Party Time There’s probably no better way to convey one’s impressions of a different place than to describe how people have fun together. As it turned out, my pals and I were up for a good party back at the beginning of the month when my friend Joseph Gichuki decided to have a party for …
Masai Mara (8): Maasai Dances (Women)
It is interesting to note that with the women’s dancing, there is much more gentleness and fluidity, so once more those preconceptions sneak in and apparently are part of every culture. The women line up and begin singing soft, sort of squeaky tunes (no one the same, I gather) and the cacophony is pretty amazing. …
Masai Mara (7): Maasai Dances (Men)
As we move on into the relations between the men and the women of the manyatta, perhaps this from a recent books I read will help: “As Maasai society is polygamous, an elder can take as many wives as he can afford and father as many children as possible. Conventionally, a Maasai man of the …
Masai Mara (6): Maasai Fire w/ Sticks
One of our most intriguing findings, in visiting the Maasai and getting to know them through Tomas, is just how little they depend on things that are purchased. They do all their own medicine, as we all know, and hearing Tomas describe some of the ways they use herbs and leaves and bark and such …
Masai Mara (5): Maasai Manyatta
We had seen many of these family compounds, known in Maasai as a manyatta, as we drove around the Maasai countryside, both on this safari and when we had returned from Kisii some weeks back. They are not villages, as such. Instead they are compounds where the extended family of one man lives. Let me …