The Masai

THe Maasi
The Maasi people moved into Tanzania a couple hundred years ago. THey are nomadic folk and have created a lifestyle around the Number One Most Important Thing- Cattle. They base their whole lifestyle on the acquiring and tending of cattle. When we commented on the size of a particular herd our guide said, with evident pride, "and it all belongs to one man." Now that would be a great man in Masaai standards. He also asked us how American cows were. Ummm, cows?

Later we discovered that all Massai believe that all cattle in the world belong to the Masaai. If other people have them they must have stolen them from the Masaai originally. Look out cattle ranchers. You may have visitors!

Frequently, and we are told, by choice, they live in areas called bomas. These bomas have several elements, the houses which are made of woven sticks and then a plastering of dung and mud (not unlike the old horsehair plaster of the early American houses). THey are low ceiling- to keep the heat in (evenings do get cool) and have sleeping areas for men, for women, for the calves and young livestock babies, and a small section for storage and for the gods of cattle and sheep. THere aren't many belongings, there aren't windows on most of them. Some Masaai choose to build more modern homes. Some are wealthier than others. Also in the boma are thorned enclosures that are used every evening to store the cattle and the goats and sheep. The cattle go In an enclosure by themselves. Dogs also become sentries against whatever predator that may be so foolish as to attempt harming a Masaai cow.
Consider the perspective of your Maasi guide in the Serengeti. I thought I would show him some of what it looks like where I live. I showed him pictures of snow. He asked what he was looking at. THe more I tried to describe snow and it's effects the more futile I saw it was. 1) He had no concept of frozen water. 2) He had no concept of snow falling from the sky 3) He could not understand the piling up of this "snow" to be something to walk through or shovel or anything. 4) Coldness of the type it needs to create snow has no reality to those who live in the Plains of Africa. Expecting the knowledge of such an idea is a mistake on the Westerners part. Their lives work for what they have, which is as it should be.
All that being said, the robe garbed shepherds are frequently seen, leaning on their staff, talking on a cell phone