Tanzania 1 - The Maasai

I watched them as I tried in vain to keep at bay the army of flies that were attacking my freshly cooked and newly dead goat.  The boys were wearing the bright Red and Blue Shukas.  For hundreds of years, those colors have terrorized lions and inspired awed tales of young boys hunting lions with spears.  There are now too many boys and too few lions.

This is where the boys were instead.  The muggy heat was enervating.  The streets were filled with men and women in Shukas.  It was market day and the men had brought their cattle over for sale.  In a crumbling shed off the main highway stood a gleaming pool table.  A large host of Masai teens stood all around it, all in their Shukas.  Sipping beer, betting and talking animatedly.  Pool sticks, not hunting spears seemed weapons of choice.  There was not a girl among them.

The goat was a bit too fresh.  Besides, I was sure the flies had already had the best parts.  As I muttered my excuses to my hosts for not eating more, a hawker came by and offered me a machete.  I declined firmly.  The hawker then went by to the boys, and sold one there.  The proud new owner unsheathed it and showed it off to his buddies, making slashing motions in the air.

As I stared with what must surely have been a stupefied look on my face reflecting a general and complete incomprehension of the sights, smells and sounds around me, I suddenly heard my host say "OK.  Are you ready?"  

Iddy, my guide, had arranged a local escort to take me to a remote Masai village.  I had made it clear to him that I had no interest in visiting any village that had seen Tourists.  So I found myself here, in a little town alongside the freeway leading out of Aarusha to Serengheti.  There was still a good hour of bush driving ahead of us to get to the village.  But things were already all too real and exotic.   What the hell was I going to find?

The village was another planet.  We were greeted by the family's matriarch with the friendliest and most genuine smile I had seen in a very long time.  She shook my hands vigorously with both of hers all through the course of the long introductions.  The surroundings were no less alien than they had been back in the town below.  But I felt at home almost immediately. 

Masai means "speakers of Maa".  It is a language unique to the community.  They form a tiny minority in Tanzania, but are well known for their unique culture and bravery.  Although they started out nomadic, they are now a cattle rearing community with a unique relationship to nature.  They have strict restrictions against eating game meat and are in many ways natural conservationists.

The Arabs established the kingdom of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania and later used it for slave trading (Arabs acted as middlemen to the Europeans).  The Masai escaped the horrors visited by slavery on other tribes because of their aggressive militarism.  The Arabs preferred to keep their peace with the Masai, paying them a tribute in exchange for travelling through their lands in search of people to enslave.  

However, other horrors visited them in the late 1800s, when pestilence killed off their cattle and subsequent bouts of famine, smallpox and cholera killed 90% of their population.  Around the same time, British Colonial greed and overt racism started squeezing the Masai out of the most desirable lands which the Masai had monopolized at one time.  All of this has left the Masai in a desperate poverty where I found them.

The flies know the children.  They incessantly communed at the edges of the kids eyes, nose and mouth.  Sucking moisture and sowing disease.  The kid's bloated bellies, discolored hair, unwashed clothes, and of course the flies which they did not even bother fighting anymore all spoke of grinding poverty and probably the end of a way of life.  And yet, they stood firm and tall and proud and stubborn and friendly.

The friendly matriarch (third from left) had a dazzling smile.  Her name was Mama Musai.  It was impossible to guess her age and I did not ask.  Her two sons (Pavulo 28 and Jeremiah 19 straddling me on either side) were married and both had many kids.  When I asked her how many grand kids she had, she just laughed out heartily and said "too many!".

The family had been converted by missionaries.  They were Pentacostal.  I am told other families are Catholic and Lutheran.  It is hard to know the strength of adherence though.  The Masai are universally attached to polygamy, which would seem at odds with their chosen religion.

Pavulo's wife Nareku is the most forthcoming among the women.  She is Pavulo's first wife.  She answers my questions on polygamy with practiced ease.  I am the first tourist at this village, but I think polygamy is a practice which the Masai have had to defend even to the non-Masai locals.  The first wife is privileged, I am told.  She only needs to teach the other wives about her husband's likes and dislikes and manage the household activities.  The other wives also need to treat her with respect.  For these reasons, she is not against polygamy.

Would she have a different opinion if she were not the first wife?  No.  Not really, because all the wives get along fine and there is absolutely no conflict.

So if one man marries many women, are there not many men without women?  Pavulo chooses to interject at this point.  Even if a man does not get a chance early in life, he can save up cattle for dowry (12 cows is customary) and marry later in life.  I did not argue this math bending logic.

For good measure, both of them drilled into me the virtues of their system.  The Masai man knows how to take care of his family.  The city folks are only interested in their looks.  The Masai woman sticks to her man, while the city women look only for an excuse to have a fight and leave.  In short, everything was perfect  and everything was as it should be.

