Girls and Girls

We recently took on an interesting challenge; to take 15 girls from a private girls’ school in Hampshire to meet 15 girls their own age in Maasaini. The English girls had climbed Kili and prior to leaving the UK, had raised funds to give to the local school to help complete classrooms for the students, who currently come to school in stages throughout the day. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet people from a very different culture but the challenge was to make the experience as real as possible rather than just another tourist activity.

Such things cannot just be done at anyone’s whim and this trip took several meetings with all the right people to organise properly and appropriately.

The Village Elders

So finally we set out early on a Monday morning heading up and over the hills with a short stop to take in the view right across the land they would be crossing to the ‘bush,’ where they would meet 18 or so esiangikis of the same age. The four car cavalcade wound down the hair pin bends to the bottom of the escarpment and out across the dry landscape, sending a rising cloud of dust into the clear air. In the distance were tall brown spirals of dust devils with the broad dark base of distant mountains as a backdrop.

Miles and miles of bush....and dust....

 
When we arrived at the village school the students stood around in simple dark blue uniforms and watched as the English girls climbed out of the minibuses in long multicoloured dresses with their bags and bottles of water. A shy meeting between the two took place at a ‘safe’ distance while they checked each other out.

 From the school we drove on to the meeting place all packed together in the pick up climbing up through deep korongos (dry river beds) in low ratio to the delight of the students. As we came through the trees to the camp, there was a choir of esiangikis dressed in all their finery singing a welcome in Kimaasai to all the girls. As each dismounted and walked into the smiling crowd they were greeted by an esiangiki who took off her bead necklace and put it around each girl’s neck and then they all began clapping and swaying to the song, a group of delighted western girls being welcomed by a group of delighted Maasai girls.

Hello!

 We had to stop the singing as the food was ready and the Maasai , who love to sing, could have gone on through the night! We were standing in the shade of thorn trees that provided a canopy of shade but many of the branches were quite low and several girls’ long hair kept getting caught in the thorns on the lower branches. It was interesting to see the looks of amazement on the Maasai faces - they were fascinated to have such real live examples of Europeans to study – and with such interesting hair.

The village chairman and secretary were there in their best suits, sitting dignified on the bench with the school teachers, and in groups around were various morani and some of the husbands of the esiangikis. Passing in and out of the crowd were inquisitive herd boys attending sheep and goats coming down to be watered.

Everyone was fed and had a cup of sweet chai (tea), and then we started our cultural exchange. Each side asked a question in turn - each group had been preparing what they would like to know. The Maasai went first with the question ...

 ‘Amongst us, boys are circumcised with a knife and girls are circumcised with a razorblade, what do you use?’ There was a pause as the western girls listened intently to the translation. The men standing around were smiling knowing what the question was. As the interpreter finished there was a synchronised gasp as 15 faces looked up in horror and shook their heads.

 ‘We don’t do that,’ they said and all the men laughed. The difference was emphatic and dramatic and other questions naturally followed ... The historic traditions of the Maasai culture and the journey of these girls within that culture was explained. Questions followed about boys and husbands, followed by more about babies and marriage arrangements.

Question time

It was a privilege to be there as an observer and a delight to see girls of the same age meeting each other - 15 well educated and privileged girls with diverse aspirations and 15 or so esiangikis, most of them married and some with babies, all on a different cultural journey through life, but with the shared basic interest of finding good life partners and having families.

 The two groups worked in similar ways with their quieter members not saying much but listening with interest whilst the more engaged and voluble members carried the conversation.

At the end the English girls stood up and gave a hearty rendition of a school song as well as another sung in a round with a finale of their favourite pop song, all of which was loudly appreciated by the Maasai. The journey home was quieter as tired girls pondered the day’s events. Everything had been said and now it was time to commit it all to memory and experience. Despite the huge cultural differences, they were all just teenage girls underneath.

The End of an Era

We parted company with our Land Rover last week, the old 110 that has been in the family for 20 years. Not just a Land Rover, but a ‘true friend’ as one member of the family put it. Twenty years ago, it was our pride and joy as it came to us brand new – our first ever, and still only, brand new vehicle. At that time it was a pick up with the logo of our landscaping company proudly emblazoned across the back.



Six years later, the body was changed to accommodate our family, and it was rolled onto a ship and off again in Dar es Salaam. I still remember it arriving in our compound in Arusha and how we all threw ourselves at it and into it because it was ‘family’ from home and we were all desperately home sick back then.



Since then it has been looked after with tender loving care as it has covered over 250,000 miles on pot holed tarmac, on dust roads and on no roads at all.



Despite needing some new body parts over the years and the driver sometimes needing a quick kip along the way, the 110 has never failed us.



It has crossed dry river beds, and not such dry ones. On one particular night, we were stuck the wrong side of a flash flood while our unsuspecting children slept at home alone on the other side. We paused, prayed, clutched the steering wheel, one of us closed our eyes and the other put his foot down. The water surged over the bonnet, blocking out the head lights and one of us screamed as the back wheels lost traction and the car slewed downstream but we made it and left the foaming torrent behind us.

During El Nino in 1997, it pulled a Toyota Land Cruiser attached to a Hiace mini bus up the Rift Valley Escarpment road, whilst loaded up with four adults, five children and all our camping gear. (Why didn’t we take a picture of THAT?) On another day we came upon about 10 safari vehicles completely stuck in the mud with their tourists still on board or standing around playing frisby. We revved up, put our foot down and roared into the grassy bog, skidding and sliding, but moving slowly forwards to shouts and cheers from the frustrated onlookers. Just as we were losing momentum the front tyres touched the hard shoulder and we made it onto dry land.

There was a time when the doors took on a mind of their own (actually MOST of the time) and I was driving round a roundabout with my shopping on the front seat. The passenger door flew open, I clutched the steering wheel with one hand, the shopping with the other and negotiated the roundabout shouting as I went ‘Get out of the way, get out of the way!’ As we towed it away last week, both the back doors flew open and banged shut again in rhythm with every bump. I smiled all the way.

It once had a baby born in the back seat and then sadly it carried its little body home from the hospital to be buried 6 months later. We nearly had our ear drums burst one day when we carried 18 Maasai women (plus 6 children) ALL singing at the top of their voices in ear-piercing female falsetto.



We vied to ride on the roof rack where we worked our way through our entire repertoire of songs with the wind in our hair, the sun burning our faces and arms and marvelled at the privilege of living in such a wide open, beautiful land.

In fact, it was always more fun sitting ON it rather than IN it, especially when looking for the right way to go.



Our three children learnt to drive in it and then slept in it as we drove down to Victoria Falls and back while we slept on the roof. And that was just one of many fun adventures.



It took us to our ‘country cottage’ for weekends.



It provided hours and hours of ‘boy’ fun and a very good grounding in mechanics and off road driving.



Yesssss.....



Mmmm, flat as a.........and I wonder if I remembered to pack the jack?



And there was never a dull moment anywhere... but there was always a way out. Life with a Land rover is one big initiative test!



Once in the bush ‘somewhere,’ the rubber bushes on the rear shock absorbers had worn out and metal was pounding against metal on every bump. We stopped a bewildered goat herd and bought his tire sandals off him for a VERY good price, which we turned into new bushes (they actually lasted a couple of years). I wish I could have been there when he explained to his parents why he had come home barefoot!

The electrics failed as it got dark one evening when we were still 300 miles from home with not a hill or even faint rise in sight. We found an anthill and reversed up it as far as we could, rigged up a net and slept on the roof. Amazingly, in the morning, it fired up as we rolled off to the flat.



One late night, it even drove us home from Nairobi (a five hour drive) on a nearly empty tank and prayer because we had run out of money.

And our visitors loved it too.



Most of the time.......................



Hopefully, all salvageable parts will 'live' on and on and on, as only Land Rovers can, for many years to come elsewhere.

The Hatted One

I have been trying to do a deal with my neighbour, a small Mwarusha man. He has a long thin piece of land that extends into my plot and is bound by it on three sides and I am suggesting a ‘like for like’ swap to make two blocks of land, both of which would be more easily managed and more saleable. As always we spoke in Kiswahili.



