NedsMission.org

…….This morning, celebrated Mass at one of the outstations, the one that I’ve gotten stuck trying to get to the last two times. A WaChaga African priest stayed with us last night. He is from Moshi and had a landrover, which he let me use. With the four-wheel drive and the weight I was able to get through. We have Mass in a classroom of a small cement block school built in the shape of a WaArusha hut. Except for the size and building material, it’s no different from the huts surrounding it. The huts are circular, built of mud, cow dung and grass with a sloping roof, having a smoke and air vent at the top. The roof of the school is corrugated tin and the inside space is partitioned off into four classrooms. The classroom was crowded with children and about fifteen adults. The entire Mass, except for the Canon, is in Swahili and they sing hymns in their own language to their own melodies. I talked with a number of the children before and after Mass and am finding that they are more and more comfortable with me. Language is much less a barrier with kids than it is with the adults.

Most of the rest of the today, I spent in another area east of here just walking and talking. There is much fear to be broken down, because many of the people in these back areas have never spoken to a white person and seeing one walking across open country right up to their huts must be very disconcerting. The children run inside for the most part and the women are very wary at first. The men usually have had some contact with strangers, so it’s easier with them. It’s clear that the way to these people’s hearts is through their children.

They have such a tremendous love for them that if you show interest in and a liking for the kids, the adults are quickly won over. Along the way I met a small boy. We talked for a while about his family, where he lived, how many cows belong to his family, etc. Then he decided that he would act as my guide for the rest of the day. We walked along footpaths from one small group of huts to another, while I was trying to talk to anyone who was around. He would tell me the right word when I got stuck. At the end of the afternoon, he was as fresh as when we started and I was very tired. I’m getting more used to the walking, but am still pretty soft. ………..

April 5, 1966

...I met a small boy about four days ago at one of the little maize and bean farms the other day. His name is Cambonia and he is about five years old. I noticed something was wrong with his feet. On looking closer, I found many chiggers were embedded under the front part of each foot. For the last couple of days, I tried to treat him with iodine and surgical cleaner, but was causing him a lot of pain and not seeming to do much good. So today I brought him back to town with me and took him to the hospital clinic this afternoon. That was quite an experience in itself. It took two hours of standing in line to see a doctor and when I finally got in to see him with the boy, he gave a me hard time for not having the right paper. Then he gave us a prescription and we had to wait in two more lines, one for the shot of penicillin and the other to get his feet dressed. What an afternoon! I carried him two miles cross country to the main road this morning and was not all tired out as I would have been a few weeks ago. Besides education, medical competence is about the greatest need here.

April 12, 1966

...I am stationed about 5 miles outside of Arusha among the Wa-Arusha people. In physical appearance, language, dress and folkways, they are Massai. But Massai who have settled down to farm small plots of land, growing corn and beans and raising small herds of cattle, sheep and goats. Temperment wise, most are open and quite friendly. Father Simon, a native Wa-Arusha priest, and I are opening up the work among these people. The concentration of effort in the diocese has been among the Massai, leaving the Wa-Arusha virtually untouched up to now.

Hence we are in the initial stages of establishing the Church among them. The main mission, Bourka, is central to the area inhabited by this tribe and so far Father Simon has established four outstations, each with its small primary school of three grades. We also have two dispensaries operating. Two weeks after my arrival, I began what will be my basic mode of activity for the foreseeable future. I live in each of the areas for four or five days at a time, getting around more and more each time in each locality –walking, visiting various huts, talking and getting to know the people.

A Wa-Arusha hut is built of long poles bent over at the upper ends to form sort of an igloo. This frame is covered with mud and then grass. In the center is a fire for cooking and warmth. This house, which is quite large, constitutes not only a home for the family (except the man, who has his own sleeping hut) but also a storehouse for corn and beans and a shelter for cows, goats and sheep. Although we are now in the rainy season the house is always warm and comfortable because of the fire and the many occupants.

At each stop the Mama offers me a little stool to sit by the fire, then some milk to drink or sometimes an ear of roasted corn. Then we talk for a while until my still meager vocabulary runs out. I play with the children and give them candy. Some of you are probably familiar with a toy called the magic slate. I bought one of these. The writing disappears when the plastic cover is lifted. It amazes the kids. I’ve had a bit of fun with it and its helped to make them more comfortable with me. When we’ve had our visit, we say “Serena Nikidua” (goodbye till we meet again) and then I am off to the next little place along the path.

We have not been able to add on a place to stay at any of the little schools, so I say with the people most of the time. This turns out to be much better for many reasons. Usually I walk a good number of miles each day. This was very difficult at first, but I’m getting used to it and it’s doing me a lot of good. Not long ago I tried to get to one of the outstations by car. Usually Fr. Simon drops me off about two miles from the school or a fairly good road because the “roads” into these places are little more than cattle paths. After getting stuck and digging myself out six times with plenty of help and advice from many people who gathered each time I sunk down in the mud, a man stopped whose shamba (farm plot) was near by. He told me to wait where I was. In a little while he returned with six cows, hitched them to the car and pulled me all the way back to the main road, about a mile and a half. It was quite a sight. I wish I had a picture to show all of you.

Before coming to Africa, I was frightened of being a foreigner here, perhaps for the rest of my life. Although I’ve been here only a little over a month, I feel very much at home and a part of these people already. It’s a beautiful country, filled with very warm and friendly people and I am very happy here.

April 26, 1966

...Living with the Massai for the two days was really great. They live on milk almost exclusively. I found that I like it very much and after getting used to drinking out of the gourds they used, I was in good shape. I brought along a few cans of meat and a loaf of bread to supplement the milk. In the evening, the hut we stayed in was packed with kids all wanting to get a look the odd looking white visitors. Before long they were teaching us Massai games and having a great time...

It was dusk and the sun was just dropping below the rim of the crater (Ngorongoro) when we tried the lights on the land rover and found they wouldn’t turn on. I got out to look under the hood to see if a wire was loose. Just after I switched on the flashlight, I heard galloping hooves, a zebra passed me within about a foot. Chasing him about three yards behind was a large male lion, which also passed me within touching distance. After the lion, also running full out was a hyena. Needless to say that was the end of the repair work. We passed the night in the land rover on the floor of the crater.

May 1966

Here is the first of the newsletters I promised to send keeping you informed of what has been happening to me.

I am stationed about five miles outside the town of Arusha, among the Wa-Arusha people. In physical appearance, language, dress and folkways, they are Massai. These people have settled down to farm small plots of land, growing corn and beans and raising small herds of cattle, sheep and goats. Temperament-wise, most are open and friendly. Father Simon, a native Wa-Arusha priest, and I are opening up the work among these people. The concentrations of effort in the diocese have been among the Massai, leaving the Wa-Arusha virtually untouched up to now. Hence, we are in the initial stages of establishing the Church in this area. The main mission, Bourko, is central to the area inhabited by this tribe, and so far, Father Simon has established four outstations, each with its own primary school of three grades. We also have two dispensaries operating. Two weeks after my arrival, I began what will be my basic mode of activity for the foreseeable future. I live in each of the areas for four or five days at a time, getting around more and more each time in each locality, walking, visiting the people’s huts, talking and getting to know the people.

A Wa-Arusha hut is built of long poles bent at the upper ends to form sort of an igloo. This frame is covered with mud and then grass. In the center is a fire for cooking and warmth. This house, which is quite large, constitutes not only a home for the family (except for the man, who has his own sleeping hut) but also a storehouse for corn and beans and a shelter for the cows, goats and sheep. Although we are now in the rainy season, the house is always warm and comfortable because of the fire and the many occupants.

At each place I stop, the Mama offers me a little stool to sit on by the fire, then some milk to drink or sometimes an ear of roasted corn. Then we sit and talk for a while until my still meager vocabulary runs out. I play with the children and give them candy. Some of you are probably familiar with a toy called “the magic slate”. I bought one of these. The writing disappears when the plastic cover is lifted. It amazes the children and has helped to make them more comfortable with me. When we’ve had our visit, we say, “Serena Vikidua” (goodbye ‘til we meet again), then I’m off to the next little place along the path.

We have not been able to add on a place to stay in at any of the schools, so I stay with the people most of the time. This turns out to be much better for many reasons. The walking was very difficult at first, but I’m getting used to it, and it’s doing me a lot of good.

Not long ago, I tried to get to one of the outstations by car on a “road” which was little more than a cattle path. After getting stuck and digging myself out six times with plenty of help and advice from many people who gathered each time I sank down in the mud, a man stopped whose shamba (farm plot) was nearby. He told me to wait where I was, and in a little while, he returned with six cows, hitched them to the car and pulled me all the way back to the main road – about a mile and a half. It was quite a sight. I wish I had a picture to send to all of you.

Before coming to Africa, I was frightened of being a foreigner here, perhaps for the rest of my life. But although I’ve been here only a short time, I feel very much at home and a part of these people already. It’s a beautiful country, filled with very warm and friendly people, and I am very happy here.

May 10, 1966

...During my visit to some of the people this morning below on the plains, a man came and said his wife was very sick and unable to walk. Fortunately, I had brought the car and parked it some distance away on a road. We carried her the two or three miles to the car and started right away for the hospital. By the time we reached town and the hospital, the Wa-Arusha tribe almost had a new member. The baby was coming as we were carrying her into the hospital. We had a few pretty tense moments.

May 15, 1966

...I used about $60 and bought a bed with springs and also a mattress, blankets, a pillow and sheets. It’s a welcome change from the camp cot I’ve been using. I also bought two four-gallon jerry cans for water (its two miles from here to the pipe).

May 20, 1996

...The day before yesterday, I went to Moshi to pick up the bike. It is 250cc and blue in color . . . the country we passed on the way to Moshi was very beautiful. We traveled through what are called the Sanya plains, located between Mount Meru and Mount Moshi – saw Zebra and Wildebeast. The trip back was very slow, for the first five hundred miles I’m able to go only 30 miles an hour on the bike. I’m being very careful about this, since I’m told the breaking in period is critical and will determine the level of performance later on.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at one of the outstations. Many people were surprised to see the bike come right up to the bomas. With the bike, there’s no trouble going along the bush paths. It’s going to make the work much less tiring and allow me to cover a much larger area.

