ngcobo will take girls from her Nzondweni Village in Mafunzwe area, outside Pietermaritzburg, with her. The girls had qualified to attend the reed dance after months of virginity testing and workshops on the importance of staying a virgin until marriage.
“I am not ashamed that I am not married. I also don’t regret not having children of my own. In fact, I am fulfilled by the role I play in my community and by the example I am setting to young girls, that having a man and bearing children is not everything and definitely not something that defines us as women,” she said.
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