Our Samburu and Maasai Friends (Day 39)
One of the points of taking your kids around the world for a year is to meet people you would never meet, and have experiences you would never have, at home. The conversations we have been having as a family are incredible, and the kids are learning that there are so many ways to live, learn, and appreciate life.
We spent a dozen days with the Samburu and Maasai people in rural Kenya. We spent every day with Warriors or Elders as safari guides, and we talked with them at length. We also visited a few villages and a school. Our kids spent hours learning local skills, such as how to make a fire with 2 sticks or how to make intricate bead jewelry.
SAMBURU
The Samburu people are very proud of their ancestral customs, and they stick to the old ways more than almost all others. The Samburu are probably more traditional than the better known Maasai, whom the Samburu describe as their “cousins.” This is partially due to the remoteness and harshness of their land. They were not affected as much by British colonial rule, and they are still far from the typical tourist route today.
Warriors
The Warrior is at the center of the Samburu culture. Warriors are young men who live off the land and raise the cattle, their most important possession. Cattle are valued both both as a source of food and as a sort of long term savings account. The Warriors wear elaborate ceremonial dress and always carry weapons: a seme (short sword) and often a rungu (club). These weapons are so central to their culture that they are allowed to carry them anywhere, including big Kenyan cities like Nairobi!
Becoming a Samburu Warrior is a bit like becoming an investment banker or lawyer in the USA. You have to train for many years and perform elaborate rituals. The job is intense; you travel a lot, and you get some perks. You wear special decorative clothing. If you do well, you later become an Elder (a bit like becoming Partner), where you have an easier schedule and are respected for your experience and judgement.
One difference vs becoming a lawyer: young Samburu boys become Warriors with a village-wide teenage circumcision ritual. It is carried out with traditional instruments and no anesthetic; the boys show their toughness by not crying or flinching. I think I would prefer the LSAT!
After proving himself as a Warrior and getting enough cows, a Samburu man can get a wife. The marriage to the 1st wife is often an arranged marriage, and the man has to pay 9 cows to his bride’s family to get married. Samburu men can get 2nd and 3rd wives if they want to - and if they can get enough cows. The 1st wife picks and trains the 2nd wife.
As you might guess, life is harder for women in this tradition bound society. They start working in the village at a young age, so a formal education is extremely rare. Girls are usually put into arranged marriages around age 15, often with men who are between 30 and 50.
Education
Our Samburu guides both attended school — as punishment because they were not good at goat herding! One said that, despite his success as a guide, his father is still disappointed in him for not living in purely traditional ways. The other said that his family is very proud and appreciative of his job and success. Now, they will both educate their kids because they think it will give them a better life.
Village
The houses in the village are built to be portable because the Samburu people are nomadic. They move their whole village every few months when food waste starts to draw in rodents and snakes — and when their cows move to new areas to graze. Being nomadic makes it hard to put kids in school, and it means you can’t have electric lines or running water. Women walk around 4 miles daily to get water.
The Samburu (and Maasai) speak Maa instead of Swahili, which is the Kenyan national language. This makes communication with other Kenyans a bit difficult. Communication is also hard because Maa is mostly not a written language. The Samburu live outside of the formal economy, mostly bartering with other Samburu and Maasai, rather than using money. They will infrequently bring cattle to markets 10 miles away, trading the cows for grain and tools. The barter market for goats is more liquid, and villagers can quickly get something from fellow villagers by trading a goat with them. Our guide jokingly referred to the goat as the Samburu ATM. Interestingly, despite all of this, most Samburu adults have cell phones (but mostly not smart phones).
Our kids enjoyed playing with the kids in the village, showing them games like hopscotch and “thumb wars.” (But the poverty here and in other villages started to make Hugh uncomfortable.) Again, the local kids seemed very interested in us.
It was clear that this was a real working village, not a demonstration of what Samburu life used to be like. There was no welcome, no guide, and no tourist store. No one spoke English besides our guide from the hotel. There were just people tending to their goats, making bottles out of gourds - and spending some time talking to strangers from a far away land.
Dance
We were lucky to see a Samburu dance one evening along the riverbed. About 30 Warriors and young women came from the surrounding villages. There was no emcee and no explanation of what was happening.