June 15, 1966

...At the present time Bourka operates five schools, which means, besides the regular expenses of books, slates, ink, etc., we are paying twelve teachers, some of whom are getting as much as $50 a month. Next week we are opening a new school. We were lucky to get an old dispensary building moved to the spot to use as the one room school house. The desks were finished on Wednesday and moved in. Today we got a bill for $60 for these desks and have no money to pay for them.

August 19, 1966

...I’ve been trying something a little different the last couple of weeks. Instead of going to an area and living with a teacher or in my own room and then getting around to as many bomas as possible in the time I have, I’ve decided to try another tack. I think that because my contact with the people is so brief it’s not allowing me to get to know anyone really well. My understanding of the people and their customs is going to remain pretty superficial also.

In the past two weeks, I’ve lived at three bomas, two to four days each, spending most of my time at the boma itself, only visiting other people in the immediate area. I have an army cot and a sleeping bag, which I carry on the back of the bike. I take a few cans of meat and my own water, since I’m not able to eat their food entirely yet and am frightened to use the water they use, often it comes from a creek that both the animals and the people use. So far this is working out well. In the evenings, the whole family gathers around the fire, and the atmosphere is much more relaxed than during the day. After the first or second day, the people are more open with me, and ready to talk about their difficulties, customs, etc. At one of these bomas near Oldonyosombo, on the other side of Mount Meru, the elders and young men killed and cooked a goat in my honor. I really feel that this method is going to get me deeper into the mentality of the people - only time will tell.

January 8, 1967

Fr. Simon was changed to another mission and the new man coming in wasn’t familiar at all with area. I’ve been kept pretty busy trying to handle all the problems of our seven schools. Ending the school term and beginning the new one were especially difficult because I still have a language problem and don’t know the ins and outs of the school system very well. The English system is followed here and the beginning of the new school term is in January. I think I’m beginning to get the hang of things now.

The bike had to be sold about three weeks ago. It just couldn’t take the rough roads. It literally began to fall apart, leaking oil from five places. After repeatedly taking it to the shop, it was discovered to be defective from the beginning. This besides the fact that it just couldn’t take the punishment of the roads here. It only lasted 8,000 miles. We traded it in for an Austrian machine, Puch. It is 250cc and of much heavier construction. The bishop made up the difference of the trade-in.

January 15, 1967

...There is one boy who did not come back this year to standard seven because of lack of school fees. I’ve checked it out and it seems his father cannot pay. Besides lack of school fees, he needs glasses. He is a very fine boy and has been expressing interest in going to the seminary ever since I got here. I would like to pay for his school fees and glasses from the mission fund. All told it will come to $47.

January 23, 1967

...It seems that the small rains are not going to come this year. They are well over a month late. On the mountain, the people still have water but the plains below are in real trouble. The Maasai boma to which I go once a week to teach is typical. It’s a walk of at least ten miles to water the cattle and to get water for drinking, cooking and washing. Most of the cows have dried up and what little milk is left is given to the small children. The older people buy a little corn meal and cook it with a small amount of milk. They are really feeling the effects of hunger. Over the past two months all have gotten noticeably thinner and have lost a great deal of energy. An old man, an elder of a place about sixty miles from here across the plains came in about three days ago and said three people have died in his area. He was looking for government help. The old men say that if there is no rain until the big rains in March, many of the Maasai will die.

February 22, 1967

...Two priests from America came out this week to visit one of the other missionaries. We took them up to Ngorongoro Crater to see the animals yesterday. It is about 125 miles from here to the crater and over roads that they had never seen the like of before. I think by the time we got to our school for lunch, which is on the rim of the crater, they were ready for bed. We had canned meat for lunch, which it became clear, was hard for them to get down. It was quite an experience for me to see the many small things that we take for granted every day through the eyes of someone fresh from America. All in all it was an easy trip up, only one flat tire and we met no elephants or African buffalo on the road (these except for the rhino are the most dangerous animals around because they will charge at will and need no provocation whatsoever to do so). After eating we went down into the crater itself and had the best luck I’ve had so far in seeing animals, hundreds of wildebeests, zebra, antelope of all kinds, at least 50 elephants, rhino (we saw two of the plains type and one of the forest variety which are huge black animals, about half again as big as the gray plains rhino and about twice as fierce). We saw five lions, two in one place and three in another. They got a chance to see every major kind of animal there is to see.

About 6:30 we took them to a Maasai boma, the house of a friend of ours. Here again, it was quite an experience to see a place that we feel quite at home in, through their eyes. They seemed scared to death of the people. We went into a house and sat down. After about thirty seconds one was clearly becoming sick and the other was getting whiter and whiter. At that point we went outside, they were both nauseous. It was really a revelation. When offered milk, their reaction was something to see. A Maasai boma is one of the places they don’t want to go to again. These are places we enjoy. When we told them we live on the milk frequently, for days at a time and sleep in the houses often, they were shaken. All in all, it was a pretty amazing experience for me and I guess for them too.

March 2, 1967

...In line with working at getting closer to the people, an elder in a village about 25 miles from here has given me the use of a house in his boma (compound). He had eleven wives, a few living there and others scattered around the countryside, working small plots. One of the six who lived at the main plot died not too long ago. A daughter who ran away from her husband was living there for a while, but now has a new house about a quarter of a mile away. This leaves one house free in the boma and he is letting me use it two or three days every week.

April 21, 1967

All is going well here at Okokola (Kilima Moto). The people in the immediate area are very friendly. I left the house about 6:30 this morning and went to visit a couple of them. This seems to be one of the best times of day to call on people. The work for the day hasn’t started yet and everything is still pretty relaxed and quiet in the boma. I’m able to sit with them and share morning tea. Tea is a big thing out here among all the tribes in the area. It seems to be a hold over from English times. Wherever it came from, most everyone starts the day off with a tin cup of tea.

The other two places I’m working on have dropped off in interest. The rains have finally come and there is much work to do, planting and weeding, etc. Also it seems to be the time now to arrange for the 3rd or 4th wife and a hundred other things. But I’m still going to these places every week hoping that things will pick up again.

May 30, 1967

...I’ve been at a place called Loliondo about 250 miles north of here. Loliondo is about as isolated as one can get from the outside world. The normal link is the post lorry, but during the rains nothing is moving across the Serengeti, which one must cross to reach there from here. Our western plains a hundred or so years ago must have been much like the Serengeti is today, level grasslands as far as the eye can see. Of course, here the animals are plentiful and varied. We saw thousands of wildebeest, zebra and antelope. It never struck me quite how large lions really are until they came walking up to the car, sniffing at the doors.

Vince Donovan, who is preaching directly to the Maasai is out there, and I went to travel around with him and see if I could learn something. We lived in his tent most of the time. We could hear curious lions and leopards prowling around outside every night, but none tried to get in. It’s a strange feeling though to know there’s only thin canvass between you and them. I thought the roads around here were bad but I should be thankful that we have them at all. Out there you kind of point yourself toward some landmark and head out across country.

June 15, 1967

July 23, 1967

...I’m out on the bike everyday teaching religion. Monday to Thursday I go to four Wa-Arusha communities, one each day. On Friday and Saturday I have two Massai villages, one each day. Sunday, I celebrate Mass with one of the established communities, who work on a large government farm not too far from here in the direction of Arusha. These are Catholics from all over Tanzania who come to this area for work. Usually they aren’t permanent residents. They work here for a time and then go back to where they came from.

The work of teaching religion gets more exciting and challenging as we go along. In one of the Maasai places, we began to teach the New Testament three weeks ago. In the Old Testament the Maasai were very much at home and had many of their own stories to tell us, which were very much like many of the people in the Bible. David, for example, who killed a lion to protect his herds and went onto become a great warrior. Since their life is so much like what the nomadic, pastoral life of the Jews must have been, the Maasai can identify with them very easily. This is a tremendous help to us in establishing a basis of trust, and provides many opportunities to show them concretely that we come not to destroy their life as it is but rather to enrich it.

The New Testament is a real shock to them, the fact of the Virgin birth, and the time Jesus stood up before the elders in the temple while still a child and spoke to them. It is quite an experience to present the New Testament to people who have never heard a thing about it before.

September 9th, 1967

...I arrived here in Loliondo on Saturday. The trip was pretty uneventful. Around Arusha and all the way to Ngorongoro, it has been pretty wet for the last week and a half, so much so that the grass is even beginning to green in some places, although not enough to bring the animals back. We see only a few widely scattered herds of giraffe, wildebeest, gazelle and zebra. Descending Ngorongoro and starting off across the Serengeti there was a dramatic change. This time of year the Serengeti is truly a desert. There is only the short brown cropping remains of what a few weeks ago was lush waving grassland as far as the eye could see. At times the wind would blow the dust toward the front of the car and we would have to stop because visibility was cut to one or two feet. Out there the wind is steady and strong day and night this time of year. As to the animals, the huge herds of wildebeest, zebra and gazelle of every description were all gone to the highlands for lack of water and grass. We see only a few small isolated herds of Grants gazelle and Thomas gazelle. Its really a wonder how they survive. I’m told that early in the morning before the sun comes up there’s a little dew and they manage to survive on that.

Leaving the Serengeti area and approaching Loliondo, there was still another dramatic change. In the immediate vicinity of Loliondo the country is hilly and 7,000 feet above sea level. It is still very green here and a good many animals are around. A Maasai elder was flown out last week by the flying doctors to the hospital in Nairobi. He was badly mauled by a lion. If the lions are around this generally means plenty of animals.

