TwoHelp Kenya

Safari and the Masai

January 9, 2006 on 11:39 am |

One thing is certain about traveling: people give unsolicited advice and warnings before you depart. This is especially true for ‘exotic’ destination, such as Thailand and Kenya. “Nairobi is the most dangerous city in Africa.” “People will take advantage of you at every given opportunity.” “I hear that they force you to purchase things if you visit a Masai village.”

All of these things may have truth to them. Every warning can be taken for what it is because it is certain that these things have happened at some point. Yet, people are people the world around. I am guilty of succumbing to some of the fear and warnings before departure, but as soon as I arrive in an ‘exotic’ location, several things always dawn on me. First of all, I am and always will be a foreigner and tourist in every country other than the United States. Secondly, people, the world around, are just trying to make a living. Third, foolishness can lead to being taken advantage of anywhere, from Boston to Bangkok. Finally, offering people respect will usually lead to them offering it to me in return.

My arrival in Kenya was late at night, where a cadre of well-mannered taxi drivers waited at the airport, anxious to get a final fare for the evening. The kind man from the Kenyan Red Cross who picked up my party was the epitome of pleasantness and patience. He waited for us for almost an hour while we took advantage of a late-night cell phone store in the airport to buy Kenyan SIM cards for our phones. The service at our hotel in Nairobi was top-notch and we were greeted by everybody with a big smile and the expression jambo, which means hello in Swahili.

However, before we could get settled in, Danny, Susan and I were back on a small airplane, headed to the Mara Safari Club, on the outskirts of the Masai Mara national park. (It is the Kenyan extention of the Serengeti in Tanzania.) We stayed there through the weekend, to go on several guided wildlife safaris before starting work this week. The service at the Mara Safari Club was nothing short of exceptional. From Joseph, our driver and guide, to John, the waiter who served us at all of our meals and remembered our names after hearing them only once, it would have been possible for me to bask in the pleasant company of the Kenyan people all weekend, safaris aside.

Simply put, it is impossible to describe the absolute wonder and splendor of seeing spectacular wildlife in its natural habitat. I could stare for hours at every zebra or each wildebeest (of which there are thousands). Kenya is suffering a terrible drought, which has disrupted the normal migratory patterns of many of the animals and is the prelude to an almost certain crash in the wildebeest population this year. The grassy areas that normally provide calcium for grazing animals have received no rain in over 4 months, and many animals have resorted to eating the bones of dead animals to supplement their intake of calcium. It that proves to not be enough, the next generation of their offspring will suffer birth defects and bone deformities, which makes them easy targets for hyenas and lions. The last time a drought this severe happened, the wildebeest population in the Masai Mara crashed from 1.9 million to 900,000.

The sheer quantity of animals is amazing. Everywhere I looked I saw zebra, antelope, wildebeest, jackals, etc… the list goes on for a while. It is amazing to think that the western plains in the United States used to support similar animal populations, but that they were eradicated through overhunting and developed agrigulture.

The Masai people are also everywhere. The warriors are easy to spot because of their traditional bright red clothing. They herd cattle around and across the local plains. Some of them choose to open their villages to tourists and charge a modest admission fee to come in and see how they live. We stopped at one of these villages, and while I understand the importance of tourism as an income source for the people living there, I was saddened to see how their lifestyle had changed to accommodate tourism. The Masai people are very interesting - they have embraced a life with livestock in many ways unimaginable to me. Their homes are built of mud made from cow dung and are arranged in a circular pattern, surrounded by a ring of impenatrable thorny bushes on the outside, with several passages through. At night, to protect their livestock from predators, they bring them into the center of the ring of homes. To further protect the young cattle, they have special rooms in their house where they live until they are old enough to join the herd. In some homes, the baby cattle sleep with the children. As you might imagine, there is cow dung everywhere.

During their teenage and young adult years, the Masai are ‘warriors.’ While infrequently warriors in the traditional sense, they now act as cattle herders, bringing the herds across many miles of the plains in search of good grazing. They carry spears for protection.

At my suggestion, we visited the home of the recently-deceased chief of the Masai. Some of his 10 wives and 70 children still live in his former compound. Brian, one of his sons, was kind enough to spend nearly an hour telling us of the lifestyle of the Masai and the story of his life. Like many of the Masai, Brian is very well educated. He graduated from the University of Nairobi and is currently pursuing an MBA in business administration and accounting so that he can run his father’s business. Another Masai warrior that we met, Tombis, commutes 24 kilometers to school each day, on foot across the plains.

Many of the interesting aspects of their culture is still mired in unfortunate traditional practices. Females are not allowed to go to school - in fact, they are responsible for milking the cows, collecting firewood, collecting water (which can come from kilometers away), building homes, they are circumcised when they are young, and must participate the practice of poligamy which is common and accepted in Masai culture. Inside the houses, they cook over 3-stone fires where there is nothing but a tiny hole to exhaust smoke, making them and their children particularly susceptible to the woes of indoor air pollution.

I think there is hope for progression in the culture. Aware of the dangers of diseases such as measles and HIV, young children receive immunization shots and circumcision rites are performed with a disposible scalpel for each child. Unfortunately, disease is common amongst the Masai. Malaria, Cholera, Typhoid, and Brucellosis (from drinking unpasturized cow milk) are common and strain the traditional medicine system. Individuals who fall ill are treated for 2-3 days before being taken to a local clinic.

Our time in the Masai Mara area was very interesting. Making a good connection with Brian, we plan to meet him in Nairobi next week to enjoy dinner together. It will be the first time that I have dined with somebody who has killed two attacking lions with nothing but a spear.