Knitting for the Maasai

Part Time Maasai Warrior IV

OK a bit of cute before the blood drinking and other warriorlike activities to come.

My mother has been knitting and here's the result. I shall be taking Maasai Ted with me and will find a baby warrior to give him to. Not sure if we've got the robes (properly called a shuka) quite right, but there will be plenty of advice on site, and of course I will be wearing the correct gear myself for the initiation ceremony so I will know for next time.

Mystery Tour

Part Time Maasai Warrior III

The travel plans for my trip to the Maasai Steppe are encouragingly vague. This is not travelling for those who like a firm itinerary. I do know that the big ceremony, during which I will be initiated, will take place over two days in early June. I know the name of the village where it will take place, but as I can't find it on Google Maps or indeed Search I am not much the wiser.

What I do know is that a young warrior will be dispatched from the village to Dar es Salaam to meet me at some point after I fly in. He will then escort me on the journey which involves a couple of long and uncomfortable bus rides and then a motorbike. It may take a day or it may take two.

How I will hook up with the young warrior in the chaos of Dar - one of the continent's fastest growing urban centres and slated as Africa's next Megalopolis - is to be decided.

Using Ideas As My Maps

Part Time Maasai Warrior II

I love this map of Africa from an old Victorian family atlas. The"Dark Continent" actually contains a huge expanse of white space representing the unmapped interior.

Fast forward to May 2016 and I consult today's equivalent, Google Maps, for my forthcoming trip to see the Maasai. I am delighted to discover that the village I am visiting is not on Google Maps - I am going to the digital equivalent of a cartographer's white hole. It feels like a real expedition.

Why would I want to drink more blood?

Part Time Maasai Warrior I

The days are counting down before I leave for my expedition to the Maasai Steppe and my thoughts - as well as my gag reflex - turn to the blood I will be drinking when I get there.

I am attending a very important ceremony which marks the transition for my Maasai brothers Juma and Frank into senior elders. As a sideshow, I shall also complete my own initiation into their tribe.

I have drunk fresh blood before. It would be fair to say that it's not my favourite tipple. The taste of warm blood is not at all bad. It's mixed with milk into a sort of smoothie and the flavour of the milk dominates over the blood. However the texture is challenging. The warriors whisk the blood furiously to prevent clotting, with only partial success. Globules of clotted blood can be a bit difficult to swallow. Best to drink it quickly before more form.

It's difficult to prepare myself for this. Black pudding is about as close as I can get. But I shouldn't fret. I am sure blood milkshakes are very healthy - after all the Maasai look pretty good on them. I may even repair some of the Mojito-induced liver damage from Barcelona last week.

Maasai Burgers

Juma and Frank - my two closest Maasai brothers - are in the USA just now. I'm not entirely sure how they have managed to persuade Middle America to sponsor them on a cultural trip but they have. They are very adept at it -- they were in Germany last year.

They are very pleased with the welcome and find the USA interesting.

We tend to assume, in the rich countries of the West, that anyone from Africa just can't wait to settle and grab their bit of the American or British or Australian Dream. Legally or illegally they will have to stay, so intoxicating and superior is our way of life.

Juma and Frank make the following comments as they count the days until their return to Tanzania.

1. Why do Americans eat such dreadful food? The pizza and hamburgers are particularly bad. Don't they have any pride and desire to eat proper meat? The two warriors plan to slaughter and eat a whole cow, just the pair of them, as soon as they get back to their village in Tanzania.
2. It's too cold.
3. Some American customs display a complete lack of common sense. Juma - who is clearly in his mid thirties, not only a warrior but a village elder to boot - was asked for age ID when he ordered a beer.
4. It's very difficult to watch Manchester United matches.

Tanzania here they come.


 

This Sporting Life

I am pleased to find that the Kenyans’ favourite cigarette is still called “Sportsman”. Recently in neighbouring Tanzania the name of that same smoke was changed to “Portsman”. The cigarettes remained unchanged as did the rest of the natty orange packaging with its equine branding. The fags are still universally known as “Sports” in both countries.

So what about a rather bizarre new name? Well of course it didn’t just happen. It was a victory for Western health busybodies. No doubt the name change will have been the “output” of some bossy master plan. Goals will have been achieved, targets surpassed, KPIs will be buzzing, a thousand dreary powerpoints will be launched across the development world. And the game won’t be over there, a year on business class to Africa will packed as more “consultants” jet in to justify their existence with evaluations and data gathering. Reports that no-one will ever read will be tapped out on expensive laptops. That’s where your aid money goes, banishing an “s”.

Meanwhile a weary Tanzanian will seek a moment’s solace after a day’s labour cleaning the consultant’s offices or wiping the consultant’s children’s arses or other such services to development, and reach for a “Sports”. What a difference an “s” makes.   

Mobile Maasai

After a long gap I get a call from Juma. He has been back on the mainland for a while. His father, an important Maasai elder, has been very sick but thankfully seems to be on the mend. Adding to the stresses of being a 21st century warrior and herdsman, the rains have failed this year. This means Juma has to take his and his father's cows further and further from the village to graze.

As Juma explains there is an upside. He gets to go far enough to find a patch of ultra rural Tanzania that gets a mobile signal. His village has none.  Now I wonder - is there a project for a terribly clever eco-geographer mapping Maasai grazing patterns against the footprints of East Africa's mobile networks? Is the place he is calling me from today over-grazed because of its Vodacom signal? As I have blogged before the Maasai hold most of the modern world in complete disdain but mobile phones...that's another matter.