Massai Village

As I mentioned, Massai-land is a completely different lifestyle than where we are living in Nairobi.  We visited a Massia village to see how they live their life.  Four Massai warriors met us at the camp & walked us into the village.  

When we entered the village, we were met by the son of the chief.  He & a group of other men did a welcome dance for us.  Part of the dance they also use for men to show their skills in jumping.  During an annual ceremony, whoever shows they can jump the highest in the village will get a “discount” on his next marriage.  The standard payment to the family of his bride is 10 cows, but this person would pay less…depending on how high he could jump.  

A few other interesting facts about the village:

• The whole village is descendents of the same grandfather.  So for that reason, people have to go outside of the village to find a wife.
• Men have many wives.  4-5 seemed pretty typical.
• Kids are typically cared for by the grandmother rather than the mother.
• They all wear red (many variations of their wraps which you can see above) because it’s the Massai color.  That way they can signal from far away that they are Massai.
• The women build the houses, which consist of a central space for cooking with a couple of benches for sitting, the bedrooms (in the house we were in 9 people shared 3 bedrooms) and a room where the sheet & goats slept (yes, in the house). 
• The village moves every nine years to a new location approximately 1 km away.  They have to do this because the termites slowly eat at the wood supporting the house & it finally gets to a point where the house is no longer safe to live in. 
• Their diet consists of a base of milk & cows blood.  They also eat a number of grains & vegetables that they grow and periodically the meat of an animal that has to be put down.  They don’t have animals that they raise specifically for meat.
• They make their shoes of recycled tires and he said they will last for 10 years or more….longer than a village.
• Funny story….they asked if we wanted to see the cows blood that they drink, so we said sure.  A few minutes later we were walking to where we would see it & as we turned a corner we saw a calf with 5 men restraining it & a knife to it’s neck!  We all screamed in shock that they were going to kill this cow & thankfully they immediately stopped.  We appeared to have a bit of a miscommunication……by asking if we wanted to see the blood, he meant they were going to draw it fresh from the cow.  Mmmm…no thank you.  The process for this is to take an arrow to the throat of the cow, drain some blood for drinking and then block the opening so it heals & the cow survives.  Despite that they weren’t going to kill it…..not something I needed to witness.

It was very cool to visit the village.  That said, I couldn't  help but feel like we were exploiting the massai and how they live during our tour.  It was fascinating to be in such a different culture, but just felt a bit like an invasion of privacy following them around in a group taking pictures.  Regardless, I am glad that I went and definitely learned a lot.

Their hand made tire shoes.  I kinda want a pair.

The central living space in the homes.  It's pitch black inside so the photo isn't great, but they say your eyes adjust and they never use any sort of light other than the fire while they are cooking.

Starting a fire with cedar and sandpaper wood