Abba's Africa

Visit to the Maasai Village

This was quite an eye opener.

In Naboisho the camp collects $20 from each person who wishes to visit the village. This is different from the experience for others who we met who were not staying in the conservancy. $15 goes directly to the Maasai and the other $5 is saved up by the camps for a year and then all the funds are pooled together to buy something big for the Maasai - e.g. generator.

Maasai men have multiple wives (3 seems to be a popular #). At least the first wife (possibly more) is arranged and one does not question this. When a Maasai man marries, he finds another man his age who is also getting married and they start a village together. The 'village' is always the same design and is square or rectangular in shape and has a barrier around the outside made of prickly branches to keep out the lions and other predators. There are two entrances, one on the east and the other on the west (facing the rising and setting sun). Within the barrier, each wife has her own house for her and her children (and her husband when he visits). The women build the houses which are basically made of mud and straw. Each house is very small and has two rooms. One room has a fire for cooking, a bed for the man and another for the woman. The children sleep on the floor and the older ones are sent to another wife's house when the husband is visiting. There is a small round opening in the wall to let in light and air and another hole near the ceiling lined with metal which is the 'chimney'. It isn't hooked up to anything though. You can imagine how smokey and dark the room is. This room is approx 6' x 8'. The other room is used to house baby animals (lambs, goats, calves) until they are old enough that it is safe to leave them in the outside pens. There is no running water or toilet facilities. Other than their animals, their clothes (very bright and cheerful - reds, oranges, yellows) and a few clay pots, they have nothing. Nothing except themselves, absolutely fresh air, and spectacular scenery.

Their diet is principally milk from the cows and goats and meat. They rarely, if ever, eat fruit or vegetables. They don't grow anything. The diet sounds atrocious but they seem healthy and apparently live to a ripe old age.

The centre of the village has 2 paddock areas made with pieces of wood about 7 or 8 feet high. The larger paddock is for the cattle and the other is for the sheep and goats. They are penned up all night to protect them from predators. Wealth is measured in the number of cattle you have and cattle are part of the dowry when a man marries.

The village we visited had 3 brothers who each had 3 wives and too many children to count.

When you enter the village the tradition is that the visitors form a line inside the entrance and everyone in the village comes to great you. Adults shake hands and exchange the greeting 'sopa' but children are not allowed to shake hands so instead they present their heads for you to pat and say 'sopa' which means hello in Maasai. You must do this with each child and if you miss one, he/she will stand there head down until you notice. Once all the greetings have been exchanged you are free to explore the village.

According to tradition all Maasai men and women must marry. If each Maasai man has at least 3 wives on average then there need to be 3 times as many girls born in order to make the math work. A quick survey showed this to not be the case - it's a mystery.

We were told that they marry between 18 and 25 years old however, we heard from other sources that some of the girls (not women) are married at 13 or 14.

The evening we visited the village we had a young woman 'guide in training' who was on a work term from guide school with us. We asked her about the arranged marriage policy and she said that now that she is educated, she did not want to have an arranged marriage. We asked how she would manage that and she said they would just have to 'sit her parents down for a talk'. Later, back at camp I related this conversation to one of the managers and Helen said that in order for her to get where she is today (i.e. in guide school) she has already had quite a few sit down chats with her parents. My silent response was 'you go girl!'.

Schooling in Kenya in general and for the Maasai in particular is hit and miss. Not all children go to school, especially if there is no school close by which is often the case. A nearby school could be a 2 1/2 hour walk away. The 'villages' are very remote. If the family does want to send the child to school, they often must spend 5 days of the week living with a family in another village that is closer to the school. Wilson has one daughter and she will be doing this starting at age 5.

Editorial Comments:

I struggle a lot with this. The people seem happy with their life style and who are we to impose North American standards and values on them? On the other hand, it doesn't seem that the women are valued and they certainly do more than the lions share of the work. As with many situations, I believe education is the key. What amazed me is that Wilson works 4 of 5 weeks in the camp as a guide and spends a week back in the village and in spite of being educated and seeing other alternatives, he seems to be very happy to return to his village. Our young lady guide in training (not using her name just in case) certainly has different views about some things but when we asked her if she would come back and live in a village she said it would depend on her husband.

After visiting the village we drove to the savanah for sundowners (cocktails) and then did a night game drive. For a night game drive your guide or a spotter shines an infrared light that allows us to see animals in the dark but does not disturb the animals in the least. Mostly when scanning they are looking for eyes and if they find something then they take a closer look.

Here are some pictures: