and special occasions.
Despite the increasing modernization of Africa in recent years, the Maasai have still clung to many of their traditions and beliefs. They speak their own regional dialect, called Maa, though many also speak Swahili and English. Estimates of their current population range wildly, anywhere from only about 150,000 to almost a million throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Yet they still remain mostly marginalized from mainstream Kenyan culture, both economically and politically.
Dr. Jama, my advisor in Nairobi, knew of a Maasai community in the Rift Valley who would welcome a visitor—me. I’d been told that district elders, together with Dr. Jama, had assembled to decide on the family with whom I should live. The father of the family I was joining had past experience with various development organizations working in Kenya, and collectively they had decided how to welcome their American visitor.
The Maasai I’d seen so far—like the man in Nairobi—dressed in distinctively colourful clothing with ornate necklaces and earrings of fine beadwork. Many of them displayed long, pierced and stretched earlobes—a common body modification considered beautiful in their society. I wasn’t sure if this was what I was to expect from my adoptive family. All I knew was that they were eagerly expecting my arrival. I had to rise above my nervous jitters and prepare to throw myself into whatever came my way.
And yet I was hesitant: could I reach out and cross the inevitable cultural gap? Would this family and I be able to joke, or communicate at all? Would the differences simply be too vast? Had my desire to flee a frustrating, ordinary upbringing been too hasty or too extreme?
I started toward the church, where I was to meet my “mama,” the mother of the family with whom I’d be staying for the next year. The father of the family—my “baba”—was a teacher and one of the community’s more educated men. He travelled often and was presently away, doing work with one of the many charities frequenting the region.
Then a stunningly beautiful, tall woman who looked not much older than me came toward me down the roadside. She wore multicoloured shukas draped around her slender shoulders and a bright blue skirt. Her feet were bare, but her face beamed with a brilliant smile. I hoped my own smile was even half as wide.
“My daughter!” she cried in English.
I wasn’t sure how to react. “Mama?” I tried, trying to feign confidence.
“Welcome!” She hugged my shoulders, first on the left, then again on the right: a traditional Maasai embrace. My body was stiff, yet her movements were smooth and easy. She moved deliberately, with purpose.
Against my protests, she hauled my backpack onto her shoulders, then immediately dropped it back on the ground, staggering under its weight. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand.
“I’m sorry,” I cried, coming to her aid. “Let me take that!” Have I brought too much?
I rushed to help her, but Mama then rose and effortlessly tossed my bag over her shoulder and continued ahead, laughing at my stunned expression. Finally I got the joke and hurried to catch up with her. Lacking the right words, I could only laugh to show my appreciation, and soon we were laughing together. I followed her lead toward a narrow, worn footpath running uphill through the brush. With her long legs, she kept a brisk pace, and I pushed hard to keep up with her.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
She looked at me and smiled. “Home.”
I followed Mama up the dirt path, keeping a cautious distance. The long savannah grass and twisted, thorny bushes soon gave way to a clearing heavy with the smell of barn animals. I saw several small huts, then a fenced enclosure. Huddled at a distance, a group of small children watched. I gave them a wave, but they only scurried away.
Before I knew what was happening, Mama began a quick tour. She showed me a small structure made of mud and sticks that had a dirt floor on which stood a pair of small beds with wooden frames and thin blankets: this was the main house where we would sleep. Another smaller hut served as a kitchen, centred around a small, smouldering firepit, with a few wooden shelves and a number of long planks of scrap lumber set as benches. This must be where the family sits at mealtime, I thought to myself. There was a pit toilet, similar to an outhouse, located just outside the fence of replanted branches, roughly assembled from tin sheets nailed together. Nearby was a metre-square concrete block structure with tin sheets for walls, no roof and a large bucket inside. “Bafu,” Mama explained: where we would bathe. This would definitely be interesting!
Continuing our tour, we crossed through another fenced enclosure. Ngombe yetu wanalala hapa, she said: our cattle sleep here. She pointed to an enclosed area for the goats and sheep, another for the cows, indicating they were currently away being herded in community fields. A number of clucking chickens pecked around the yard. Mud caked on the bottom of my battered running shoe with each step, but I fought to show Mama I wasn’t fazed, concentrating on each step.
Squish-sh-sh-sh. Something warm melted over my foot—I looked down and found my shoe sinking into the slurping quicksand of a huge cow patty. Oops! I raised my knee to try and save my shoe, but the suction was too strong. I pulled harder, forcing it out, and my foot came free—sending a spray of manure flinging into the air with its release.
Mama, ahead at the compound’s edge, turned back. I snapped to attention and smiled as best I could, trying to regain composure even with manure splattered on my legs. A burst of high-pitched giggles broke out nearby. But when I turned, my small crowd of shy observers again fled before I could greet them.
Everything was hitting me so fast, I could barely process it. The isolation. The fire. A new bed. A new family. The powerful stink. What exactly was I getting myself into here?
“Tuende uoge,” Mama said, directing me to take a shower. After the long journey, I was more than ready to clean up.
By the bafu Mama arranged a bucket of water and swung a thin, threadbare towel over the tin siding. A yellow brick of soap sat on a narrow, wooden shelf. I closed the swinging door behind me, fastening it by twisting a bent nail over the doorframe. Stripping naked, I stood exposed to the open sky above.
My heart pounded from the day’s frenzy of activity. This village was far from Nairobi’s neon lights, pumping music and constant advertising. But I still felt overwhelmed.
With a deep breath, I splashed myself with water from the bucket and lathered up with the soap. Getting clean after the afternoon’s long, dusty ride felt good, and I shut my eyes to review the day in my head. The bright red and blue of the women’s clothes. The high-pitched chatter of a dozen competing conversations. The diesel smoke contrasting with the fresh air all around. The scratch of thorns in the tall, dry savannah grass.
Then I knew I wasn’t alone. Turning, I was startled to see a cow’s head was poking at my feet—and it was now drinking from my bucket of bathwater! I almost swore out loud in surprise. How could I shoo the cow away without someone hearing my distress and then coming to my rescue, only to find me naked?
“Go away!” I hissed at the cow. I bopped it lightly on its head and, to my relief, it began to slowly back out, trailing saliva from its mouth to my bucket.
I stood there, hands on hips under the open sky, afraid to look down at my bucket, now mixed with globs of cow saliva. Should I remain soapy, or rinse with water goopy with cow saliva? I could only chuckle to myself. Here was a choice I would never imagined having to make.
After my bucket shower, Mama resumed her tour. Past the
