Messed up Masai

I stood and stared, slack jawed at the adolescent Masai in front of me. I struggled with trying to process everything he said with trying to forget it all as soon as possible, lest I get called to testify at some sort of UN tribunal. It had been about a week since we saw our first glimpse of the traditional Masai people - and we were now getting the full story.

This tribe of semi-nomadic people fascinated me - unlike virtually all other cultures in the world that are influenced by MTV, Starbucks, electricity and Miley Cyrus, these folks still live in the same fashion as their ancestors. I thought it was admirable, quirky and a relief that I am not the only person without a Nintendo Wii. I was wrong.

I venture a guess that you have seen a photo of the Masai people before - tall, black, dressed in colourful blankets with huge silver earrings...probably with some cows wandering nearby. Those are Masai. I had just assumed that those photos were just folks dressed up for tourists - giving a Disneyesque feel to East Africa. Nope - those are legitimate people who wear blankets for clothing (you were right Soren - I could have worn that sleeping bag to dinner). Now there are some sell-out Masai who do the whole 'dance for the tourist dollar' routine, but surprisingly they are not the majority. One day we had stopped for lunch and became the object of one young Masai women's curiosity - I think she was trying to figure out how people could get so big just eating salad sandwiches.

The response that we received from the Masai was a complete contradiction to the reception that we had received from most other Africans - there was no frantic waving, no attempts to be friends and direct photos were usually not welcome (something about stealing souls). The Masai have a firm belief that they own all the cows...that is all the cows in the world. If they were to ever take a vacation and stumble upon a cow...they would view it as theirs (Wisconsin would be a sort of Mecca for them, but I could see things getting ugly if they were to ever holiday in India. Yikes!).

Desiring to learn more about this culture, we sought out a "Masai museum" of sorts. Our guide here was a local adolescent boy who seemed genuinely bored at touting around a bunch of snap happy tourists who would undoubtedly critique his culture. He dryly narrated us through a series of displays that contained paper-mache models posed in traditional Masai scenes, educating us on Masai life. Here is a small snippet of what I learnt...

Cows are not a god to them - they are a sign of wealth and a commodity. The more cows you have, the more wives you can take. Yep, bigamy is a common practice with the Masai, in fact monogamy is unheard of. A typical year in a Masai family would go something like this...grass dries up, the cows and the family relocate to greener pastures. Once they arrive, each woman will construct a 3 room mud hut. One general purpose room, one bedroom for the wife and her children and then a room for the husband, should he choose to sleep in that hut that night. The huts are all built next to each other and it sounds like the women function in a co-op sort of way - sharing the cooking and child rearing. When the grass dries up, they all move again.

The women grow crops for food and the cow will provide meat for the men. Just the men. The cows also provide a delicious beverage for the whole tribe...no...not milk. Blood. I assumed that they would just have the blood when they killed the cow for meat - nope - they can have blood everyday. Using a sharpened arrow they simply pierce the jugular of the cow, drain a little blood and then re-release the cow back to the herd - after applying pressure I hope.

Women grow up to get married off - it sounds like there is a traditional dowry system in place. Men grow up to be warriors, that is their entire purpose - to be a warrior man. Like most, including North American, cultures - there are certain rites of passage that you must pass in order to be considered a man by your peers. Unlike the North American past time of getting completely hammered on your legal drinking age birthday, the Masai host unmedicated circumcision ceremonies. You read correctly. There is a ceremony that happens every 7 years and all the men in the village between the age of 15 and 21 take part. (Apparently the smart ones will sit in the river first to get numb). Then the actual procedure takes place - not by anyone with any sort of training and with absolutely NO medication. There are no antibiotics provided post-procedure either, so the pain lingers in the form of an infection. Wait it gets worse...you cannot cry. If any of the men so much as shed a tear they are considered 'not a man'. No wife, no cows, no future.

Post the actual ceremony, a massive party takes place. As it was explained to us, the actual participants seldom take part - they are generally alone, my guess would be whimpering in private somewhere. The other men in the village however celebrate by getting completely plastered and passing out. In fact the Masai museum that we visited actually had a papermache rendition of the post-procedure celebration, complete with passed out drunks.

Don't worry girls...you are not forgotten. Our young guide explained that there used to be female circumcision or genital mutilation as they openly referred to it until the NGO's got involved. Now there were laws on place banning the practice. I slowly let out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding, prematurely unfortunately. "So we do it in secret". I am not sure what startled me more, that the practice still occurs or that this young man was so openly discussing it. Judging by the wide eyes around me, I was not alone in this surprise.

I know you are expecting me to now tell you all how I laid in to this guy, sticking up for social injustice - just like I did in a drunken state at the bar in Phnom Penh, but I have since learnt to pick my battles (plus I was sober here). This absent-minded teenager was not going to change anything, the problem being much bigger than him.

I left that museum that day, tragically more educated than I wanted to be. Now you are too. What do we do with this information? Should we create awareness, in the way only white people seem to be able to, in the form of some sort of dinner or walk around a lake? Do we even have the right to meddle in a culture that has been functioning for centuries and clearly is resisting our outside influence? I mean after all what if the tables were turned...would be want them trying to put an end to our 'biggie size fast food' or right to wear spandex in public, no matter how disturbing we look?

I am not trying to make light of a horrific practice. Of course I think female genital mutilation is wrong, I also think wearing spandex is wrong for most people in Starbucks as well. When do I step in? And how? No, I'm seriously asking...any one have any suggestions??? I am certainly at a loss...

(One of my favourite and luckiest photos taken on this entire trip is the group shot of the Masai with the white painted faces. We happened to drive by immediately following a post-circumcision ceremony - the men had just crossed the road and I snuck the shot out the window...considering the ceremony only happens once every 7 years...)