I met him this morning down by my fence. After harvest our neighbours, and especially this particular one, just let their animals roam anywhere eating the leftovers. The problem is that I am trying to preserve the stover for a mulch cover to increase soil water retention and fertility. His goats, sheep and cows are hungry and have other ideas when they see all this fodder lying around after harvest.

I asked if he had spoken with the rest of the boma. He said that he had taken my message to them and that the young men had refused my idea but had another idea. They want me to buy a small piece of their plot, about 20 paces long, for 5 million shillings - almost ten times the going rate! I reminded him that I had said categorically there would be no exchange of money. I don’t have any and the deal is already mutually beneficial. He continued to reiterate their point of view and in desperation I said,

“Do you understand why I suggested this deal?”

He looked at me surprised and a little bemused. I took him by the sleeve and said,

“Ok you are now Makofia (my local name which means the ‘hatted one’)and I am Nagole”. I drew him to where I was standing and I went and stood where he had been standing.



“Ok I said why do you want to do this deal?”

“I don’t,” he said. “You came to me first.”

“No,” I said. “You are me and I am you. So you have to tell me why I wanted to exchange this piece of land.” He looked bemused again but I persisted thinking that the penny would drop very shortly if I could convincingly play out my/his part.

“So Makofia, why do you want to exchange this land that you bought off me? Do you think that it is no good?” I said.

He laughed and said,

“I don’t know you bought it off me and it was alright then.”

“No, no”, I said. “I am Nagole.” At which point he roared with laughter.

In desperation I noticed he was wearing a most ridiculous woolly hat so I stepped forward and took it off his head and replaced it with my Aukubra and put his multi coloured woolly on my head. He looked startled and then stared at me quizzically for a moment. I let the full import of what I had done sink in and started again.



“Ok Makofia,” I said. “Why do you want to swap this piece of land that you bought off me last year?”

He paused and I could see that something was going on inside and he was imperceptibly readjusting his perspective. Then he answered slowly,

“Because your cows and sheep keep coming onto my land and eating my crops.”

“Yes,” I cried triumphantly, throwing my arms in the air. “That’s why I want to swap the land. Why can’t you get them to agree to it?”

“They are young and want money”, he said. “But I will go back and talk with them.”

“Ok then I will wait for you to come back to me, now give me back my hat.”

“Oh no, you gave it to me. I want to keep it.” He dodged my outstretched hand.

“What! No way,” I laughed. “Here you take your woolly hat,” and I lunged at him and grabbed my hat off his head as he moved to run off.

We laughed and bade each other farewell.

“What a cheek,” I thought to myself. “He was trying to play me all along!”

The Sieve Effect

We have been desperate for rain, but not without a measure of trepidation as our roof leaks like a sieve. Despite our very best efforts, it has been impossible to bring everything together in time to get the roof done before the rains. We were assured, beyond a SHADOW of doubt that whilst work was going on, even once the rain had started, the roof would be covered every night with lots of tarpaulins and not a DROP would get in.
So what to do? Go on with a leaking roof, or risk replacing it during the rains? We took the risk.



And it poured with rain.........outside........and then it poured with rain.........inside...........and then it poured with rain ..........IN BED! And that was the final straw. There are only so many bowls, buckets and saucepans a woman can keep in her house for a rainy day......or night!

Fire!

Last Saturday night, the flat in our compound caught fire. We were out so the watchmen ran to the nearest neighbour to set off the alarm. From there the women in each boma set off a chain of loud ‘uuueee’ sounds from boma to boma. About 100 neighbours came running in with their buckets and formed a human chain from the pond to put out the fire.



But for them, the whole flat would have burnt out. In fact, no personal items were destroyed, no-one was hurt and we were overwhelmed by the care of our neighbours.

On Tuesday we went to market and bought a bull, 50 kilos of rice, tomatoes and onions, crates and crates of sodas and today we had a feast to say thank you.

A Muslim was invited in to slaughter the animal in order that neighbours of every faith could eat it, and then the Maasai took over.



The men arrived early to keep an eye on the meat!



Several women came in to help with the cooking.



And when the rice and ‘soupu’ (stew) was finished and the thank yous had been said, the roasted meat was brought out for the elders.



It seemed that this was the bit they had all been waiting for!



Everyone left happy, neighbourly relationships were cemented and our dogs are still licking their lips!