Masai Village

I'm not even sure where to start with the Masai Village. Before we went I read a couple of reviews where people said the village was staged (they had tables set up in the back where they sold souvenirs).. There were people who said the people at the village didn't even live in the village but came in to put on a show for tourist. I don't know if that is true or not. Rafael said they were real and didn't get notified in advance of when tourist were arriving. The Masai said that they "made" the items they sold and I knew that wasn't true because I had seen the same stuff at every roadside shot. Rafael said that was true they didn't make it. I bought the overpriced stuff without dickering and hope they use the money for immunizations and clean water! I've never been much of one for haggling with poor people. Some Americans feel like they are getting ripped off. I feel like I am donating to the local economy.

  What I do know as fact is that we passed dozens of Masai Villages during our drives. They were all similar to the one we visited though most had an inner ring of branches inside the village. The one we visited did not. The ring of branches inside the village would keep the kids from playing in cow poop. Otherwise they looked the same from the road. I know that the people in the village were real people sitting on the dirt, surrounded by cow poop and they were covered in flies. The kids were real kids kicking a plastic bottle around in the dirt. As we left the village we saw women carrying water and fire wood back to the village. We saw people lugging water by hand or mule cart all over the country. In my opinion it was an incredible opportunity to glimpse the inside of a world most people in the U.S. only read about. If I were ever to return to Africa I would want to visit more villages and perhaps spend a night at one. Roshan who was in our group talked to a couple who had camped at a Masai village. They left when one of the Masai children was bored by a wildebeest and had to go to a hospital. The campers had cooks and clean water so they weren't eating native. I think it would be interesting and I don't like to camp, it would be an educational camping experience.

We were greeted by villagers in traditional dress. This is where I can see the potential for staging as I don't know that men are sitting around in their villages in traditional dress. Then again I didn't see the men doing any work so maybe they don't have anything else to do but sit around looking like peacocks. I saw a lot sheep herders wearing traditional clothes, just not quite as fancy. Truth or partly fiction I was blow away by what I saw. It was like walking into a page in the National Geographic. My most memorable part of the trip. I wanted to talk to the midwife, see the school, ask about immunizations and medical treatment, mortality rate in pregnancy. I had so many questions.

Traditionally Masai are nomads moving every ten years. Because a school was built for their children they now move within a 10 kilometer radius. The houses last for ten years so when they rebuild they move to another site with new grazing area.

The Masai only eat meat and drink milk (with blood in it). They don't grow or eat plants. Daniel an 8 year old vegetarian in our group asked what happened to vegetarian Masai.The Masai just looked at him, not understanding what he was asking. So funny, they die Daniel. I wondered how the villagers not suffering from scurvy. I read that there are lots of people through out history (including multiple tribes in Africa and Eskimos) who eat strictly meat diets. The way their bodies utilize foods and vitamins is different than people who eat vegetables and they stay healthy. It was interesting to watch Sean at the village. I can't fathom what I would have thought if I had gone somewhere like that when I was six. Sean did really well. The little boy in the picture had flies all over his face. When he was Sean he ran up to him so excited and grabbed his hand. I could tell Sean was freaked out but he shook his hand. Later Sean said "the boy with the bubbles all over his face kind of scared me." I told him how proud I was that he shook the little boys hand. He couldn't process that many flies and interpreted them as "bubbles." 

The kids were so friendly. Then again I found everyone I met everywhere we went to be exceptionally friendly. I asked this group if I could take their picture so they were posing for me. There was a baby that ran behind them. She was camera shy.

The Masai make their homes out of cow poop. The huts are formed in a circle and there are branches outside the circle to keep wild animals from wandering into the living area. They keep their cows inside the circle at night to protect the cows from animals. There is cow poop everywhere. People are sitting in it, kids are walking in it. I kept thinking these children must had incredible immune systems. There is so much bacteria in poop and they live in poop houses. There is no running water, no plumbing, no electricity. They bathe in the river, poop near the river and the river is where they get their drinking water. We are so spoiled in the states. Don was carrying Sean's Nintendo and one of the villagers asked Don about it. Don told him the kids played games on it. The villager said "the children would lose all the sheep if they had that."

Note all the cow poop behind this little girl.

The women make the houses, gather the wood for fire, collect the water, cook, clean and tend the children. I'm not totally sure what the men do. I only saw men herding so that must be what they do. The Masai used to have the huge gauged ear lobes and the older one still do. The chief's son said younger Masai aren't gauging anymore because it interferes with sports and they don't like it. Now our teenagers in the state are gauging their ears.  Tribe members are identified by their teeth. When children get permanent teeth they pull out one of the front bottom teeth leaving Masai with a distinguishable gap between their teeth. The chief's son said the tooth pulling tradition began about 250 years ago as a treatment for tetanus. Sounds like a great way to get tetanus!

This is a kitchen. They have little solar boxes on the roof (it's the little yellow box you see in the picture above this one) so they can power a light at night. "The Americans gave them to us. We like Americans" the chief's son said.  The roofs are low and the homes are claustrophobic. At least that's how it feels to someone who lives in a big house with three levels and high ceilings. They keep the fire burning to keep mosquitoes away. I wondered how the people sleeping in the huts didn't die of carbon monoxide poisoning. They have a tiny little hole in the wall near the "stove" to vent. Doesn't seem adequate to me but these tribes have survived for thousands of years.

Beside the kitchen is a room where the children sleep on animal skins. The parents have another room and then they have a "spare" room for guest and cows. They keep the calf's inside the house so they don't drink all their mother's milk. Masai are big milk drinkers. Instead of Hershey's syrup they mix cow blood in their milk. They don't kill the cow for blood they  use a blunt dart to poke the cow and collect blood.

The men were showing us how they make fire. It was comical because they couldn't get a spark. Lot's of smoke but no flame. It became a matter of pride. They were blaming each other for getting the wrong kind of wood. Eventually they made fire but mostly they made us laugh.

The little girl looking at Sean is named Susan. She is the chief's granddaughter. The chief's son only had one wife and four children. He said the first wife is an arranged marriage and the second wife is for love. He said he is also a doctor. I'm not sure a doctor of what. He was very young. They have a midwife in the village who takes care of the women. There are about 350 people living in the village. We only saw about 30. The school was just up the hill from the village and he said it was the children's last day of school for the year. They said they don't count their cows because it's bad luck and if they do cows will die.

When I packed Sean's clothes for the trip I packed clothes with the intent of leaving them at the hotel with a note. When we left the village I told Sean we were going to leave his clothes in Africa. He was really excited about giving his clothes to the children in the village. If I had known what the village was going to be like I would have taken clothes with us and Sean would have had the opportunity to hand them to the children. Sean wished he'd had some of his toys to give away too. I will try to make that a part of future vacations if the socioeconomic climate of the country make  it plausible. Then again that's plausible in our own country.