Experiencing the Maasai

The part of Tanzania that I am living in has a large population of the Maasai tribe. A few weekends ago, one of our teachers, Mackrine, took us to visit and stay overnight at a Maasai village. It was an incredibly unique opportunity to have an invitation such as this. It is common for tourists to visit Maasai villages on arranged safaris, but I question how genuine of an experience those are as they are geared towards receiving tourists and essentially putting on a “show”. This particular village has been working with Mackrine and her organization in regards to ending female genital mutilation. They have agreed to end the practice in their village. Mackrine’s approach to gaining access and opening the dialogue with the Maasai has been to compensate and empower the women for their willingness to change their cultural practices. She does this through education and also each woman who agrees to give up the practice of performing the circumcision is given three sheep. Traditionally women are not allowed to own animals.

The women were so happy to see Mackrine. She is on the far left in the purple dress.

We still got quite a show. This is how the women greeted us, singing and dancing all the way...

Jumping is a part of their traditional dance

Culturally, the Maasai are very rich, however, if you were to look at their way of life from a western perspective, you would see them as extremely impoverished. Their possessions are few. Extremely few…in fact, they seem to not have possessions except for the clothes on their back and their beautiful jewelry that they make. However, if you were to ask them, they see themselves as very rich, because they have cattle and goats. That is their bank account. They live with the land. Their furniture consists of a bed, often shared by many, and some small carved wooden stools. 

In this picture is the bed in the hut of the youngest wife. The bed and a single candle were the only things in the huts that we saw. It is possible that they put away some of their belonging for our visit, but I can't imagine many more possessions as they are traditionally a nomadic culture. We slept in this hut but none of us felt comfortable taking her bed. They gave up many of their huts for us to sleep in. We are not sure where they slept...

Their shelter is traditionally a mud hut constructed out of sticks and mud with a thatched roof. The mud is similar to a cob mixture. What I observed was a mixture of clay, ash and water. The sticks are woven together and then mud is applied to the sticks. Each wife builds her own hut and that is where she sleeps with her children. It is a polygamous culture so the husband chooses which wife he will sleep with and if she is chosen, he will come to her hut. 

Here is an example of the women showing us how they apply the mud to the stick structures. They really got a kick out of watching us do it. One of the female guest in this picture is disabled. I will talk about that later on. 

This woman kept smiling at me. She is beautiful. 

And here you go...a finished hut. We slept in one of these huts. 

For our visit, they slaughtered a goat. I learned that on a daily basis, the Maasai eat very little. They may just have one meal a day of porridge. I know that they drink the milk and the blood of the cow, however, I am not sure if that is part of their daily diet. My assumption is that milk would be part of their daily consumption, but my assumptions have often been wrong. They collect blood from the cow by piercing a vein in the neck and then they cover over the wound with mud. It is rare that they actually kill a cow or goat. I was told that they may do it about once a month. When we were there, they slaughtered a goat for us to see. 

Traditionally, women are not allowed to witness the killing or the butchering. However, since we are form a different culture, they let us watch. I did not see the whole process, so my pictures are limited. They killed the goat by suffocation. I am assuming this was to keep the process cleaner and conserve the blood for drinking. They then moved the goat onto this bed of leaves to keep it from the ground. There is so much dirt and dust in this part of the land.

This one Danish woman really wanted to try her hands at the slaughtering. I think that it was a learning experience for both. I wonder what it was like for the Maasai men to see a woman doing something that is forbidden in their culture...

Yes. They do eat all of the goat. Organs, blood and all. At the time of the slaughter, they ate the lungs and liver and other organs raw along with drinking the blood, which they added salt to. 

Our teacher brought along our own cooks and food since our diets and way of eating are so different. They cooked our food over this trench of fire.  

Another aspect of this trip was that Mackrine works with disabled people. It is believed in the Maasai culture that if a person is born with a disability that they are cursed and they are not welcomed into the community. Mackrine works with a folk school in Denmark and part of what they do is work with people with varying degrees of disabilities. She organized an 11 day trip (I think) for them to come and learn about Tanzania. They came along to the village with us. I believe that there were about 6 disabled people. Each person had one to three attendants depending on their degree of disability. It was very interesting to observe the Maasai interacting with people that their culture casts out. 

The man in this photo was not born with a disability, but he got into an accident later in life which left him with brain damage. He was very mobile and could communicate fairly well. 

I am not sure what disability this woman had, but she was unable to communicate and was dependent on her wheel chair. She was surrounded by the Maasai. 

After the slaughtering of the goat, Natalie and I took a look at their jewelry. Well....it was not a casual 'just looking' sort of thing because multiple women surround you and just start putting jewelry on you. This is a good picture that shows the extent of adornments that they wear. The beaded collar signifies that a woman is a wife.

Here is their jewelry displayed...

Here I am being, somewhat willingly...okay...willingly, adorned. It was just too cool so I decided to give myself to the situation. It is good to know when not to resist. 

TaaaaaaDaahhhhhh!!!!!

As the sun was setting, the scenery just got more dreamlike. It was such a trip to just sit back and observe such a different way of life. I just want to share some pictures of that...

Here is a woman and her sheep.

Just hanging out...

A young Maasai man in the foreground...the 83 year old chief in the background...

Two old goats....

I believe that the man on the right is the chief's oldest son. He was herding the goats for the night. 

As the sun set, the outline of the huts looked so cool

Here they are roasting the goat around the fire. You can see the Maasai men leaning on their sticks on the right. 

And...this is where we slept. To be honest, none of us really slept. I am not sure why...we were sort packed like sardines and weren't quite warm enough...but so be it. It is all part of the experience. 

So that was our visit. It sure was an interesting way to get a closer look at a culture that has such a different way of life.  

  It is hard not to look at the ways of the Maasai culture and see the extreme gender violence and oppression towards women. They face genital mutilation, they are told when it is their turn to have sex with their husband, they are not allowed to own animals, they are not allowed to slaughter or witness the slaughter of an animal, they are not allowed to speak at meetings, they are not allowed to have any part in the burial if a child if one dies. It goes on and on. Men are seen very much as superior to women. It is a hard pill to swallow. I also have to remind myself that it is dangerous to make across the board stereotypes and judgements about an entire culture. The answers are not simple.

However, there is still something beautiful about the Maasai. There is an extreme simplicity to their way of life. They seem to get genuine joy from living with the land. There is something romantic about how untouched their culture remains to this day when we life in an ever globalized world. 

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Experiencing the Maasai