Thursday, November 1, 2012

Massai Village Visit

                                                  Maasai Village Visit



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      I cringed as the children skittered close to the lurching cruiser wheels, as heedless as farm dogs chasing a car. Dressed to impress in blue and red with bright strands of beads around their necks and tire-soled flip-flops or  barefoot in sack like dusty shifts, the children of the Maasai ran to greet us. “Jambo. Hello.” Swahili and English.
      We had bounced a long way over rutted arid roads to visit here, a small circle of dry thornbush piled in the middle of a vast rolling plain of dusty Acacia trees and brown grass thickets. In the distance a dust cloud obscured a Maasai herd of sheep and cows searching out what nourishment they could find. Plants, herds, and the Maasai themselves awaited the expected rainy season’s promise of another year of life.
                                            Maasai Village Men
       Three dignified men emerged from the compound. Our guides introduced them as the three brothers who, with their eight wives, lived in the village. Ceremoniously the oldest man welcomed us in English, and led us through the kraal’s thorn bush perimeter. Inside, the thornbush fence  encircled animal pens crowded with cows, sheep and goats, and eight thatched, mud plastered huts, one per wife. The dust lay loose and thick on the ground.
      More men,  teenage boys, and a group of women trailed by toddlers were waiting to greet us. Visitors had walked, or run, long distances from other small Bomas to be present. Even now, stragglers ran rapidly across the landscape.
                                      Women and Children





        Both men and women wear shu'kas, in which cloths, often red, are draped about the shoulders, and waist. While both sexes wear beadware, the  women weighted their necks and wrists with strands of colored beads. Heavy five inch earings pulled heavily on earlobes while more beads clustered high in the ear. Traditional stiff wide collars of beads appeared to support their shaven heads on a colorful beaded platter.
                   
      The Maasai women and children formed a group and sang. My USA attention span was quickly exhausted by the swaying, clapping and singing, on and on. Eventually, one at a time participants came forward and drew a tourist visitor out to be dressed and brought back into the singing group. A woman came forward and took my hand, arranged a shuka around me, and placed beaded collars around my neck. When we were all dressed and integrated into the Maasai circle, native men entered the center, leaping  and bounding into the air.
      The women also entered the center, undulating their sinuous bodies and flipping the beaded collars up and down in time to the music. Approaching a man they extended a shoulder, the men responded with a shoulder bump, and a minute of paired dancing ensued.
      The Maasai woman shepherding me indicated that a shoulder bump meant the woman liked a man, and his return bump indicated interest. I bumped shoulders with a warrior, and he bumped back, to general laughter.  Moving bodies, bouncing collars, chanting in the hot dry air continued. The Maasai take pride in endurance during these dances, but I was ready to quit. 
      I was sweating slightly, even in the aridity of the air.  The Maasai were not sweating and exuded no body odor.  Why, I wondered don’t these people smell? Many had come from distances, rushing along on foot. They were jumping, dancing, singing and clapping. Water for washing is scarce.  I know I’d have been like a bum in the subway tunnel by weeks end.
     Women  displayed beadwork on the ground or on cloths for us to purchase as the singing came to an end, and we bought handiwork eagerly, because we knew the women would keep the money we paid them to use for themselves or their children
      We completed our purchases, and the market dispersed.  We crowded into one of the tiny bomas. Comfortless, almost completely dark, airless. In the center an empty fire ring and a store of wood. The only openings for ventilation or to release smoke were a couple of coke can sized circles in the wall, and what tiny spaces penetrated the thatch roof. The bed was piled hardened clay covered by a single stiffened cow hide.
     Our guide introduced the first wife of the second brother, a woman of twenty. He explained she spoke poor Swahili which he would interpret as best he could.  We could ask any question, even intimate ones.
     We asked several questions about the woman's children, how many wives her husband had, how long she'd been married.  She said she was twenty, married four years, and had a three year old son, and the year old baby boy she carried onher back.  Her husband had two more wives.

     Then a woman asked about the circumcism rituals.  The first wife answered the questions with no sign of embarrassment. 
                                                                      
                                                                           circumcised boy                                                                   
      Of course the men were circumcised. No anesthesia, no antibiotics. In public.  Everybody looked to see which boys were brave, and if any winced, or allowed a tear to run down their young faces, disgrace ensued. Maasai men did not mind pain! The girls did not like a coward!
     For a time after circumcision the boys painted their faces black and white and remained outside the village, learning to be men. She was reticent as to what this entailed.
     The women were also still circumcised. In public,  with no anesthetic, or antibiotics. The women were not judged so harshly if they cried, but they too tried to be brave. They bled a lot, a few died. They wanted to be circumscised, because otherwise no one would marry them. They seldom sought medical aid because it was against Tanzanian law.
     Most women had their babies at home. They refused to eat much so they would have small babies and an easier time.
The year old child in her lap still seemed tiny.                               
                                                                       Massai wife and Mother
      My stomach roiled, and a lump appeared in my throat as she spoke in matter of factly of her circumcision and childbirth here in the bush.
     More questions followed.
     If a man wanted to take a new wife, he should ask the older wives, but usually he got his way.
      Of course women built the houses, cooked, and did village work. Who else?”
     It was time to leave.  We said good by and asked one more question.
      She smiled, this twenty year old girl sitting in her tiny black hovel with her baby on her back. “Yes”, she said. “She was happy. Life was good.”


*(Although there are exceptions, most Maasai, men, women and children have very short shaven hair. The Maasai, especially men, traditionally progress through a number of recognized life stages, and one of the signals to their progress is hairstyle or color.Wikipedia has interesting descriptions of Maasai culture and rites of passage if you want to read more.) *

                                                                          Men with varied hairstyles