There are three priests here. Fr. Wasinger, a priest-doctor from Austra, who runs the hospital, which is about six miles from the mission. Fr. Kohler, who is gone most of the time, works among the Sonjo tribe. Unlike Maasai they live in walled villages. There are six villages all located in a valley about forty-five miles by road from here. The third man is Vince Donovan, who works among the Maasai. I have been sent to replace him. It seems that Vince will be going on leave soon. Today he is going off on a teaching safari to a place called Malambo about sixty miles from here. He is taking me with him to begin introducing me to the work.

October 6th, 1967

Vince Donovan will be leaving here for Arusha on Monday. I will also leave on that day for teaching and from then on most on the time I will be living out of a tent. Every week or week and a half, I will come back here to celebrate Mass with the communities immediately around Loliondo. Vince has made the first tremendous step. He baptized five communities in each of five sections in the Loliondo area. The members of these communities are truly Maasai in every way. Up to one year and a half ago, all the fathers without exception said that for a Maasai boma to become Christian was impossible. Everyone thought that the life of a Maasai community was incompatible with Christianity. Everyone said in effect that to become a Christian is to cease to be a Maasai. Vince has very dramatically proved everyone wrong. Of course, the American Christian would find little that is familiar among his Maasai Christian brothers. These people have never heard of the rosary or novenas, have never seen a benediction and know little or nothing about the vast organization of the Church as we know it. About the only thing one might recognize about their Eucharist is the gourd of wine and plate of bread that is passed around. In customs, dress and every other way they have remained Maasai.

Recently one of the elders from here had to take a trip into Arusha. During his stay there, he went to Sunday Mass at the Church in Arusha. I understand he caused quite a sensation, when he went up for communion in his blanket and carrying his staff. When he held out his hand for the bread no one knew quite what to make of it. The next Sunday he stood up to preach at the Mass being celebrated under the tree outside his boma and talked about the hundreds of people from other tribes who also belong to this Church and about the huge house they have for Christian gatherings in Arusha. Most of them didn’t realize that all Christians don’t have Mass under a tree.

October 13, 1967

The mail lorry is pretty regular, coming every week. This will be true until the rains come and then it will be difficult to tell. I understand cars frequently bog down out in the Serengeti for days at a time. Also the last fifty miles in is especially bad. During colonial times, the roads were kept up very well, but haven’t been touched in years. Given that they were just paths hacked out of the bush to begin with, you can imagine what years of rain have done to them. Normally roads are started out here by the desire to get to a place. One take a bearing on a hill and just starts out. The next one to go there follows his tracks and pretty soon you have a road. When the ruts are worn too deep on that track to get through, one simply starts a new one beside it.

I celebrated Mass in Maasai this morning for the first time. I was told afterward that most of what I said was understandable but I have a long way to go yet. It’s an extremely difficult language to pronounce.

I’m living in a tent about half the time these days. The one Vince left is really terrific. The canvas fits over an aluminum frame so there are no poles to get in the way inside. One whole side can be put up like an awning during the heat of the day. It has no floor. This is good because all the cooking (I try) can be done inside. An inner room comes with it for sleeping. This has a floor, walls and even a ceiling. It attaches to the frame and provides quite a snug place to sleep at night. This room takes up half the space inside, so that it can be left up all the time. Having a completely enclosed place to sleep is very important because of the bugs and snakes. It seems that almost every kind of snake in East Africa is dangerous. Lions, I’m told, have never been known to force its way into a closed tent, but I still sleep with a 12 gauge shot gun right next to me with the safety off. The white hunters say that a shot gun loaded with heavy shot is more effective against a lion at close range that a rifle, mainly because one would have difficulty concentrating on hitting the right spot with the animal only a few feet away.

I use camping gas cylinders with a cooking nozzle for my experiments in food preparation. For light, I use an ordinary sixty-watt bulb, attaching the cord to the car battery with clips. This I was surprised to learn can be used for four or five hours each night and the land rover battery charges itself up easily each day with the ordinary running of the car.

January 1, 1968

I spent the holidays bringing two people in from a place about sixty miles here, who were attacked and badly mauled by hyenas. Usually these animals confine themselves to animals that have been killed and left by lions or those that have died. But these days, they are beginning to after people. There have been instances of them carrying off small children, but the attacking of adults seems to be something new. As far as I can gather, there have been eighteen instances so far and four people have been killed. The two women I brought in were attacked in bed. Frequently the Maasai only cover their doorways with cow skin. Not only is this not very much protection, but also there is usually a small space at the bottom of the skin where a hyena can slip in. One woman was attacked in the head, a good part of the skull was visible and the other had the tendon and most of the meat on one calf eaten away. The game department has been alerted but they say they can’t do anything because they are out of ammunition.

I mentioned some time ago that I took the government Swahili exam. It seems that I passed it, so I’ve start now to study Maasai. I’ve only been at it about a week now and it looks very hard, especially the pronunciation. It seems too that the grammar is much more irregular than Swahili. I am hoping that being with the people all the time and working at the bomas will produce something in time.

January 30, 1968

Last Sunday, I completed the teaching and had the Baptism at the first place where I began teaching last Sunday. The entire Maasai crawl was baptized together, 12 elders, their wives and children, 85 people altogether. The place is called Soit Somba, about 30 miles north of Loliondo. I am going to be staying out there quite a lot now, trying to get Christianity slowly into their customs and daily lives. We will try to lay a strong foundation there. I will also teach at some other places nearby.

March 15, 1968

I have been cut off from Loliondo a number of times when out on safari. This is unusual at this time of year because the big rains are only supposed to begin now in the middle of March. We are told on the radio that we’ve been experiencing a freak conveyance of winds. If this is so the big rains may cut us off completely until the middle of June.

I have started to do a bit of teaching with slides. Dr. Wasinger brought back a Dutch set consisting of about 250 individual slides depicting many of the stories from the Old and New Testaments. We have a projector that takes power from the battery in the land rover or the Toyota. Many times at night, it’s difficult to get the people together for an ordinary lesson using pictures. The women milk the cows and feed the children sometimes until eight or nine pm. The slides have an appeal, encouraging them to hurry their work along.

We have had a measles epidemic in one section about 30 miles out from Loliondo. About fifteen children have died. The difficulty is that the parents have the Maasai herb doctors treat them first and if that doesn’t work they bring them to our clinic. In many cases they are too late in getting to us.

March 29, 1968

...The rains continue. The post came by a very round about route. It had gotten to a tourist hotel about a hundred miles to the West of us out on the Serengeti. Then because the people here in Loliondo are running short of food and the Government school may have to close until after the rains because of the food problem, a Government truck with four wheel drive made the trip. It brought the mail, much of it over two months old. It also brought a few bags of corn flour to hold the people and the kids in the school for a while. As you can see, we are pretty well cut off.

I just got back yesterday after two weeks in the bush. My base was a small clinic of ours about twenty five miles from here. There, I have a gas bottle burner for cooking and a cot. I didn’t bother with the car. These days a car is more of a burden than a help. We were lucky in that we got in essential food supplies and those of our schools before the rains started.

April 8, 1968

We’ve had a break in the rains the last couple of days. I was able to drive out to my place at Soit Sombu. The river between here and there had gone down to a depth of three feet from seventeen feet on Saturday. One of the tricks I’ve learned here is to remove the fan belt when going through deep water. With it off you can travel through streams up to the motor. There was a pile of sand washed down by the water on one side, which took us two hours to remove. This kind of thing is quite normal here, as were the two days I camped by the side of the river waiting for it to go down. One of the hardest things I’m learning is not to be in a hurry.

Food is still a problem for the townspeople, but the Maasai have never had it so good. Milk is flowing like water, and all the cattle are fat and healthy. In the dry season they are hungry most of the time and in the wet season there is so much milk sometimes they have to dump it. Africa really is a land of extremes.

April 10, 1968

There is great rejoicing in Loliondo. The first truck in almost three months arrived today from Arusha. It brought the news there is another truck on the way, due to arrive tomorrow with more food and mail. So, we are beginning to feel we part of the rest of the world again. We heard today that a truck which tried to get through a couple of weeks ago got to this side of the Serengeti, about fifty miles from here, but could get no further. The driver left some building supplies for the hospital at an Indian shop at that point. I’m off tomorrow to see if I can bring the supplies back. I will probably get through using the four-wheel drive Toyota pick-up, although it’s been raining hard since five pm.

The other day I met a white hunter as I was walking from one Massai boma to another about thirty miles north of here. It took a bit of explaining to make him understand what I was doing way off in the bush by myself on foot. At the end he still thought I was a real nut. People don’t realize that as long as one travels with Massai, there is no danger at all. Without a Massai with me, I wouldn’t travel even a mile alone in the bush, but with them I’m not afraid to go anywhere.

This white hunter was after a zebra and its calf. He had found what he was looking for just as I caught sight of him. He shot the mother, and then blew the head off the calf. When he left me, he was off to look for another pair. He was collecting for a European museum.

May 20, 1968

...The trip to Arusha was longer than I figured it would be. I had to make a trip to South Massai while I was there to pick up a dresser formerly stationed there, who sill begin now to work here in the hospital of Loliondo. It is only eighty miles from Arusha to the upper primary school where the clinic is but it took me two days to get there. I don’t know how many times we go stuck. During the rainy season out here, there are large sections of the plains, which become lakes of sticky mud. We call this type of soil black cotton. The rain makes quick sand out of it a foot or more deep and it often stretched for more than a mile. Frequently there is just no way around, and crossing requires hours of backbreaking work. Having sunk in, each wheel must be jacked up and logs put underneath. Than after an hour or more of work, you start out only to get stuck again twenty feet ahead. It sometimes takes a full day to get across one of these places using four-wheel drive, chains, a portable winch, shovels, axes, etc.

At one point during the last trip, I was in an impossible place, with the car leaning over so far that it was threatening to turn over. Only one wheel was touching the ground and there was no place to stand the jack. Also no trees were around to tie the winch to. I dug a hole and buried one of the three spare tires to tie the winch to. After six hours we got out only sink in again a few miles further on. That night I slept on top of the load under the canvas of the pick up. We had gotten stuck again near dusk and it was too dark to cut trees and too dark to dig. If it’s possible, I prefer to walk during the rainy season.

