MEETING THE GREAT MAASAI PEOPLE

You would think 20 hours in the Maasai Mara National Reserve over 2 days would have been enough, but not for us as we headed one last time into the Mara at 6am this morning.  It was still dark when Pete backed his car into a light post, puncturing the tire, so we got on the road around 20 minutes late and into the park as the sun was starting to rise.  We were even that early that the Maasai women were nowhere to be seen!!!  We did a 2 hour safari, seeing elephants, zebra, hartebeest, and all the usual suspects but we did leave the park around 8.15am with no leopard on our animal list that the girls were keeping of all the animals that we saw.  We certainly gave it a good crack, and again, it leaves an animal for the Elkins to come back one day and find. 

We headed back to the lodge for breakfast, showers and to check-out. 

We were offered a Maasai Village Tour on our way back to Nairobi this morning, and I have done a lot of these cultural tours before and I have never thought much of them.  In saying that, I did a Maasai Village tour a few years ago at Loita Hills and it was one of the best tours I have ever done.  As we hadn’t done much cultural things for the girls we figured it was worth the money (2000KSH) each to stop at a village on our way out.  The village wasn’t far from the lodge, so it was also good that we were giving back to the local area.  We parked the van and were met by about eight Maasai men.  What I do like about the Maasai visits are they are authentic.  They aren’t dressed in things that they wouldn’t normally wear.  They are dressed in what they wear everyday, which just gives you that more authentic experience.  We were asked to take a seat, and we listened for a few minutes to one of the men, who actually used to be a tour guide.  We were then asked to sit on the ground, remove our hats and we were welcomed with a Maasai prayer. 

       

                       

Then, the men started chanting.  There is something rhythmic about the deep sounds that these men make.  It is nearly trancelike.  They danced/skipped in a single file with their throwing sticks and spears oh ah ah-ing past us and then circling back again.  They were very impressive looking and I just loved the sound of their chants.  After a few laps around the yard, they got everyone (The Elkins) up to join in the chanting and were offered a beaded necklace around the girl’s necks and Shane was decked in a Maasai blanket and a spear.  After a few more chants and a few more laps with the Mzungu’s  it was time for the men to show us just what all the fuss was about with their jumping and they did not disappoint!  Those guys jump like they have springs on the bottom of their tire shoes.  The one thing they didn’t do was all of them jump together; maybe that is not the done thing?  There were 2 or 3 at a time but all 8 men didn’t jump together and I didn’t want to ask in case it was like taboo or something for them not to.  But an amazing experience and you could see that they were have a genuinely good time, which makes me feel better that we aren’t infringing on their time or upsetting their culture too much.  Shane represented the man of the group, getting some small ‘air’ time jumping with the Maasai and then Zoe and Tess gave it their best shot-even though in the Maasai culture women don’t ‘jump’.  After seeing the masters do, it was kinda funny to see the girls attempt airtime and were so good taking everything in their stride and not being too scared to doing anything!!   

Kenya’s Maasai tribe has become an icon for the richness and diversity of the country’s culture, a people whose traditions, beliefs and routines have changed little since the dawn of their history.  The way they live now, even as so much is changing around them, the way their society is structured, the pride that binds them and keeps them strong, all of these look the same today as they would have done to their ancestors long ago.  Their way of life is still very close to that of their ancestors, their society is organized in the same way and modernity has not affected them much yet. They are semi-nomadic pastoralists: their livestock is their livelihood. Their whole society revolves around their cows, sheep and goats, as it did for their forefathers.  Warriors, all the young men in their community, are in charge of protecting livestock from predators and enemies, and, these days, of taking cattle too far away pastures during the dry season. Women and children look after goats and sheep that are more resilient and can remain near the homesteads also during the dry spells- thus always providing milk and meat for the family. Elders keep peace and harmony in our community, settling disputes, administering justice, negotiating with neighboring tribes and these days with the local administrations.

