Maasai Village

 27 June 2023 (Part 2)

Sorry for the delay in posting - busy life, and it took me forever to wade through the photos of this day.  When we were leaving the Ngorongoro Crater, we asked our guide if we could stop by a Maasai Village.  This is definitely a must-do when in Tanzania.  The Maasai historically occupied the Ngorongoro Crater, but were moved out when it became a National Park.  However, villages still dot the areas outside the park.  You pretty much see Maasai through all of the area between Arusha and the Serengeti.  Usually it's boys, between 6-12 years old herding cattle, or women doing the washing in ponds along the road.  They are semi-nomadic, in that they will move to different villages with their herds throughout the year, but will always return at some point.  

The village we visited agreed to give us a "presentation" for $50 USD paid directly to the chief.  All in all, considering their way of life is threatened, it seemed like a fair price for the experience.  They did a traditional welcome to the village, draped us with traditional clothes, and brought us into the village and a home to explain their way of life.  They also put us to shame with their traditional jumping dance.  Gotta do more box jumps.  

They began with the official welcome from the chief, a dance, invited us to jump with them (all of this is on video from our guide), then took us inside the boma.  A boma is basically a make-shift fence of thorn bushes (thorns are nearly 2 inches long) to keep the village safe.  Once inside, they took us into a hut, where we could see how a family lived, then showed us how to make fire on a machete blade.  After the requisite plea to buy some of their crafts, we also visited the schoolhouse, where the children were learning a few words in Swahili and English.  On the way out, we saw some playing the game Mancala (called Enkeshui), which they do claim to be their original game.  

It is interesting that the young boys do the herding of the cattle.  They do practice polygamy still... Their food is mostly meat, but they also drink the blood of the cows as well.  If you look closely, they do mark their skin on their faces as children with hot metal, which gives a very warrior-like look to some of them.  I really should have written this earlier, as it's hard to remember everything... but nonetheless, this was a very fantastic visit and one of the highlights of the trip!

The guide said look, white Maasai...

Mancala

Inside the school house

This little one was helping point at the alphabet as the kids said it.

Making fire.