The plan today was to visit a Maasai Village to experience how they live and then visit a school that is supported by O.A.T. On the way to the village we stopped and picked up a community service worker named Lucy. She has been working tirelessly for years to convince the Maasai to stop the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

We were welcomed to the village by the Chief who spoke no English but translation was done by his younger brother who attended school. The Chief and most of the other adult men in the village are warriors. This means that they spent 7 years living on their own in the bush. During that time one of the tasks that they must complete was to kill a lion armed only with a spear and a machete.

The Maasai are polygamists and Christians. To have a second wife your family has to be relatively wealthy because it is expected that the man’s family provide cattle and a house for the new wife. It is almost like a dowry in reverse. If the future wife is not happy with the house that was built for her, she can say no to the marriage and back out of the arrangement.

The Maasai support themselves by raising cattle and goats. They used to send the children out to tend the goats and cattle until the government said that school attendance was mandatory. School attendance may be mandatory but unfortunately the family has to pay for it so sometimes not all the children go to school.

As part of the time we spent in the village the warriors showed us how to start a fire using a piece of cedar wood and a stick from the acacia tree.

Part of the program was to sit down with the women of the village and Lucy, the community service worker and discuss Female Genital Mutilation. I will not go into the details of this procedure because it is horrifying. All of the women had the “cut” and none of them wanted it to happen to their daughters. As this is a procedure that men wanted to happen so their wives wouldn’t cheat on them, it was surprising that all the women said that they were on birth control. They were all very happy that it is no longer occurring in their community.

At the end of the program they danced and sang for us. The Maasai men jumping is a show of strength and is very attractive to Maasai women.

After they finished dancing and singing for us, we all joined in prayer. Although none of us knew what they were saying, we joined in saying “amen” after each sentence.

My next post will be on the school we visited after the village.