The celebration last week was unusual, big time. Not only did a Maasai warrior marry an American girl but most people boycotted the feast for reasons other than the unconventional wedding.

The senior wife of OleSakaya left Maasai jewelry shop on the island of Zanzabar. Her son, Odupoi, grew up on Zanzabar and got into the tourist business where he met Tracy. They came to Olbalbal yesterday to the cattle camp of his father to be married. Tracy’s parents came from the states for the wedding and a Lutheran pastor arrived from Arusha to preside. The wedding went well. The rest of the celebration, a circumcision feast did not.

It seems that OleSakaya’s youngest wife is a Pentecostal and convinced her husband to forbid the newly circumcised age mates of the initiate to gather and sing to him during the night. They sing songs of courage to the boy facing the circumcision ordeal at dawn. It seems that the Pentecostals forbid all traditional stuff. Anyway, Morris, the one to be circumcised upped and took off during the night in protest, taking the feast day ox and twelve sheep with him. The other boys to be circumcised stayed and were initiated at dawn. But in protest against the destruction of tradition, the warriors, the young girls and almost everyone else stayed away from the feast in protest.

But the story doesn’t end there. While driving the ox and sheep through the night, the ox was attacked by hyenas in the dark and eaten by them. Morris eventually made it to the village of father’s brothers and was circumcised three days later together with their sons.