A visit to the Maasai

My travels through Madagascar, Uganda and Tanzania all highlighted the vast differences in cultures, not only from the life in the U.S. that I’m accustomed to, but between these incredibly different countries as well. This was, after all, part of the reason I chose to volunteer in Africa; to experience the fascination and excitement that led me to major in anthropology way back when. But nothing has ever really compared to learning about the Maasai people firsthand. The Maasai are a nomadic herding tribe located primarily in northern Tanzania and southern Kenya, which has been aptly named the Maasai Mara. I seriously contemplated volunteering with the Maasai in Kenya initially - I had already been accepted to the program in Tanzania and thought perhaps I should make the most of my time and travel in Africa by visiting more than one country. I narrowed it down to Kenya and Madagascar and weighed the pros and cons of each program but in the end, the program details stated that most Maasai home stays do not have electricity and running water. Electricity was not an issue, but my inner anthropologist cringes with embarrassment that I couldn’t handle life without running water. 

Anyway… exploring the traditional cultures was something I was incredibly excited for. As soon as we drove away from Kilimanjaro airport I was astounded by the immediate abundance of Maasai people in their brightly colored robes, called shúkà, just walking along the side of the highway herding their cows and goats. The sight seemed so exotic, like something out of a book, it was difficult for me to wrap my head around the idea that this was just normal life. Our van approached Arusha and the arid savannah became more green and the traffic increased as we neared the city but I was surprised to see that there were still a noticeable number of Maasai men in Arusha, wearing their traditional shúkà. My next venture into town was the first day of placement when TVE staff members chaperoned us to and from our home stays to placement, showing us the correct dalla, stop and route. My placement included a ten - fifteen minute walk through Arusha town in between dallas and again I encountered a number of traditionally dressed Maasai men along the route. They all wore their hair very closely cut but not all wore the traditional black rubber sandal that appears to be made of recycled tires, instead some wore sneakers or other modern footwear.

It took little effort to convince some other volunteers to do a visit to a Maasai village for the upcoming weekend - the biggest discussion was whether or not we should bring a goat. Just as you might bring a bottle of wine to dinner at a friend’s house, it is customary in Tanzania to bring some type of gift to visit a home, or in this case, a village. We had a vegetarian and a semi-vegeterian in our midst so I understood where they were coming from but selfishly I was curious since I wanted the most authentic experience possible. But to be fair, going to visit a Maasai village wasn’t a particularly authentic way to visit a group of people. So no goat - instead we stopped at the market before we left and brought cornflour, sugar and oil, all of which we had been advised were useful gifts. A security guard, Zacki, from one of the volunteer houses was Maasai and we were to visit his village. It took just over two hours to reach the village which was located within Arusha National Park. The second half of the journey was my first taste of what the local guides refer to as an “African massage” - the bumping and jostling a passenger feels as their vehicle blasts along a dirt road.

As we got closer Zacki removed the jacket he had been wearing over his shúkà and finally we veered off the main dirt road and drove across the flat savannah to our left until we passed a few trees and bushes and we were able to see the circular roofs of some huts in the distance. The village was separated from the savannah with a perimeter of bushes; some were planted while other seemed to have been moved in large chunks to supplement and formed a circle with two openings. The van parked in front of one entrance and we climbed out and waited awkwardly as our guide ushered us to enter the opening. We all wanted to follow someone but instead we were encouraged to go in without a leader and we did that uncomfortable shuffle where it’s clear nobody wants to go first so you all try to move together without anyone having to lead. It wasn’t as if anyone was scared, but without knowing what to expect and what the norms were, it’s safe to say that we were all nervous to offend someone. 

We shuffled into the opening and about thirty feet away was a small group of Maasai men and women facing us. The men all wore shúkàs and carried wooden staffs and the women wore shúkàs over dresses and large beaded collars around their necks; they were chanting/singing a song as they began to approach us in a formation. The women each removed one of their collars, as they were each wearing multiple collar/necklaces of various sizes, put one over each mzungu woman’s head and took our hands and led us into the village where we did our best to join in with the chanting song. I tried to make my collar bob up and down the same way they did with a little knee bounce but surprise surprise, my rhythm was off. Stan was the only mzungu man so he was draped with a shúkà and given a staff, which he seemed to take an immediate liking to.