August 8, 1968

We have quite an assortment of people in the hospital these days. Two warriors who got in a fight with a lion, another who was attacked by a rhino and a third gored by a buffalo. Wild animal wounds are extremely dangerous because of the almost certain infection. All these people were very badly infected but everyone is healing nicely now. I went out to get the two who had the bout with the lion a couple of weeks ago. The final twenty miles, there wasn’t even a track so it was beating through thick bush all the way. I stayed overnight at the boma and brought them back the next day. It’s no wonder cars don’t last very long out here.

August 14, 1968

I’m here at Soit Somba again teaching until Friday. We had good crowds for the meetings yesterday and this morning. It’s always amazing how much the bible story of creation resembles their story of the beginning of the world. After the meeting this morning at a place called Kartalo about eight miles from here, they continued to look at the picture of the creation story for about an hour, explaining the different parts to each other. It has the man, woman and many animals in it.

I’m getting better and better all the time in the area of cooking. I tried bread for the first time yesterday. It’s a problem not having a stove but an African showed me how to make one out of a cast off kerosene tin. Yesterday was the first time I tried it and it turned out well. The teacher and I had bread with our coffee this morning.

Brother Francis Sullivan has agreed to build me a small portable house, which can be put together and dismantled in sections. I will be able to use it here as long as needed and then move it on to some other place. It will be a simple affair.

August 24, 1968

This was a good week for the four or five non-Maasai living at Sait Somba. On Tuesday two lions killed a buffalo about a quarter of a mile from us and we came upon them almost immediately after the kill. On seeing people approaching they both ran off leaving about three quarters of a ton of meat. Buffalo is very close to beef in taste. The people got buy right away cutting up the meat and carrying it away, within a couple hours, the only evidence of the incident was a few bits of horn and some dried blood. We ate enormously for a couple of days and salted the rest away. It will last quite a while.

September 13, 1968

We did a lot of digging and leveling at the site for the house. We’re putting it some way up the side of a hill so that it won’t be flooded during the rains. One of the interesting things about this country is right now driving through Massai land you would come to the conclusion it has never rained a drop here. It is truly semi-desert. Very little milk is to be had and the cows must go long distances every two or three days to climb at the fast receding water holes. On the other hand during the rains, most of Massai land becomes a sea of mud and even a safari of 10 miles is a tremendous ordeal. Hence we are putting the house on the side of the hill.

This week I had a semi-skilled man come out from Loliondo and lay the cement tiles on the floor. There will be no foundation. It’s now finished and we hope to bring the house out on Monday and set it up. By the end of next year we will be ready to move somewhere else.

The teacher I live with is coming along much better than I dared hope. He goes by himself about half the time now. I’ve taught him to drive the pick-up, so he goes off by himself to teach and hold services among the Christian communities.

September 20, 1968

I’m sitting at the table in the new house writing this letter. We moved in yesterday. I didn’t realize it would be so warm. At first we were going to use just metal sheeting but Brother Francis got the idea of putting ceiling as a lining throughout. Together they provide a good deal of insulation. It’s a simple long 25’ by 10’ rectangular room. For cooking, we inherited an old stove used by the hospital. Had to install a stove pipe to the outdoors. It is reminiscent of the old pot-belly stoves but not anywhere near as sophisticated. The door can be left open and it’s almost like having a fireplace, which is great in the evenings.

The difficulty is water, which is the universal difficulty in Maasai land. There is a well that was installed by the colonial government. The water is very good. It is 8 miles away but with the car and containers, this doesn’t present too much of a problem.

January 18, 1969

We are going along as usual with our teaching. In one place, we expect baptism sometime in February. According to Maasai custom celebrations are held only when the moon is growing, as they say. It’s a strange thing. There are only two known tribes who calculate the beginning of the month from the time the moon begins to die. The Maasai are one and the other is the ancient Egyptians. In their stories related to the origins of the tribe, they say their fathers came from a place called Cario, somewhere to the north of Kenya. No one seems to have any clear idea where the place is, but some of the anthropologists who have made a study of the Maasai say that very possibly it’s Cairo.

January 26, 1969

Yesterday as usual we started out from our house at Soit Sambu at about 7am to have a lesson with the people of a Masai boma. This particular day it was in Curtalo about six miles from where we live, going by way of the road we cut through ourselves. About two miles from the boma, we crossed a patch of open level plain in which there was grazing a herd of wildebeest, some zebra and scattered Thomson’s gazelle. Since this kind of sight is as normal here as groups of children playing on the sidewalk is at home, we weren’t paying much attention, but were still trying to wake up. Off to the side we noticed one of the zebra with a foal, acting as if it were drunk, staggering and reeling all over the place. We stopped the land rover to watch, and after a minute of this kind of thing, and seeming to get weaker and weaker, it keeled over and began twitching. It died about a half a minute later. On examining the carcass more closely we found about half the shaft of a poison arrow buried in its side. It’s hard to figure who killed it. Although many of the Maasai warriors do have bows and arrows, I haven’t seen any with poison arrows. We thought of the possibility of young Maasai herd boys hunting the animal as a game. Often they do hunt the smaller gazelle for fun and practice; very seldom do they bring down anything. This is unlikely, since it would be the unusual elder, who would allow his son to handle, much less carry poisoned arrows. It is also very unlikely that Sonjo did it. They do carry poison arrows, and are the recognized experts in using them but this particular place is pretty far into Maasai land for a Sonjo to venture. Their relations with the Maasai are less than friendly. I suppose it could have been poachers. We have heard of them being in our area before. At any rate we left it where it lay and went on to teach our lesson. The next day we happened to pass the same spot on our way to another meeting. There was no trace of the animal at all, except for a few blades of grass stained with blood. No doubt a lion or a leopard carried it off during the night.

July 20, 1969

There was a meeting of the diocese in Arusha two weeks ago. When I was in, I saw the bishop about getting rid of the land rover and using a bike. He said that I could give it a try, so having left the land rover there, I brought back a new Puch 250cc bike back with me. It’s the same kind I had in Bourka and it had worked out very well. I’ve only had it two weeks today, but so far it seems adequate for all my needs. Petrol now stands at six shillings a gallon, which would be eighty-five cents US money. It was getting so I had to weigh very carefully the importance of a trip before deciding to go. The land rover only got about twelve miles to the gallon. With the bike I can get on anytime, even if it’s just for a ride and not worry about the cost.

October 31, 1969

...I’m keeping pretty busy these days, with the new place opened up at Enguserusambu and the prospect of another one soon at a place called Olala (fifty miles from here). So far I’m averaging one thousand miles a month on the bike, and in road less Maasai country – that’s a lot of miles.

March 10, 1970

The rains are now in full swing; they started three days ago and have been going strong ever since. Because the small rains of Nov., Dec., and Jan. were good and fairly steady, water is plentiful and the grass is thick and long all over the Loliondo division. After ten months of drought, Loliondo is again what all the tourist agencies say about East Africa and more. Gazelle of every description, wildebeest, zebra, giraffe and wild pig are everywhere. Even less common animals like bushbuck and waterbuck are common these days. With so many animals around, the predators are much more in evidence too. The Maasai are in great shape. A great many of the cows have calved so milk have become very plentiful. The new circumcision age group for boys is being prepared.

March 15, 1970

As much as I enjoyed seeing and visiting with all of you, it feels very good to be back “home”. All of the guys in the diocese were in town when I arrived, having one of our regular quarterly meetings. This gave me a chance to see every one right away.

The Bishop talked to me last night, telling me that I will not be going back to Loliondo in North Maasailand where I’ve been for the last four years. He’s sending me South to the other end of Maasai country, to a place called Kijungu. It is an area, where up to now very little progress has been made. This presents a real challenge. The tribe is the same, and so are the customs and language. I’ll quickly feel at home there. More about Kijungu later.

March 25, 1970

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get around on the bike these days because of the rain. Mud and rain forced me to turn back yesterday on my way out to Soit Sambu. It rained some during the night, but I’ll try again later on this morning after the road gets a little sun. Everyone told me that I would be put out of commission for the entire rainy season, when I bought the motorcycle. But this has not proved true. With very few exceptions, I’ve been able to get through.

I will try to get a tape off in the next few days and give you more news in that.

June 1, 1970

We had thought that the long rains were ended but for the last five or six days they’ve come back in full force, making it pretty hard to get around on the bike. Being 250 miles from the nearest mechanic has forced me to learn quite a bit about fixing the thing myself. The rain of the last few days has given me a chance to decarbonize the engine. It involved taking the whole thing apart, and I got it back together again with no part left over.

I saw some animals the other day I’ve never seen before. They looked pretty much like ordinary wild pigs but were as big as rhino. Vince Stegman says that I’ve been in the bush too long.

September 6, 1970

We are in the middle of the dry season again so the people have no milk and are dependent on the corn meal they buy to keep them going. It is either feast or famine with the Maasai.

As I’ve mentioned before, Loliondo is one of the areas the white hunters like to come with their clients. Except for elephant and Kudu, Loliondo has the trophy animals in abundance. Bing Crosby was here hunting a couple of weeks ago with some friends; he came to Mass here at the mission on Sunday. These hunting expeditions go all out; each client tent has a commode and a shower. Except for the animal sounds at night, they live about the same out here as they would at home. Trucks brought in the camping equipment from Nairobi and they came in by plane. Each client had a personal servant even Mr. Crosby’s young son. I heard they killed a lion, leopard and buffalo.

The work is going well, but it is more and more difficult to keep up with it. There are ten bomas baptized now and these are really spread out, so to get to all of them frequently for services, really keeps me going. At the same time we continue to evangelize others and these have to be gotten to also. It’s a challenging and satisfying thing to be doing; I’m lucky to be a part of it.

April 10, 1971

The bishop brought me down here to Kijungu on the weekend. He was coming down anyway for a visit so it worked out every well. We are in the middle of the rainy season and the last forty miles or so gave a little trouble but we got through ok. The bishop will stay until the end of the week and then go on back to Arusha, taking Ray Buchler with him who will now go on leave.