It was about as organic as it could be. They were not just hotel employees, and they were not paid except that the 30 of them got to split a goat that they sacrificed on a hill. Jamie and Hazel went over to watch. The Warriors killed the goat and then started cutting it up, maybe like the way you would skin and filet a fish you just caught. Nothing goes to waste in their culture. They drink goat blood, sometimes straight and sometimes mixed with milk. We watched as a Warrior drank the warm goat blood that was pooled in a pouch of skin on the goat’s neck.
They say it makes you strong… We might say it is a great source of iron and nutrients!
*****
MAASAI
The Maasai are one of the most famous tribes in Africa. They are known for their strong Warrior spirit and proud culture. The Maasai shield is even at the center of the Kenyan flag. But the Maasai we talked to were very concerned about the increasing influence of Western culture. They were struggling to see how they could protect their heritage as the whole world becomes increasingly modern.
Joseph
We spent many days with a charismatic Maasai Elder named Joseph as our guide. He was almost killed by a lion in his teens, and it was a pivotal moment in his life: it lead him to be among the first in his generation to get an education and a job outside of the tribe. Joseph has won awards for his bravery in fighting off lion poachers unarmed, saving a whole pride of lions. In an area where many do not speak English, he has been to USA 17 times, often as a speaker representing the Maasai community. He even has a Ted Talk. His job is far from his village, so he works about 2 months straight as a safari guide, and then he goes home to spend time with his family.
Of course, Joseph is not his original name. All of our Samburu and Maasai safari guides went by Western names that were given to them at school. This may seem strange, but Nelson Mandela was not originally called Nelson Mandela either. (His real Xhosa first name was Rolihlahla.)
Joseph was intensely proud of the Maasai culture and concerned that it was fading away right before his eyes. He saw his culture as being eroded by 3 forces (some or all of which were meant to “help”):
Christianity. This caused the Maasai to lose their traditional clothes because missionaries requested that converts dress in a Western style in church.
Education. This caused the Maasai to lose their traditional skills and their Maasai names. He delayed sending his children to school so they could learn the village ways first. Even though he is very successful relative to his village, he sent his kids to school in bare feet so they would be strong.
Technology. This caused the Maasai to lose interest in their historic ways to to want to emulate the Western lifestyles they might see online. Like a lot of places in the developing world, many more people in Maasai communities have cell phones than toilets, stoves, running water, tooth brushes, etc.
He wanted his people to resist the homogenizing force of modern Western culture, but it was not entirely clear how it could be done.
Here are Joseph (in his non-Maasai safari guide outfit) and Huey at Huey’s favorite breakfast spot on the Mara river.
On his visits to the USA, Joseph was interested in seeing our different culture, rituals, unusual foods, etc.
He thought eating oysters was completely gross! (And Jamie would agree.)
He was amazed by Costco: the size of the store, the size of the fruit, the freshness, and the cleanliness
He was really impressed by speed of things in America, like ordering coffee on the Starbucks app
He thought Halloween was a wild ritual celebration
He thought Chicago was insanely cold and could not believe people live there
He was sad and surprised to see homeless people. He gave a guy some Kenyan shillings because that is all he had.
He said that the huge portions of food in restaurants scared him. This is coming from a guy who fought off lion poachers unarmed.
Thinking of a visit to a family in the USA, he said he had never seen so many toys. He said that 1 American child had enough toys for 100 children in his village
He was surprised at how much people spend on pets. He said it was more than you would spend on your child in Kenya.
Maasai Village
We also visited a Maasai village. It was more permanent, with house walls made of cow dung and soil. Naturally cool in the day and warm at night
We were welcomed with a Maasai dance, where men compete to jump as high as they can. The Maasai say that the Warrior that can jump the highest can have more girlfriends!
Here, Hazel wears a wedding necklace with her friends from afternoon beading classes.
School
We visited a school in the Lewa Conservancy for local Laikipia Maasai children.
A friend described the new library as being the nicest he had seen in Africa. It had 2 computers and about 10 bookshelves with donated American books. They had Geronimo Stilton, so our kids thought it was amazing!
As usual, our kids liked playing with local kids, and local kids seemed very interested in us.
We asked Hazel how she thought this school compared to her school in Boston. She said, “I think the kids here are better behaved!”
*****
Thank you to our Samburu and Maasai friends!