The group of Maasai grew around us but we were now part of a semi-circle, holding hands with a local person on each side, trying to keep up with the chants and bouncing, this went on for a while with some variations where one group would break off to approach the other in what seemed like the second part of a greeting dance. They seemed fairly entertained by our attempts to keep up and as goofy as we mzungus must have looked, it helped to take the edge off a relatively awkward experience. Zacki was one one side of me and kept giggling and telling me that I was a Maasai. I can only imagine that he felt I deserved an “A for effort” in my attempts to participate and found my clumsy dancing pretty funny. I didn’t want the people of this village to feel like we were visiting them the same way tourists visit a zoo, but that dynamic can be difficult to avoid; I suppose I hoped that their laughter was a combo of laughing at us and with us, which in some way, leveled the playing field. After a bit, the Maasai men began their famous jumping and it was remarkable. One man would move forward from the line of us and jump up straight as an arrow with his wooden herding staff also perfectly straight and they would get a few feet off the ground, jumping a couple of times and then landing their final jump with a final stamp as they landed. They took turns, each going a few times, sometimes two jumping together, but seemed a challenge to each other as well. We were pressured to give it a go as well but obviously, our attempts failed to match theirs.

When we finished thoroughly embarrassing ourselves we were led to one of the huts, called bomas, that we were able to visit. The huts are all constructed by the women of the village, as much of the work and chores within the village are attended to by the women. The doorways were low and the walls were constructed of a mixture of dirt, water and cow dung. Surprisingly there was no odor of cow dung whatsoever. We entered what was considered a “sitting room” which was a narrow room with another room on either side. On the left was a bedroom for the children which contained a large low bed with a “mattress” of rope and dried cow hide, stretched tight. The woman whose boma we were in had seven children who all shared the one bed. The other room was the kitchen and the mother’s bedroom. The kitchen consisted of a small pit with some dimly glowing charcoal and a few plastic cups and bowls hanging from a piece of wire from the roof. The mother’s bed was tucked behind a wall but constructed the same as the other bed. I was nervous I would accidentally step into the fire because it was so dark inside the hut; when you step inside from the bright daylight it’s like going into a cellar with no windows. My eyes did eventually adjust but I couldn’t imagine how long the nights must be in such a dark place. I was also surprised that the interior of the boma wasn’t particularly smokey given that there was no chimney or ventilation for the cooking fire built into the structure.

Someone asked how old she was and our translator asked her but she did not know since she had not had any proper schooling. We asked if anyone knew how old her children were but they said she did not know that either, she only said that they were from small to big. Our guide then explained that each village had one father and each boma was for one of his wives and her children. This village had eight bomas, and therefore there were eight wives of the father. He then went on to explain that men get their wives by chasing them into the bush and raping them and then they were their wives. We were pretty horrified and later found out that was completely untrue. The woman does not have a choice in who she marries, but it is determined by her father and the man she is to marry, and in many occasions, his father. A dowry is paid in goats and cows. Once a woman is married she wears large beaded earrings that hang from the stretched holes in her ears to indicate that she is married. The older men also stretch their ears but they do not wear jewelry in them - although one man did have a prescription tube in his stretched earhole, which I think was more for the stretching purpose than decorative. Some of the men wore beaded ankle bracelets and others had a spiky piece in their sandals that was also adorned with beads. I asked if it was an indicator of their status but was told that the spiky piece went between their toes, much like the strap in a flip flop and was purely for holding their sandals on better. The men and women all wore their hair very closely cut, if not shaved entirely with the exception of one man whose hair was elaborately braided, pinned with metal clips and even painted. We learned that this indicated that he was a warrior and an unmarried man looking for a wife. There are a series of statuses that men go through in Maasai culture, starting with circumcision as a child when they “earn” their shúkà and continuing as warriors and then various stages of “elders”.