We were then taken into the village, which was rougher than the one I had seen previously.  There were chickens running around, lots of flies, and the ground consisted mainly of dirt and it made me wonder how muddy it gets when it rains.  There was a faint smell of manure and some of the little kids come out of the round mud huts to look at us, the visitors.  We were told that one of the houses were looking after an impala that was found near dead a few months ago.  I was quite excited to see it until it came out of the house and it looked like death warmed up.  All my visions of getting a cute photo went out the window, it looked terrible.  We were asked to make a donation towards buying milk for the animal and Shane parted with 200KSH, let’s hope that it does actually go towards the milk.  We were then shown how to make a fire without matches and then they took us into one of the homes to explain how they live in the mud huts.  As mentioned, I am not normally a great fan of these ‘village’ visits as I generally find them to be set up for tourists and a little ‘fake’ for want of a better word.  But I got the distinct impression that we had walked into a ‘proper’ Maasai village, a working village and there was no plomp or fakeness about it all. 

The mud huts are called a manyatta.   We all walked in with us taking seats on benches where our guide then talked about his culture and his tribe as we sat in the small 3x5 building made of cow dung and was warm as toast thanks to the small fire that was burning low and food cooking for the evening dinner.  He started with the housing.  As a historically nomadic and then semi-nomadic people, the Maasai have traditionally relied on local, readily available materials and indigenous technology to construct their housing. The traditional Maasai house was in the first instance designed for people on the move and was thus very impermanent in nature. The Inkajijik (houses) are either star-shaped or circular, and are constructed by able-bodied women. The structural framework is formed of timber poles fixed directly into the ground and interwoven with a lattice of smaller branches, which is then plastered with a mix of mud, sticks, grass, cow dung and human urine, and ash. The cow dung ensures that the roof is water-proof. The enkaj is small, measuring about 3x5 m and standing only 1.5 m high. Within this space, the family cooks, eats, sleeps, socializes, and stores food, fuel, and other household possessions. Small livestock are also often accommodated within the enkaji.  Villages are enclosed in a circular fence built by the men, usually of thorn acacia, a native tree. At night, all cows, goats, and sheep are placed in an enclosure in the centre, safe from wild animals.

The Maasai are among the best known of African ethnic groups, due to their residence near the many game parks of East Africa, and their distinctive customs and dress.  The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 841,622 in Kenya in the 2009 census, compared to 377,089 in the 1989 census.  The Tanzanian and Kenyan governments have instituted programs to encourage the Misaim to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle, but the people have continued their age-old customs.  The Maasai and the Samburu tribes are pastoralists, and are famous for their fearsome reputations as warriors and cattle-rustlers.  According to their own oral history, the Maasai originated from the lower Nile valley north of Lake Turkana (Northwest Kenya) and began migrating south around the 15th century, arriving in a long trunk of land stretching from what is now northern Kenya to what is now central Tanzania between the 17th and late 18th century.

It was all very interesting and like ANY tour that you do anywhere in the world, no tour is complete without a shopping experience and this Maasai village was well equipped with their ‘shop’ set up in what seemed a permanent manyatta that had a whole lot of Maasai merchandise.  I was like a kid in a candy store and there was some amazing things and I have to say, and I am a sucker for all things that sparkle and all that colour that was jumping out at me was too much to resist.  A lot of the things I had seen before or I actually had, but it was a great opportunity for the Elkins to buy some presents knowing that the money was going back direct to the village.  I was asked a few times about prices, and at the end of the day I just want a fair price for us and the Maasai without either one of us getting ripped off.  It really was good to know that whatever we bought was going directly to the people who made the items and between us we made a few lovely purchases.

Again, I am not normally a great fan of these ‘village’ visits as I generally find them to be set up for tourists and a little ‘fake’ for want of a better word.  But I go the distinct impression that we had walked into a ‘proper’ Maasai village, a working village and there was no fakeness about it all, and I learnt something new about another race that co-habits this wonderful planet of ours. 

It was time to now head back to Nairobi and bright and sparky in the morning we were heading to Zanzibar.  It’s farewell to Kenya for now, but not good-bye.