Masai Land

     Last weekend we took a group trip to Masai Land and Olorgesaillie. Do you remember reading about the Leakey’s and the old stuff they dug up? I was there.  We took a ride out of Nairobi through the Great Rift Valley and looked at a lot of really old stuff. There were hundreds of hand axes all over the ground. We also saw hippo and elephant bones that were almost one million years old. The landscape was absolutely beautiful. I have so many pictures but they do not accurately portray the truly amazing landscape.

     After our journey through time, we took a bus ride to Masai Land where we met Joseph (aka Masai Man). Although he was in traditional Masai gear from head to ankle, he was wearing a pair of running sneakers and his cell phone rang every few minutes. It was strange to see the mix of lifestyles.

     Joseph took us to a hut in the middle of nowhere.  It was built by bending trees into the form of a tent and is big enough for about eighteen men to sleep in. I said men because women are not allowed (even though myself and fourteen other girls from the U.S. were allowed in). Joseph explained that the hut is for eating meat. The men in the village will go to the hut for a period of one month. Once they are there the basically just hunt and eat meat. After the month they go home. They keep a branch in the hut to mark off each time they used the hut. The marker was just short of twenty marks.

     After seeing the hut, we were taken to their village area where we saw houses that were being built for volunteers. Although the Masai live in mud huts, with the help of some Spanish man they are building legitimate house for volunteers. They are hoping to entice more volunteers to come and help them with farming and education.  After a tour of the gardens and chicken coups we moved on to the best part of our day.

     Joseph brought us out into the bush to follow wild giraffes. It was absolutely incredibly. We were so close to a bunch of giraffes just hanging out in the bush. It was my first ‘Lion King’ moment of this trip.

After bonding with giraffes, we joined the rest of the Masai for lunch. The Masai women made us goat with peas, potatoes, and chapati (a popular flat bread in Kenya). It was good but as usual the Kenya-sized portions were too much for me to eat so I put my bowl on the ground next to me. A minute later a baby chicken came up and started pecking away at my plate.

     After lunch, the young Masai men performed a dance for us and the women performed a song. Then they made us get up to sing with them. It was awkward considering we didn’t understand any words in the song and had absolutely no idea what we were doing.

     Before we left, we were taken to a one room school house for the Masai children. The school serves about forty children of various ages. After the school we returned to Nairobi.