In the center of the village is another circular area enclosed by thorny bushes where the cattle and goats are kept. There were no cows present during our visit - they are taken out for water and grazing and during the dry season spend most of their time outside of the village, tended to by men of the village who live a nomadic life, following water sources with the cattle. The nearest source of water to the village was a stream about 3km away so water is a valuable resource and explains why milk and cow blood is such a big part of the Maasai diet. They can obtain fluids from the animals more easily than they can obtain water. In fact, we learned that they can let up to 5 liters of blood from a cow and the cow will recover within a few days; which helps to explain their access to a fairly large quantity of blood without having to deplete their livestock.

In a time when Ebola is still a very real threat, learning about these rituals was an alarming realization of how so many people can easily become infected due to the continuation of their typical daily practices. This is much more involved than figuring out how to treat the sick, create quarantines and address funeral rites that facilitate transmission. This would involve significantly influencing the daily life of populations that have intentionally avoided adopting a more Western lifestyle - all to avoid something that they have only heard of but not experienced firsthand. Tanzania has been lucky so far, and countries in central Africa such as Uganda and Rwanda that border areas of Western Africa, have been vigilant to avoid the introduction of Ebola into their countries. But the scariest thing about Ebola to me is that as a virus, it will continue to evolve until it is irradicated and that evolution can introduce new strains with new modes of transmission. I think about it only as much as I have to.

Back to the Maasai - after we visited the boma we wandered slowly around the village where we had our turn interacting with the kids. I say our turn because whether it was intentional or not, it was like the visit was broken into phases - dancing, boma visit, hanging with the kids, village tour and then shopping. The kids were shy at first but very curious. One of the bolder and more precocious girls was very handsy with my camera. I let her take some photos - the kids loved looking at photos on the digital screen and I can only assume they have little exposure to technology. Although, we had to laugh when early on during the dancing phase, one Maasai man had to step away to answer his cell phone. Judith was taking pictures on her iPad so of course the kids went completely bonkers trying to see the pictures on her screen and eventually a group formed around her where she showed pictures from throughout her trip.

Many of the smallest children and babies had dripping noses and runny eyes, which then attracted flies. It was heartbreaking to see and reminded me of the commercials that use to run on TV so much more frequently in the past, showing pictures of sickly, malnourished children in Africa, covered in flies and looking dejectedly at the camera or off into the distance. It was a little too real to see it in person. There was a baby whose face was just poking out from under a wrap that held him on his sister’s back. His poor eyes were red and drippy and he didn’t even react to the flies that crawled around the corners of his eyes.

We continued to make our way around the perimeter of the village and noticed that not all residents were as welcoming of our presence. Clearly the visit was pre-arranged with Zacki, one of the older sons of the village father and Zacki’s mother and family would benefit from our visit. I don’t know to what extent the food items we brought or the fee/donation we paid for the visit, would be shared throughout the village either. I have been very sensitive about asking for permission before I photograph people throughout my trip and I didn’t even ask the people closer to the back of the village - it was clear they were not part of the welcome wagon. I took a picture of some baby goats instead and was then shooed away. I assumed animals were OK but apparently they were off limits as well.

We wrapped up our visit with the dispersement of the lollipops. I had insisted on bringing some type of candy for the kids when we shopped for our visit, and not knowing how many children there would be we had brought a massive bags of Blow Pop like lollies. First the children were all lines up from biggest to smallest and Stan walked down the line passing out the lollipops. Since we had plenty left after we finished with the children, the adults started to ask for them too. Stan passed them all out and we got a chuckle watching the adults clamoring for the lollipops even more than the children had. It was time for the shopping phase! I admired the elaborately beaded collars but knew it would be something I wouldn’t be likely to display at home and would also probably be pricey. I settled on a small beaded necklace that was representative of what I had seen and wasn’t too expensive. I was glad to help in supporting the livelihood of the women in the village and avoided the awkwardness anyone who hadn’t selected an item experienced as the women kept trying to put bracelets and such on them to buy. By the time we left nearly everyone in the village had a giant lollipop in their mouth, the flies were a little too present thanks to my sweets and we were ready for phase two of the African massage.