Since this system of things as they should be has been that way for many hundreds of years, I did not have too strong a leg to stand on and argue this point.  So I moved on.

They invited me into their hut.  Walking in from bright sunlight, I could not see a thing.  It was pitch dark inside.  I just pointed my camera forward and clicked, not knowing what the hell was in front of me.  Two tries still did not yield a proper frame.

So what do they want for their children's future?  The children should study and find jobs in town so they can help the family with money.  But they should come back and marry people of the same culture.  It would be very bad if they wanted to marry the city folks.

Does he mean masai when he says "people of same culture"?  Turns out he means not only masai, but masai who live nearby.

So what is common among these masai who live nearby?  Animal Husbandry, Circumcision, Elders Council (men only).

Can women come to the council?  No.  Women can have their own council and can speak to their husbands, but they cannot come to the council.  Women should not speak unless they are asked for their opinion.

What is their contact with modern society?  The children go to Government school.  They walk many miles to get there.  They get some food at school, but it is not enough.  When someone falls ill, they are first treated with traditional medicine.  In extreme cases, they take the patient to the local hospital.  Kids are treated for free, but adults have to pay.  This is extreme hardship for the poor families.

Another contact with the modern society, that they did not bother talking about was the cell phone.  When things are done and dusted for the tech industry, history will look at the cell phone as the greatest creation of our age.  Here are a people - living an hour away from electricity and modern education, who dont even think to mention the cell phone as an artifact of "modern society".   I wonder how they charge them.  Turns out they do it when they go to town once a week.  The phones are Nokia which charge in an hour and lasts a week.

Do they have legends and stories of their people?  No, not really!  Most of the stories they tell their kids are about Jesus.  The cultural aspects of Masai people revolve around the Circumcision ceremony (boys coming of age ceremony).  All Masai celebrate this.  Men are branded under their eyes.  They believe this causes the flies to stop clustering on their face.  I think the flies have just evolved to know children from young men.

Other events include marriage and birth of a child.  These are the only occasions in which the Masai slaughter and eat the cattle that they rear.  Otherwise the cattle are reared for selling and surviving.

Without legends, how do they teach their kids?  The kids are taught about the natural resources around them through practice.  They are also taught how to behave respectably.  Problem children are beaten with sticks to bring them in line.

Would they like to return to a nomadic lifestyle?  No.  This is home and they would not like to leave it.  They grow maize and beans to supplement the meat.

Pavulo and Jeremiah take me to Hidema, their elder brother.  He is older and lives separately with his family.  He has recently had back problems and is unable to stand for any length of time.  He is hunched on his chair as he speaks.

Why does he have thorn bushes around the cattle pen?  Need to be vigilant at night.  Elephants and Buffaloes are dangerous.  Elephants don't care to walk around anything.  They will destroy anything in their path.  Government does nothing about them.  He had to get up the previous night to chase away a leopard that was attacking his cattle.

I had to double check that last statement twice just to be sure.  Yes, he did chase away a leopard.  He is a hunched man who can barely walk and he is armed with a stick.

So, do they know of India?  No.  How about Africa?  They have heard of it.  How about Tanzania?  Yes, sometimes.  But Pavulo knows Dar-e-Salaam.  He was there once to find work.  Did he like it?  It was OK, but he wanted to be with his family.

Pavulo notices the LCD screen showing the photo of Hidema that I had just snapped.  He asks to check out my camera and is thrilled.  He has not seen an LCD screen of any kind before.  Because of his familiarity with cell phone, he soon figures out how to browse the photos.  He goes back all the way to Isha's class photos.  A big smile spreads across his face as he settles on this photo. 

"So you have 2 wives and 17 children!", He says.  I am forced to correct his misunderstanding.  He looked a little distraught.  My weight as a man had just shrunk.  Could a lion with such a small pride really even be a lion?

We gave the families small presents (sugar, tea).  Then we headed out with Pavulo and Jeremiah who wanted a lift to town to charge their cell phones and buy some supplies.  We hit the freeway heading back towards Aarusha and the airport.  The picture says it was a stunning sight, but  I was too tired to notice.  A peak into the unfamiliar is necessary for the soul, but it also turns out to be wearisome.

As I boarded the flight, I started reading Daniel Kahnemann's book "Thinking - Fast and Slow".  The mind automatically and effortlessly amalgamates new information into its model of the world.  This is confirmation bias.  Rational thought kicks in only when we run into something that does not fit.  There was much that I saw and heard that day that would never fit.  In the end, among all the things that I saw and did in Tanzania, visiting the Masai is likely to remain the most memorable for that reason.