The two kites were waiting for me in Arusha when I got in. I put the red one together the same day we pulled in here and the kids have been having a lot of fun with it. It caused quite a stir in town here the first time it went up. Quite a number of people came running to the mission to find out what the trouble was – at first sight everyone thought it was some new species of bird. There was quite a bit of excitement at one point when it was attacked by a hawk and disappointment when it didn’t fight back.

As I figured, Vince Stegman and I both will be going to Kijungu. He is really a good cook and is going to teach me some of his specialties.

May 5, 1971

The flying doctor is here from Moshi and brought our mail. I thought I would sit right down and get a few notes off. Sending and receiving mail is going to be much more difficult here in Kijungu than it was in Loliondo. There is no mail service of any kind here in this small town. Hondeni is where I post my letters and it is seventy miles away and a little difficult to get to, at least right now with the rains. The flying doctor is very erratic in his visits, so I’ll try to take advantage of him when he does come in.

Vince and I have no cook here so I’m beginning to learn a few things. So far, I’ve limited myself to stew, but as I get the hang of it I’ll expand my repertoire. In Loliondo I was cooking a lot but it was all African type food, since I was living with Africans at Soit Sambu. Now I will have to learn American type food.

The doctor is finished with his clinic and about to take off, so I’ll seal this letter up and give it to him.

June 28, 1971

Tonight I’m at a place called Olkitikiti (means arm pit in Maasai). I suppose it is very descriptive in their language, but doesn’t come across well in English. It is a valley and on three sides, surrounded by hills, to the south is gently rising bush country. Here in the valley is a dam put in by the English about three-quarters of a mile long and about one-quarter mile wide. Because the water is permanent, grass in the area is abundant. The Maasai in the area are fairly settled and live here in large numbers. It is about twenty miles from Kijungu, one of the areas I’ve decided to work in. I got here yesterday and plan to stay about five more days. I caught five small fish this evening and fried them for dinner. They are about five inches long and were very sweet (they look like miniature bass). I caught some small frogs for bait. If they continue to be as easy to catch as they were today, I’ll have no meals out of cans here.

The big news is that we bought a truck. It is an old English army three ton Austen Lorry. It must be about fifteen years old, but is in excellent condition. As with everything that is built to army specifications, it was built to last. It also has four-wheel drive, which will be a real help during the rains. The great thing about it is that it’s a camper. It was a radio repair field truck and is fitted with an insulated nine feet by six feet house on the back. The outside is metal, then come two inches of fiber-glass insulation, then hard board on the inside. There are five windows with sliding screens and glass windows; a long metal table with steel cabinets running along one side and bunk beds are fixed to the other. It has three lights powered by the truck battery in regular light fixtures in the ceiling. I’m only use the electric lights until I get the pressure lamp lit, so as not to run down the battery. I also put in a two-burner gas stove, bolted right to the table, and the gas bottle fits nicely underneath. With the insulation, the room is cool during the day and warm at night. On the outside are places for carrying four jerry cans of petrol and a large toolbox. When all filled, I’ve got a thirty gallon capacity, which gives me about three hundred miles traveling without refilling. With this I can go into the bush and stay for a couple of weeks or more carrying everything I need. It gives a lot of safety from animals too. There are elephants down by the dam now, about seventy-five yards away. In this I’m as safe as I would be at home is the US.

July 8, 1971

July 18, 1971

Well I’m still in Arusha. The work on the camper took longer that I figured. Besides getting the rubber bumpers for the springs put on, it turned out that the frame needed straightening also, so that took some more time. I also got a carpenter to put in a water filter. As I’ve mentioned before, getting clean water in some of the areas can present quite a problem.

I got the bike out of customs on Monday. The charges together with the shipping up from Tanga came to $225. Getting it registered here and licensed came to another $150. It was expensive but all here felt it was worth it, since most of the initial cost was donated. Not a scratch in transit and it started right up when I put oil and gas in it. I took it into the bush this week and put about one hundred miles on it. It really is the bike for this country. I had ironworkers put a frame on the front of the camper for carrying it. I’ll use the camper as a base of operations and work out from it on the bike. I’ll let you know how it works out. Vince came in last Monday for the priests meeting and we hope to get off for Kijungu tomorrow.

It’s quite cool here in Arusha. Not like winter at home of course, but in the fifties and sixties, which is quite cool for out here.

August 23, 1971

All is fine here, except that the truck has given us quite a bit of trouble. No doubt the fact of its being eighteen years old has been the basic cause. We’ve finally decided not to use it as a safari car but to put it at the central location out of which I’ll work with the bike. I got the truck out to Olkitikiti this past week and it will mostly stay right there. The bike is running real well – it’s clear we made a good choice. In this country of rock, sand and heavy bush, it’s a ‘safe’ bike.

I’ve cashed a check for $500. That truck cost us quite a bit in repairs and so forth - $500 for new tires alone. We were down to almost nothing.

October 17, 1971

I got back from Arusha last night. Vince stayed and will go off to Nairobi today and get his plane for Europe tomorrow. I’m sure his folks were beginning to think he wasn’t coming at all. It looks as if Adrian Hebert, one of the two who were doing studies in Canada, will be the one to come here in his place. A letter came recently to say that he’ll be out sometime next month. They’ll send word down when he gets in and I’ll go up and bring him back.

The chain links came and they’re the right size. Thanks for sending them. I bought a couple of spare spark plugs and two tubes this trip to Arusha.

I’ll celebrate the Masses you asked for. I’ve lost the letter with the information on the person who wants to help support a seminarian. Please send the information again and I’ll take care of it.

The work is coming along. I’m teaching in three areas: here in the vicinity of Kijungu, Kibaba – fifty miles to the south and Olkitikiti – twenty miles to the east. We should be having the first Baptism in the next few weeks.

November 22, 1971

With so much traveling I’m finding it hard to get down to writing – the distances are greater here than they were in Loliondo. I’m using the lorry all the time now putting the like on the front and living in the trailer six days out of every seven. It’s really a great way to make safaris. If the lorry breaks down, I have enough of everything to last at least a week and the bike with me besides. I’ve got it down to a system, so everything I need is always in the trailer. I guess I’m the envy of the diocese, but I tell people that Gold Coasters settle for nothing but the best.

I’m still alone but do not mind because I’m on safari so much. Elephants are really in evidence these days because it’s so dry. They are constantly on the move searching for water as one place dries up after another. For this reason it’s just as well I’m using the big truck rather than the bike for the longer safaris.

You asked if I needed anything. I could use more Levis. The three pairs of dungarees I brought back are just about worn out and they are the best for riding the bike. Thanks, I appreciate it.

December 9, 1971

Joe Herzstein arrived a week and a half ago here in Kijungu. Although I was making out by myself, it’s good to have him here. He didn’t gain the weight the rest of us seemed to on leave. I guess he was kept very busy with collections all the time he was home. We had a celebration the day after he arrived. I killed one of my goats and had a few people in to meet him.

We’re going to have a good Christmas celebration. About twenty of us got together last Sunday and decided to put in twenty shillings ($3) each. Will buys goats, cookies and candy for the children. There will be a Mass the morning of the twenty-fifth and the celebration in the evening. I’ll write to you all about it.

February 22, 1972

The opportunity to send a letter doesn’t come very often these days. The flying doctor hasn’t been here in six weeks and a bridge is out seventy miles east of us, so cars are few and far between. One of our seminarians is going off today to make his way to Arusha. He is going to take this letter with him.

March 5, 1972

.... We have begun to get rain just in the past five days. Before that it was dry for so long that people had begun to move away from the immediate area of Kijungu, sending warriors with the cattle to areas where it has rained. But they will all be back shortly now if the rain continues. I used your black stone for the first time on a girl with a snake bite – it works!

The radio you sent still works with the batterys you sent and the meat thermometer works well too. Goat seems to take about the same scale as beef ....

March 22, 1972

Got your two letters yesterday in kvedi boma, one dated February 8th and the other the 29th. Our difficulty here is that we have no regular delivery. The flying doctor used to fly out of Arusha and at that time he would pick up our mail at the main mission before he left. This gave us a regular delivery every two weeks. Now he is based in Moshi on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro, which is fifty miles from Arusha and so no longer brings the mail. As a result the mail sits at Kwediboma until we go and pick it up, which isn’t very often.

I’ve had quite a setback in my work. As you know the Maasai have a real fear of the medicine man, who dictates all that has to do with their religious life. Also they have a tremendous hesitancy to depart from traditions, since they believe any departure can bring disaster, because it upsets their very delicate relationship with God. I baptized my first boma two weeks ago, the one in which I’ve put most of my time since coming to Kijungu. Most of this time was spent in dealing with the kind of thing mentioned above. Well, the head elder died last week. He was not an old man but had a history of TB. He started hemorrhaging after three days of heavy drinking at a circumcision celebration. The blood and the operation were just too far away. I don’t know yet what the judgment of the people is going to be but I am not optimistic.

June 17, 1972

It looks as if it will be more difficult to get letters out and in. The Tanzanian operation of the flying doctor service out of Kenya has for all practical purposes ceased to exist. In the past three months the plane has been in here once. I don’t know whether the difficulty is financial or personnel, but whatever the cause, Kijungu no longer has the benefit of a real doctor.

I did receive the five dollars and the package with the pants. Thanks, I really appreciate it. I am taking care of the Masses for Dad and of course any Mass for which I have no intention is offered for him. I will continue to do this, but I doubt whether he is very much in need of them.

The rains are finished now and everything is beginning to dry up. With the dry season come the lions and leopards. The wild game is much harder to hunt now and they will be looking for the Maasai herds. A large male lion stayed outside the Maasai village which is about 200 yards from the house all night, the night before last. In returning from the village at dusk, we saw him some way off and had to make a wide circle to avoid getting near him.

