while in tanzania we spent three days with the maasai. driving on insanely questionable roads, we drove three hours from arusha. arusha is green, the weather is temperate, it rained nearly ever night we were there. maasai land is a completely different story. it hasn't rained there in months. the land was cracked and dust billowed across empty expanses - save for a few huts dotting the landscape. riding with the window of our bus open my arm was gray and ashy by the time we arrived. the only plants are acacia trees with very few leaves and the occasional aloe plants that are more gray in color than green.
after darting off the road in our sweet land rover we drove the bush - the maasai don't exactly have paved roads to their bomas (houses.) we passed a young maasai herding goats and asked for directions, he point generally into the distance (real helpful) and asked for water. the drought has hit the maasai hard. not only has the river completely dried up, there is no pasture for their cattle, and the women walk at least five kilometers everyday for water. the maasai we visited had sent some of the young men off with the cattle to ngorogoro conservation area in hopes of finding pasture there. unfortunately upon arriving half the cattle died due to a lack of immunity to diseases in ngorogoro (the land around ngorogoro crater was littered with the bones of dead cattle and maasai herding bones in cow's clothing.) yet despite their recent hardships the maasai were incredibly welcoming.
we stayed in tents just outside the maasai village. no toilets, no showers. just acacia everywhere. the maasai still live in the traditional bomas - mud and sticks. the bomas are surrounded by thorny acacias cut down and placed as a fence - to keep out lions, they say. the huts in surround a central paddock where the cattle and goats hang out at night. they cook indoors and entering a maasai boma will send you into a coughing, eye-watering fit - there's that much smoke. supposedly the tanzanian government is providing food aid (maize) to the maasai because with the drought they are unable to sustain their traditional way of life.
we spent time beading with the maasai women - the old woman sitting next to me was unimpressed with the color combinations I chose and kept throwing beads at me. she also hated the pattern I made (I thought it was nice a symmetrical) and further encouraged new patterns my grabbing my hand and forcing new beads on me.
the women are beautiful. tall, slim and very dark. their tartan and intricate beadwork are glorious.
the men are an intimidating bunch. wiry, muscly and slim, they walk around with tire shoes, tartan and really awesome walking sticks (which also serve countless other purposes.)
our first night in maasai land there was an elephant near the bomas. our academic directors were inclined (for legitimate safety reasons) not to let us go look for it. so we convinced some of the younger maasai men (through an elaborate miming operation - the maasai don't speak english or swahili for the most part, and we certainly didn't speak Ma) to take us to look for the elephant. it was pretty incredible. they know their land and its animals so well. we roamed around the bush as the maasai tracked the elephant - all aragorn the ranger style. although we never actually saw the elephant - it got dark too quickly - it was an amazing experience.
we woke up the next morning early, 5:30, and hiked into the hill to watch the sunrise over kilimanjaro. it was nice to see snow. kilimanjaro is something else. it dwarfs its surroundings and rises so remarkably from the flats of the plains.
our second day we had a goat sacrifice. one of the girls on the program missed the memo, I think. she grew very attached to the goat, even naming it marshmallow and grew very alarmed when one of the maasai began smothering it. they smother the animal, I think, because then all the blood rushes to the stomach, the reasoning of which becomes apartment when the cut the animal up.
after marshmallow died he was immediately skinned, very expertly using a machete. the meat was then cut off in sections. I received warrior meat to try i.e. raw kidney. it was still warm and tasted salty and bloody. I'm not super eager to eat it again, in all honesty, although I did fell a bit emboldened. some of the meat was cooked over an open fire (started by rubbing two sticks together - took them 30 seconds - as often as I tried I was never successful at that as a kid) and some was boiled in a stew (tasted a lot like dirt and blood.) when the goat's body cavity was pretty hollowed out, save for copious amount of blood, the maasai dumped some cooked bits in and slurped it up. I will say the most intimidating thing I've ever seen is a maasai man hunched over a goat he killed not 10 minuted before, eating the raw meat off his machete and slurping blood into his mouth, as it dribbles down his chin. nothing like it.
we sat around the campfire one night and asked questions through a translator. they asked questions back. we asked a question about rites of passage, i.e. male/female circumcision. they responded in turn with a similar question and thought it was hilarious that all people in our culture aren't circumcised. a fellow student, originally from japan, explained that in japan no one is circumcised, and from the this the maasai determined japan is country of children because no one is ever circumcised into adulthood. bizarre.
our last night we went and danced with the maasai. dancing involved a lot more jumping than I'm used to and the maasai children seemed to find my lack of rhythm/jumping ability particularly amusing. nothing quite like watching the maasai jump by starlight with kilimanjaro illuminated in the background.
all in all it was a fantastic experience. as in many of my experiences in east africa being male would have made it a bit easier. the maasai were much more comfortable with the guys in the group. they didn't seem to know what to make of women/girls who weren't completely deferential to men. ugh.
regardless, its impressive that people still live so traditionally. some children go to school and they use plastic water jugs, so some things have changed but you can imagine people living in reasonably the same way for generations. what remains to be seen is if the maasai can hold onto their culture as everything changes around them.
