Africa

Day Four: Friday

A Visit to the Maasai Village  

David has arranged to have coffee and toast before dawn. We awake to someone calling out, “Mr. David, your coffee is ready.” He dresses quickly, expecting to be escorted to the dining room only to find, to his delight, a smiling Natalie standing outside our door with a breakfast tray in hand. We are not in a hurry this morning, and do not have a big agenda for the day other than a visit to a nearby Maasai village in the afternoon, so David settles into the easy chair under the glow of the gas lantern.

When the power comes on, we read for a bit, but at the first hint of light filtering through the canvas we move outside to our deck. The baboons are on the move again, about twenty feet from our tent, and further down the escarpment a young Maasai boy, long stick in hand, urges his goat herd forward. Through binoculars I can see one of the three large, and probably elderly, bull elephants that have been hanging out among the trees on the flatland just below us. Amazingly enough my camera’s zoom lens picks him out as well. Click!

Mathew and Katherine are in the dining room so we join them for breakfast and carry on our discussions from the night before. There have been very few guests at the lodge since we have been here and this morning, apart from the four of us, there is a group of three young adults. They are preparing for a full day safari and quite excited as to what they might see. David asks where they are from and when one girl answers Utah, he asks if they have hiked in the Grand Canyon. “Just Havasupai,” she replies, and we tell them we too have been there! It seems another example of the small world experience.

After breakfast we say good-bye to Mathew and Katherine and I visit the lodge “office” to see if there is any chance the internet is up and running. The young woman tells me to come back in an hour or so when her computer will be free. It’s been two days since David has been able to pick up his e-mails and I am a little surprised that he is taking it so well. When we come back later, it is not such a simple task. It seems our carrier, Bell Aliant, is being blocked at one end or the other, and none of our regular e-mail accounts work. Finally, David finds a way around this, and breaks through. Well, at least we can get a message to our dog, via both my sister and nephew (who is dog sitting for us), that we miss him!

David retires back to the tent to read and I wander the grounds of our lodge, which is described in the travel literature as having, “the authentic Out of Africa experience where much of the original film itself was filmed and produced.” I find a natural little stone tabletop, overlooking the Mara, and I can almost see Robert Redford and Meryl Streep camping in this very spot. On my way back to the lodge for lunch I notice there are quite a few giraffes in amongst the acacias and many of the resident zebras grazing. I still can’t quite believe that this is not a movie set.

George arrives at three to take us to the Maasai village. This, it turns out, is one of the villages we have been viewing through our binoculars, about two kilometers, as the crow flies, from our deck. Of course, on the muddy road, it feels like a ten kilometer trek! When we arrive, George and an elder Maasai engage in a lively discussion – in Swahili – which we guess is about money. There is a fee for the tour, which will go towards the new school that this particular village is building.

Having migrated from the Nile Valley around the end of the 17^th century, the Maasai have become a cultural force in the area of the Mara, as well as in many other parts of East Africa. Living much the same way as they have for centuries, the men are clearly identifiable, in their bright red cloaks, often carrying a spear or rudimentary bow and arrow, and the women adorned in layers of beads and bangles. Cattle are the major sign of wealth and the more cattle a man has the wealthier he is. Likewise, the more wives he is, the richer he is! The products of cattle – milk, blood, hides, and dung – are all central to the way of life. To this day, the main diet of the many Maasai is only a fermented drink of cows milk and blood (a nick is made in the jugular vein of a cow and the blood gathered in a calabash). Occasionally a goat is killed for meat, and some grains have been introduced to their diet … but no fruits and no vegetables!

The Kenyan government is encouraging the Maasai to abandon traditional ways and have their children educated, so some villages are building schools, financed by tourism (as this village is doing) or missionary groups. We gladly pay the fee and pass through the opening of the thorny acacia branches that encircle the village (the huts are built around the inner circumference of the branch fence and within its circle is another circular acacia barrier where the cattle are herded to each night). I am not prepared for just how primitive this scene is. The mud and dung huts remind me of the ancient Anasazi ruins we have seen in the American southwest.

First, two senior men greet us and show us how they make fire with two sticks (which they then sell us) No Bic lighters or matches here! Our guide is John, perhaps twenty something, who has grown up in this village. He has gone off to “city” school and so speaks a little English. It is his mother’s house that he takes us into next. About five feet high on the inside, it consists of several tiny chambers reeking of smoke, with one or two six-inch stools, a stretched cowhide for a bed, and a fire pit. Oh, and sometimes the lucky cow that is being bled. John tells us that when he first arrived at school he was sick for a week from the food!

When we come out of the hut a group of four woman, barefoot but colourfully dressed in flowing fabrics and beautifully beaded neck, ear, and head jewellery, are waiting to welcome me into their midst. A beaded neck collar is carefully laid over my head and I am expected to dance and chant with them. It appears that we are doing this in about a foot of cow dung – I am grateful I am wearing my hiking shoes. John is shouting his encouragement to me … “move your arms … shake your head,” he says, the large gap between his front teeth showing as he smiles a big smile.

There are at least fifteen women of all ages and twice as many children waiting for us when we exit the compound. They too are beautifully adorned and have spread a circle of red blankets in amongst the grazing goats. The blankets are covered in their handiwork – carvings and beaded baskets and calabashes … beaded necklaces, earrings, bracelets – I am swooning in the swirl of colour and craft. But we are not prepared for this and though we try to buy something from each woman (they have, after all, done this just for the two of us) we still have to have John accompany us back to the lodge so we can get more money. I regret that I did not buy more, but David gives John some extra money for his education and I hope that our visit will also help build their school.

At dinner David and I begin to think about tomorrow. It will be Christmas Eve day and we leave at the crack of dawn for a long drive to Tanzania and the Serengeti. If it rains in the night, the shortcut will be closed and what George has described as the “long way” sounds less than appealing. We keep our fingers crossed and let the Mara’s night music take us into sleep.