August 17, 1972

Day before yesterday we had a second Baptism here in Kijungu. It looks like although we have had a good deal of opposition because of the death of the elder in the first boma, it’s not having quite the disasterous effect we thought it would have. As a result of seeing this ceremony, four other villages have expressed interest in hearing the Christian message.

We are in the midst of the dry season again and it is difficult to figure what the cattle are eating. We are in much better shape here at the mission this year because of the tank I put in about three hundred yards below the house. This tank fills slowly from the spring and then I pump it from there up to the house, where there is another tank to receive it.

I’ve started to raise goats and have eighteen now. Here in Massailand, it is the custom to kill a goat when a distinguished visitor comes and since the goats are often very hard to get just at the time you need one, I’ve now assured myself of a constant supply.

The Masses you asked for in your letters are all taken care of and the pants are just what I needed for bike safaris.

November 3, 1972

Just got back from Arusha and saw Vince. He gave me a lot of your news and a first hand account of the funeral, etc.

I traded the Austin truck to one of the priests for a Volkswagen Bus. Its seven years old but has a reconditioned motor in it. The back is really fixed up perfectly for my work. In fact it’s luxurious – a double bed with a five inch foam mattress, which folds up into a seat, formica table, stove, and refrigerator (I’m sure at the moment I have the only ice cubes within a radius of one hundred miles). It has a built in-speaker, which I have my tape recorder hooked up to. I’ve slept in it a few times already and has the only bed I’ve seen so far in our places that it’s hard to get out of in the morning. I’m living better on safari than I do at home.

The house has been packed with people all day. I slaughtered a bull this morning and as is customary during the dry months, the news of fresh meat travels with the wind, so we’ve been eating all day. Part of it, never as much as I would like, went into our kerosene freezer.

You asked about clothes – I could use shirts, heavy socks and shoes (the ankle high walking shoes like you would buy for hunting). That would be great.

February 5, 1973

Am here in Nairobi for a Maasai language course. Have had a great deal of trouble mastering the tonal aspects of the language and since a cooperative Church organization here in Kenya is giving a course based on these aspects, I’m taking it. I’ll be here for at least two months, maybe three. I’ve found a place to stay here at a secondary school run by the Marist brothers, Americans. I’ll write again when I am more settled, but we’ve had a couple of days of the course and it looks good.

February 25, 1973

A couple of the brothers and myself went down to see “The Night of the Generals” movie this afternoon in downtown Nairobi, and on the way back we stopped at the post office and your letter was there. Wonderful! Great! Really glad to hear that you and Aunt Meg are coming. June is usually an excellent time in Maasailand. You’ll need sweaters and maybe even jackets, not pants though, except maybe for Nairobi, which is a very European town. Pants don’t go over real well with the ordinary people, at least on women. June here would be much like our fall, cool at night but like summer during the day. The rains will be over by then, so there will be a minimum of difficulty in getting around, but on the other hand, there should be plenty of grass, so plenty of animals should be in evidence. If you were to plan on three weeks here, you’d have just about enough time to spend a few days in Kijungu, visit some of our other places, spend a couple of days on the Serengeti and at Ngorongoro and finally spend a little time in Nairobi. There will be no problem about me spending the whole time with you. Travel light, wash and wear. This thing of constantly fooling around with heavy bags at one airport after another can really be a problem. I never take anything more than I can carry on the plane. You’ll have to bring more than that, but do with as little as possible.

The course is going well. It involves a lot of listening to tapes to get the correct pronunciation. I think some of it is beginning to sink in.

Looking forward to the trip. Thanks for sending the clothes and will say the Mass.

March 22, 1973

Glad to hear Mary is coming. I’m really looking forward to showing all of you around. I’m sure Aunt Meg will be especially interested in the medical facilities (or lack of them) in Maasailand.

There will be no difficulty in coming direct to Arusha. The new airport opened last year between the two mountains, Meru and Kilimanjaro. It takes the big jets. Before you go, we’ll spend a few days in Nairobi.

April 20, 1973

I wrote to Mary asking her to transfer the money so I can write checks on it. I’m trying to get things for the mission here in Nairobi – things which are not available in Tanzania.

Thanks alot for the checks. We go to Arusha tomorrow for Easter and will come back after a Maasailand meeting on Tuesday – then only two weeks until the end of the course.

May 8, 1973

Hope the plans for coming continue to progress. As it stands now I will be at the airport on June 18th.

January 11, 1974

.... Sorry for the long delay in writing. I’ll try to do better this year. The money did come and also the shirts, socks and balloons at Christmas time. The big heavy rubber balloons were especially a hit.

We had quite a Chistmas. Jim and Charlotte, the teachers from Oldonyo Sambu were here and of course quite a number or Maasai. We killed a goat and had honey beer.

I took a sick girl to a mission hospital near Dodoma with typhoid a couple of weeks ago. I had a chance to get a chest x-ray, blood tests, etc. – all showed normal.

We haven’t killed your cow yet. It’s been a bad dry season. We’ll wait until he gets a little weight on .......

March 13, 1974

.... After the four days of rain, we haven’t had any since, so it may dry up again. It will be especially hard for the Maasai since they have already moved from their normal grazing lands twice in the past five months. They are all back once again, hoping that the normal big rains will come this month as expected.

Finally got the VW Kambi out to an Indian mechanic at Korogwe, the place where the dirt road meets the hard surface road. It will cost $3,000 to fix it so we expect to get rid of it. At the same time the Bishop as a new land rover on order for us. This should be coming in the next few weeks.

Your cow is still holding out and should last another couple of weeks. Without the kerosene freezer, we would eat much poorer. I planted cucumbers and although they take an amazing amount of water, they are worth it. We have them everyday. I also planted some muskmelon seeds a doctor from Dodoma gave me – the plants seem really healthy. We’ll see if the fruit comes...

March 23, 1974

..... This is just a quick note. A car has come through with some government people who are here to do something in regard to the Range Association. So a chance to get this letter off.

That was yesterday and I didn’t get the letter done in time to send. The Bishop has been here the last couple of days and has brought down a land rover for us. He was just here a day and a half. He intended to stay longer, but Dinny has been sick again and the Bishop left this morning to take him to Arusha for blood tests. He has had one sickness after another since he has been here. Perhaps this time they’ll find out what’s really wrong.

Your goat is still here and with a minor set back due to the dry season is doing fine. We are down to one of the last layers of meat in the freezer, so soon your cow will be only a memory. It was a good one.

It has begun to dry up again, but we had a little rain yesterday, which will hold us again for a little while. This is a very bad year.

I will be going to Arusha on the fourteenth of April – haven’t been there in seven months ....

June 15, 1974

..... Dinny Rouane went home on leave in May so for the time being I am by myself but far from lonely as you know from your days here in Kijungo. I painted the place again recently, so for the time being it really sparkles.

The female goat for which I traded yours has given birth to another female so your herd is getting bigger all the time. We may have to start charging you herding fees.

Two boxes came. The shoes are perfect and the socks are just what I needed. I seem to go through them quickly. I am already wearing the coat every day – we are in cold season and as you know, it can be quite cool.

The VW camper has been sold. We took a loss, just couldn’t keep it running. I have a land rover now – used but in good condition and it is dependable for the long safaris.

July 31, 1974

A couple of the Fathers from Arusha were in Dar Essalaam and took a detour to stop by here on the way to Arusha. Will try and get this letter off with them.

We are in pretty dire financial shape. I have a medicine bill which I can’t pay. It is for $230. I wonder if there is enough in the account to cover it. If not could you lend me the money and then return it to yourself as it comes in. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks .....

February 7, 1975

.... We are in Arusha for the quarterly meetings; they were finished on Thursday. Friday and yesterday we shopped and I am spending today at what is now the Holy Ghost Fathers Novitiate at USA River. That is the place twelve miles out of Arusha on the road to Moshi.

The Bishop is back from leave and was at the meetings. One of the things we hit him with was support for the missions. With inflation in every area, it is getting more and more difficult to stay solvent. He has agreed to work out a budget for each place and to make sure we are supported financially.

I have decided to try to open up a new area and to that purpose have gotten hold of a tent no longer being used by Ed Hearne who is working out of Oldonyo Sambu. It has a ground sheet sewn in it and a double roof to make it cooler. I spent one afternoon up at Oldonyo Sambu getting the hang of how the poles work. I will leave it set up in one place using it as a house and work out from there with the bike. The area is about sixteen miles from Kijungu to the south, in the place called Olkitikin. We already have one community out there.

We got a little rain during January but by and large the drought continues. Joe Herstein is running a famine free food program in Loliondo. It isn’t that bad in Kijungu yet but may reach that point if the long rains don’t come in March ....

February 14, 1975

.... This is a tracing, as exact as I could get it, of the sprocket of the drive chain on the bike. Not the one on the back wheel which is a much bigger sprocket but the one that the chain rides on where it is attached to the gear box. Also notice that the teeth are so worn down that they hardly hold the chain any more. If at all possible, please try to get a service manual too.
Thanks, for your help.

We are back from Arusha and still no rain in sight. It’s becoming more difficult for the people all the time ....

April 23, 1975

..... Am here in Arusha for the quarterly meetings again. The second set of two boxes arrived, so I have received four boxes in all in the last month. Thank you for the jeans, shirts, socks and boots. The town pants and shirt are really nice. I wore them for the first time last night when a few of us went out to dinner. Thanks a lot for all the trouble you took to send the clothes. I’m the best dressed missionary in the diocese.

There is something which I haven’t mentioned because there has been no certainty about it up to now. The one American, Ed Kelly, on the team opening up our work in southern Ethiopia is an older man and because of health will not be able to carry on any longer there, so needs a replacement. It seems best that we send someone from here who has had some experience with evangelization, since we are just beginning there. The actual work has not started yet – water only just gotten and the house still in the process of being built. At any rate, I’m the logical choice at this time and Vince Stegman will follow me at the beginning of next year. We will join the two Dutchmen already there. Eef Naus was with us in Maasailand for a while and the other also used to be here in Tanzania, but in another Diocese.

