Well we’re back in Nairobi after a week in Amboseli. We learned all about the Maasai and the
current struggles they’re facing with maintaining their traditional culture.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Maasai, just imagine your
stereotypical image of an African warrior. Minimal clothing, long red shuka
(blanket) wrapped around themselves, covered in beads, faces painted red,
herding a bunch of cattle. They’re
the guys who greet you at Kenyatta International Airport dressed up in
traditional garb even though they’re probably not even Maasai and were paid to
stand there and pretend. Still confused? Hopefully this will help.
Making fire at the cultural manyatta (read below)
We arrived on Sunday, March 31st to a beautiful
tented resort outside Amboseli National Park. I’m sure the Real Housewives would have boasted to all of their socialite
friends that they had spent a rough week camping had they stayed at our
resort…but this was no camping. It was glamping! Whereas in Tanzania we slept
in two person tents, took “bag-o-water” showers, and relieved ourselves in the
woods, at this resort we slept in spacious areas complete with beds, a toilet,
and a shower ALL INSIDE THE TENT! Call me Fergie, but this place was glamorous!
We visited a cultural manyatta on our first day out in the
field. These “snapshots into
traditional Maasai life” are ooh-ed and aah-ed over by tourists. Naive visitors
come to these “villages” and think they’re getting an exclusive look at how
Maasai people currently live.
However, locals view these villages more as business ventures than
accurate representations of modern day living, and as well-informed students we
were skeptical as well. We were greeted at the edge of the boma (enclosed
village area) by beaming dancers draped in beads and traditional Maasai cloth.
After having us join in on their extravagant welcome celebration, they brought
us into the manyatta to teach us about their lifestyle.
A village medicine man taught us about herbal remedies used
by the Maasai. I had a strange feeling
he was playing us when he picked up the same stick five times and each time described
a very different purpose. It also didn’t help that he spoke perfect English
when most Maasai that we met spoke Kimaasai, some Kiswahili, and very broken English.
"This herb heals eye sores"
[put down stick, pick up
identical stick]
"This herb cures heart disease"
[put down stick, pick up
identical stick]
"This herb will solve the nuclear missile crisis"
They also showed us the inside of their homes (i.e. huts).
The entire house is approximately the size of my bedroom, and it includes a
cooking area and two beds—one for the mother and all of the children, and one
for the father.
Ally, Chloe and I inside the hut
After completing our tour, they lured us over to their market
area to buy handcrafted beads. Nothing like being heckled to buy crafts after
experiencing the “true” Maasai way of life.
The rest of the week was filled mostly with interviews with
local pastoralists, village elders and women, and farmers. We also went on safari one morning in
Amboseli National Park, but it appeared that the animals were all on holiday. By
far the most exciting component was our one-night homestay with a real Maasai
family.
My friend Abby and I spent the night with Grace, our translator,
and her family. She is one of 9
children and lives with her husband and two children in another boma down the
road. Grace is very well educated
and she came back to her parents’ home for an overnight in order to translate
our English into Kimaasai and vice versa. Luckily for us, she brought her 7-month-old
son, Leonard with her!
Check out that smolder
Grace wanted to give us a true Maasai experience, so she
showed us how to perform as many chores as she could fit into a 24-hour period.
We went to fetch water, which was
about a 25-minute walk. We carried 5-liter jerrycans from our heads, and
afterward my neck was sore for a day. Grace and her friend completely showed us
up by carrying 20-liter cans! Grace helped me get over my embarrassment by
assuring me that carrying the equivalent of a baby from one’s head is something
that my neck has to get used to. Mothers take their daughters to fetch water as
young as 5 years old. They start out carrying 3 liters and work their way up to
20 liters like their mothers.
Abby's a natural
Other funtivities of the day included making traditional
Maasai beaded jewelry with the women in our boma, milking our family’s goats, helping
to cook meals, and smearing cow dung mixed with ashes on the houses to repair
any holes.
Cooking with Grace
Who needs cement when you can dunk your hands in cow poop?
We spent the night in one of the houses with Grace. She
shared her own bed with Leonard, and Abby and I shared a bed. Unfortunately we
were in the cooking hut where a constant fire was maintained 24/7. This wouldn’t have been too much of a
problem (after all it was pretty cold once the sun set) except that there was
NO ventilation in the huts. A tiny “window” the size of my hand was cut out of
the wall near the fire pit, but it might as well have been covered by concrete.