So I will be going back to Kijungu to pick up my stuff and returning here to Arusha in about ten days. From here I will go to Ethiopia where I will stay a couple of weeks to look things over and get a chance to talk to Ed Kelly. Then I will come home, stateside, for a couple of months. So tentatively I’ll be home in a month or six weeks. The decision was finalized this afternoon and I want to get this letter off to you right away.....
Love,

May 17, 1975

.... Arrived here in Ethiopia on Wednesday and of course am staying with our men here in Addis. At least here in the city, it’s very different from the Africa that I have known up to now. This I’m told is because the people who are most in evidence are what are called the Amhara people, more a cultural situation that a tribe really. The culture comes from the North and people tell me that it is very heavily affected by the Arab culture. Here the various tribes which have adopted this culture are in control of both the government and the economy.

There are three men here as I mentioned in my last letter. Ed Kelly, whom I will replace and two Dutchman. Vince Stegman will also be coming, although there is no certainty as to how soon this will be, perhaps toward the end of the year and maybe even sooner.

Eff and I leave for the South tomorrow so that I get an opportunity to see the people with whom we will be working; they are, it seems, very much like the Maasai in life style. I hope so, because I’m homesick for Maasailand already. How long we will be down there I can’t say. Also, I don’t know when I will be arriving in the States. I would think it will be early June. Don’t change any of your plans because of my coming. So will be seeing you before too long.

August 26, 1975

.... Just got in from the States and ended up here at Brunners Hotel in Nairobi, the same place you stayed. They get 60 shillings ($8) a night without a bath. A nice enough place, but a little strange how these rooms look out on the little courtyards. Not a bad trip but I am very tired. Will call Joe Kelly, who is supposed to have the information on the visa tomorrow – am too beat to do anything else tonight.

They let me right through with everything at the airport – didn’t open a thing. Will be in touch.

September 14, 1975

..... Well, I’ve been here in Ethiopia over two weeks now and a lot has happened. The first couple of days, I was down in Yabello. There has been quite a lot of progress since I left in early June. The school is almost finished with only the doors and windows together with small odds and ends left to be done. The house also is quite far along. They will begin to put in the electric wiring next week. When I was there the outside painting was being done and the septic tank was just being finished off. The house is going to be quite a step up from Kijungu. We’ll have inside plumbing and electric lights for a few hours each day. I had a chance this trip to visit the town of Yabello, which is about thirteen miles from us. It’s about the same size as Kijungu and perhaps the most striking thing about the place is to see camels which are used here for carrying things as commonly as donkeys do among the Maasai in Tanzania.

I did start school on the first of September and because of the study I did during the summer, did not find myself behind at all. I was two weeks late, but there were others also who did not arrive on time. The school is run by the Protestant mission societies and most of the students are Pastors and their wives, a very friendly group of people.

I bought a 100cc Suzuki trail bike for transportation around town and to and from school every day. We are about five miles from the school. I will be here by myself most of the time since the other two and both cars will be occupied with the building program and with starting the school. When the house in Yabello is finished we’ll move down there and I will live in one of the missionary center houses here in Addis until the end of language school……….

October 9, 1975

.... Just finished the first six week exam period in language school. I did real well on the tests, ninety-five percent; so I’m progressing and am doing as well as those in the class who are here in Africa for the first time (some not much more than twenty years old). The has been heartening because I was worried about starting over with the prospect of two new languages at my age, but am more confident at this point.

The bike is working out well. I took a three hundred mile safari during our four day exam break just to get the feel of the bike, the country and to see a little bit of how the people outside Addis Ababa live. Really had a good time. My ability to communicate is still pretty rudimentary but I got along OK. The Rift Valley lakes are very beautiful and the Sidamo and Galla peoples who inhabit the area are attractive and friendly.

Vince will be here soon, in less than two weeks. The house will be finished next week in Sidamo, so we’ll be giving up this house where I’m living most of the time by myself here in Addis. At that time I’ll go to live with the Italian missionaries from our Sidamo area who have a center house here in the city. I’m looking forward to it. Both from the stand point of no longer being my myself and also because they seem to be a fine group of people ....

November 11, 1975

..... Have been in Ethiopia now for two months and am beginning to feel somewhat at home. My communication with the people is still very minimal. This language is very difficult. In the Maasai language the trouble lay in the complexity of the verb and it being tonal. With Amharic, the sentence structure is the thing. For example, a sentence from the bible:

God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.

In Amharic, you say: In-him who –believes everyone eternal life that he have, but that he not be destroyed, God the-only his-son until-he-gave
the-world just-so he-has-loved-for.

As you can see, it will be some time before I’ll be able to express anything the least bit complicated. I’m to the stage where I can say: At five o’clock the potatoes to the market to buy I will go.

Vince arrived on October 25th and has been here in Addis arranging driver’s license, work permit and some other odds and ends. We closed our house in Addis also this week and will now be staying with the Italian missionaries who have a center house here in the city. This move from Addis to Boranaland is a big step for us. Up to now, we have been living here in Addis and preparing to start our work down South. We’ll be living close to the people and the city will only be a place to come to shop as was Arusha. Of course Vince and I will be doing language yet, for quite a while. He will begin the course in January, until then staying in Yabello with the Dutchmen. The first half of our course ends on Dec. 20th so I’ll be joining them in Yabello at that time. Then on January 20th both Vince and I will return here to Addis, he for the first part of the course and I for the advanced part. We’ll be living here with the Italians (an almost new house and very good food).

Thanks for sending the books, I’m glad to have both of them, especially the cook book. I have found a place to play tennis and get in about an hour every day after school. I’ve been at it now for a month and a half.

Don’t believe all you hear about the situation in Ethiopia. All is quite peaceful here. We go to school, play tennis, go out to dinner and the movies just as we would in Nairobi, Arusha or home. Thanks for the pictures.

November 15, 1975

Am down here in Yabello. Vince and I came down yesterday. He had come up to Addis to do some final shopping for the school opening (cups, spoons, bowls, etc) and I am now two-thirds through the first semester of language school. We’ll start again on Tuesday and finally end on Dec 21st. Then there will be a month break before starting the second semester in late January. At that time Vince will start the study of Borona, the tribal language at the same school. He has decided to go right into the tribal language and do the national language later on; whereas I’m doing the national language first.

Things are going well here in Yabello. We are moving into the house and in the process of opening the school with forty Borona children. I brought the bike down in the back of the Kambi and on Monday will ride it to Addis, about 400 miles, but the road is good all the way.

I have my camera with me and will get some pictures today and tomorrow. Film for it seems easy to get so far.

Language school is going real well. After the first six weeks, I came out with a ninety-six percent overall average. At the end of the second six weeks my overall average was ninety-seven percent.

Down south here, they are still in the midst of the rainy season, getting at least a little bit of rain every day. In Addis, we are well into the dry season, the weather being quite warm every day. The evenings are always cool though – Addis is about seven thousand feet.

November 25, 1975

.... We have four more weeks of language school before the semester break, starting December twenty-third. The entire class is really getting tired of classes. We are realizing that any real fluency in Amharic is going to take a long time and plenty of hard work. I am sure looking forward to the month break between semesters – I’ll go down to Yabello. Vince is down there now. We did some tree planting when I was there last ....

February 19, 1976

I am back at language school now and will be here until June. This Amharic course is a long haul, but will be worth it if I come out being able to speak a little.

The check came at Christmas time. Thanks a lot. The boxes haven’t come yet but I’m not surprised. Thanks for all your letters.

Iede, the second Dutchman has finally come back – he’s been late due to Flu and Liver sickness. He went down to Yabello yesterday. Eef, who has been alone for the last month will be glad to see him.

All is relatively quiet here. The international press tends to blow up most of what goes on.

I play tennis most afternoons and the American military has a movie theater which we can attend and do quite often ....

June 10, 1976

I have set up housekeeping in a Borana village and have been there two months now. At first I was in a tent but found it cramped and very hot during the day. The women built a house for me, a regular Borana grass hut, and have been quite comfortable since. Being of thick grass it’s quite cool during the day and gives me room to have a table and receive visitors. I’ll get a picture and send it on.

I’ve started an hour or two of reading and writing for the head boys in the evening, trying to gear the whole thing to their situation, a real nomadic school if you will. We’ve moved once in the last two months – the little school moves right with the people. The people of course use camels for moving, but I cheated and sent word to Iede to come with the land rover and move me. In the next place (where we are now), the women, again, built me a house. We are also working on an animal husbandry course for the adults, a series of books from West Africa, which have been translated into Amharic and now we are translating them into Borana.

I haven’t had the motorcycle since coming back. So far we can’t get it working properly. Iede is taking it with him tomorrow to try getting it fixed in Addis.

Thank you for the packages – the pants, shirts and socks are perfect. The sweater is very nice too. The shoes came just in time; my others had worn out.

It is peaceful here now and we hope that it will grow more and more so. Dadim (where our mission is) is still a trouble area for the intertribal Guji Borana war, so the Borana will not be moving back here for some time. Our work will have to be where they are. The village I am in is now forty kilometers from the mission...

September 1, 1976

Thanks for the package with the viewmaster pictures and flashlight. As did the Maasai, the Borona got a big kick out of the pictures. One of the Dutchmen is off to Addis to order school materials and that is the opportunity for this letter.

I have a tent set up in one of the villages and am spending about half the time there. Being nomads, most of the time there are no Borona right here where the school is. So as it was in Tanzania, we have to go out to them.

The Borona use much more food from the outside than do the Maasai. For example, they use a lot of coffee, but it is not ground. The whole beans are roasted in butter shells and all, then a little milk is added to this and the whole concoction in ready for eating and drinking. One sips the milk and butter and chews the coffee beans floating in it. I’ve come to like it very much.

The languages, both of them, are coming along slowly, slowly. Borona is easier than Amharic, but it’s still fairly formidable. I’m using all the things you bought me, all the time. The sleeping bag, canteen, space blankets (a perfect sun shade over the tent) and the buck knife which comes in handy all the time.