We convinced Grace to kill the fire, and Abby and I enjoyed our restless night
of sleep on a bed of wood planks covered in cowhide. The number of bed bugs, fleas, and ticks in our bed has yet
to be determined. Rest assured Mom and Dad, all bugs have been removed from my
body.
Kitchen (left) and bedroom (right)
Perhaps the best story I can share with you was of our first
meal at the homestay. In February, when we were at our rural homestays in Meru,
each of us had been stuffed to capacity and forced to eat enormous amounts of
food. We had no choice but to choke it down because we didn’t want to be rude.
And so, when Grace served both Abby and me an entire plate of potato and
cabbage stew in addition to 8
brick-size pieces of ugali (bland, maize-meal wedges), I was under the
assumption that I had to eat it all. There was no way I could finish the entire
meal by taking my time, so instead I went with the Man v. Food approach.
If I’ve learned anything from Adam Richman, it’s that you have a 20-minute
window to eat as much food as possible before your “food wall” goes up. After
20 minutes, your brain recognizes that your stomach is full and it’s nearly
impossible to consume any more food, especially when you’ve been mirroring the
style of a competitive eater.
Realizing that I was fighting against the clock, I began shoveling ugali
into my mouth in between slurps of stew to keep my mouth from drying out like a
desert. Oh yeah, and to keep
myself from CHOKING! There was no time for talking, only time for eating. I
occasionally glanced over at Abby who was enjoying a single piece of ugali and slowly
sipping on her stew. All I kept thinking was Man, Abby’s going to have a hard time eating her other 7 pieces of
ugali without any stew to add some moisture. Maybe she should have thought more
about her strategy as I have so cleverly done. After jamming the last piece of ugali into my mouth with an
incredible 13 minutes to go, I forcefully swallowed and reveled in my
success. I had done it...and now I
just had to keep myself from throwing it back up. It literally felt like there was a brick in my stomach or a
layer of thick concrete that had just dried. I looked over at Abby who was eating the last bit of her
stew, and then looked down to find that she still had her 7 pieces of ugali
left. She peered her little puppy
eyes over at Grace who was eating the last bit of her ugali and politely smiled
“I’m done.”
My inner dialogue:
You’re done? You’re done! You can’t be done. You still have all of your dinner
left. How can you be so rude? These kind people made us all of this food and you’re
not even going to eat it?! Wow, you’re really in for it now. Guess I know who’s
their favorite guest. **pat on back**
As we were brushing our teeth before bed, I leaned over to
Abby and whispered “Wow, that was rude. You didn’t even finish.”
Abby: “Emma, no it wasn’t. Sinnary [our professor] specifically
told us that we didn’t have to finish all of the food. This isn’t Meru. You
must have missed that part of the orientation.”
That’ll teach me never to bring my Kindle to a lecture ever
again.
I focused on portion control the rest of our stay and
thoroughly enjoyed getting to experience authentic Maasai culture. There was no
medicine man in Grace’s village; no beaded women or painted warriors—just the
pleasant company of a traditional tribe trying to modernize with the times.
Amboseli was our
final field component before IDS (independent study project). My friend Julia and I just found out
that we’ll be going to Uganda for 3 weeks to work with Shanti Uganda, a
volunteer-based organization aimed at “improving infant and maternal health,
providing safe women-centered care and supporting the well-being of birthing
mothers and women living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda.”
With just a week
left before we depart for our individual projects, it’s hitting me that my stay
in Kenya is quickly coming to an end. When we return from IDS, we’ll have less
than a week before the program is over. I hate to admit how soon my time here
will be up because I have truly come to love this country. I know it won’t be goodbye when I
leave. Kenya has given me too much to turn my back on it entirely.
To give your
eyes a rest, I will save stories about my final adventures in Nairobi for
another post. One exciting thing
to note is that Kenya officially has a new president! Uhuru Kenyatta, the
fourth president of Kenya, was inaugurated this past Tuesday. Unfortunately
President Obama was not present to witness Kenyatta’s swearing in. [I really
hate rumors when they’re wrong].
Kwaheri ya
kuonana!
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