Here at the center, we have a good garden started – Vince and I are involved in this project. I planted a seed bed early in June and now many of the plants are almost ready for use – we’ll be eating lettuce in a week or two.

September 11, 1976

.... All is quiet here. Since we are twenty miles from the nearest trading center, Yabello, it is much more isolated than even Kijungu was. As I mentioned before, I have a tent set up in one of the Borona encampments and spend some time each week there. The language is coming – I’m beginning to be able to get by on very ordinary things.

Couple of weeks ago we bought a young cow to fatten up and slaughter in a few months. It’s gotten so much attention that it is fatter already and jumping around like a colt. One thing, it gets as much water as it wants.

October 26, 1976

.... We’ve been getting what seem to be the small rains and as a result the grass and trees have become green. Many of the nomads are living close by now. This area is part of their wet season grazing land. There are seven or eight encampments – about three hundred or four hundred people all together.

The main difference in the landscape from Maasailand is the camels. The Borona don’t ride the camels but use them for carrying loads, to and from the market. From what I gather they don’t eat camel meat but only drink the milk. Many of the more wealthy people have mules and horses which they travel on and traditionally used to ride to war. These wars especially with the neighboring tribe to the north, the Guji, are still going on.

Eef Nass, one of the Dutchmen, has gone home. He left three weeks ago after a check up in Addis – seems there is some sort of a cavity in his lung. In Addis they think it may be cancer, so he went home to be fully checked out. Perhaps Iede will get a letter from him this week.

Our gardening is producing – tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers and some others. One cow has been killed so far; we have fresh meat all the time now. Haven’t started any goats, have killed a few that I bought. We are thinking of raising some chickens if we can get some high breds from Addis.

November 27, 1976

.... Iede and Vince are off to Addis today and will be gone a couple of weeks. They will try to get tables for the kids to eat on and more bunk beds. They’ve been on order for six months but so far they aren’t ready.

We’ve had very little in the way of dry season since Jan/Feb. This is very unusual. As a result, the Borona have had milk right thru, and have not had to sell much in the way of animals to buy grain.

Sorry that you have to put the trip out here on hold. It is true that it may be safer and easier to travel some months from now. Since your time for coming is now uncertain, Vince and I have decided to go ahead with plans for a trip to Tanzania. If we can clear the government paperwork, we’ll try to go around the first of the year. I hope to do it again with you and Aunt Meg when you are able to travel here.

The language is getting better all the time. It will take a long time to become really fluent but I’m able to communicate with some ease about quite a lot of ordinary things ....
Love,

January 14, 1977

It was good to talk to you. It was so easily done, I wonder why I never got around to doing it before. I know that in the future, we’ll speak again.

You have the news already by telegram. I will try to explain here the reason for it without at the same time making too much of it. The situation has deteriorated somewhat here in the last two weeks. Whereas before the shifta (Somali or other kinds of bandits) were neither heard of nor seen in our immediate area, now there has been attacks on some cars on the main road not far from here on the way to Addis. For this reason, travel along the Addis road is being kept to a minimum these days – only convoys with an escort of soldiers.

For these reasons, to bring you down here at this time would not be a good idea. It would be well for you to put off your trip to Ethiopia until things have settled down a little. It’s too bad; I was looking forward to it very much ....

March 10, 1977

Vince is off to Kenya and Tanzania tomorrow. The road is still closed to the North, so he must first go west and than north by a round about way. You asked about mail in your last letter. It too must come this long way around, so we get it even less often that we did before. The two small packages came with balloons, bandages, tapes, etc., and also the Whole Earth Catalogue, all of which I was very happy to get. I’ve listened to the tapes a number of times already and we are all enjoying the catalogue.

Vince will be spending two or three weeks in Tanzania, visiting and gathering ideas for our own work here. We miss the give and take we had with the Arusha group concerning the work, so his trip will make up for some of that. Then he will spend some time with a group of Italians in Northern Kenya working with the Borana but on the other side of the border from us. They have been there a number of years so we’re expecting to get some help in the way of grammar in the language and some help in understanding the customs and life of the Borona; presumably they should know much more than we do about these things. I will wait myself and go later, hopefully with you people. If that doesn’t work out, perhaps I’ll go by myself toward the end of the year.

The people here are having it very rough. They have fewer cows than the Maasai, and since everything is inherited by the eldest son, there is very poor distribution of the animals they do have. Most of the wealth tends to be concentrated among a limited group. The dry season, which is drawing to an close now (at least that’s what people say), is very hard on them. They depend almost exclusively on maize meal, which is shipped down here from the North. With the road having now been closed for a month and a half, you can figure out what it’s like.

Eef came back cured but with the decision to leave us. He came down for a couple of days to let us know his decision and then went back to Addis. He’s staying with the Christian Brothers there and as far as I can figure has no idea what he will do. I don’t know why he decided to go, only that he has been dissatisfied for quite a while. We’ll begin now to slowly look for someone to take his place.

I will be taking Vince the first two hundred km. tomorrow to a place called Arba Minch, some Irish Holy Ghost fathers are working over there among some farming people. It is situated on the lip of the Rift Valley overlooking a lake (alligators live in it, so I hear). I’ll spend a day or two with them, then back here...

April 15, 1977

Iede and I are off to Addis tomorrow to get the car fixed and buy some parts for the bike – neither one is working very well. We are missing Eef’s expertise in mechanics. The rest of us can do very little when it comes to engines, and there is little in the way repair facilities this far south. There is a chance of getting a used bike from one of the Italians going on leave. It would be quite a bit bigger than the one I have and therefore better for traveling around down here. The small one was ok for language school but is a bit small for travel of any distances and especially unsuited for carrying a passenger.

……….I’m glad to hear so many people were there for the funeral. This is one of the hard things about being so far away – not being able to be with family at important times like these. Despite the sadness of the occasion, I’m sure it did everybody a lot of good to get together.

Vince has been gone five weeks now, so he should be turning up in two or three weeks. We’re hoping to get quite a bit of help from the missionaries working with the Borona in Kenya. Materials on language, customs, etc. It will also be good to hear the news from Tanzania. I hope that you and Aunt Meg haven’t given up the idea of coming. I will let you know as soon as things quiet down here.

The garden is doing well. Right now we’re getting celery, sweet peppers, onions, egg plant, lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, cucumbers, zucchini, radishes, beets, carrots, sage, thyme, parsley, chervil, marjoram, cress, dill, basil, leeks, garlic and coriander. Sounds like a lot when you write it down. I will say the masses you requested.....

June 6, 1977

.... Vince got back from the trip to Tanzania three weeks ago. He enjoyed the trip and brought news of everything going on down there. Parkepo, the fellow who gave you the cow, has died in the past year, and his village (he had six wives and many children) has dispersed. Lembarnat, who gave you the goat, is well and his eldest wife has a new baby. Tom Tunney, Arky and Joe Hertzstein are home attending the chapter, a general meeting of the province, which we have every few years. It seems the same old controversies are raging, the main one being are we educational or missionary. The meetings will be over toward the end of June and Tom hopes to stop here on his way back.

I have been staying in the villages more and more. Recently during the rainy season, there has been plenty of milk. Now that it is beginning to dry up again, I’ll have to carry more of my own food. It’s been quite a challenge to work up a safari kit for carrying on the back of the bike. Tent, sleeping bag, spirit stove, utensils, a few books, everything for three or four days, including enough water plus me go on the little 100cc bike. It must look very strange, but then not more so than a Borana camel loaded for travel to a new grazing area.

The garden is doing well. During this wet season, we’ve dug a number of beds about two feet deep and about fifteen feet square. These we line with cheap plastic, and then fill the holes back up with wet grass, manure and some of the dirt that came out. We’ve found that these holes lined with the plastic retain the water many times longer than those without. During dry season, it’s impossible to keep up with the watering....

August 8, 1977

.... With trips to Addis getting fewer and fewer, we’ve changed over to using a wood stove here. The logistics of keeping ourselves in gas just got too much.

The garden is going well. To a great extent we’re now self-sufficient in regard to vegetables. Vince has a rotation system worked out so that he keeps replanting every so often, thus keeping a steady flow of ripening vegetables coming. Not having winter here means a year round garden. Our papaya trees (about 40) are now a year old and some have fruit starting on them so in a couple of months we’ll have fresh fruit too. We have subscriptions to both Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening and enjoy trying out the different things talked about in the articles. Recently they discussed a simple method of measuring the amount of water in a large tank (ours is two and a half thousand gallons). We put the thing together in less than an hour from materials we found around the house and garage. Now by just looking at the level of water in a plastic garden hose section, we know where the level in the tank is. Before the only indication we had was when it ran dry.

The language is going well enough. Recently, in an effort to learn more about and get a feel for the way the Borana think about things, I’ve been collecting and translating proverbs, riddles, fables, songs and poetry. You might be interested in hearing a few. Some of the proverbs are similar to our like
“See the mother, take the daughter” (like mother like daughter), which might be said to a young man looking for a wife.
“A young camel can finish a forest of bushes as he slowly eats” like our dripping water wears away the stone.
Our monkey see monkey do is much like the Borana one that says, “A passing camel makes sitting camels rise up”.
“I haven’t seen the fat of a donkey” means that as there is no possibility for a donkey to be fat so this thing we are talking about is not possible either. Another one says “I can’t cut off my rotten finger and throw it away” said about a wayward child.

Some riddles I found particularly interesting. The children especially enjoy telling them.
“I have fire in my stomach and am at God’s mercy”, I am a house.
“100 have entered the crawl and 100 are outside”, hoof prints of cattle.
“The mother looks at the man, while her children kill him”, a rifle.
“Rain comes from four directions and drops into a lake”, milk from four tits into a gourd.

Six un-understandable things:
Baldness without the head being scraped like a cow skin.
How a snake can walk so fast without legs.
A road how it can stretch itself so far without being cut into strips like meat.
The land, how it can stretch itself out without being pegged down like a skin.
The sky, how it can stay up without poles like a house has.
The fruit on a certain tree, how it always stays the same size in the dry season while the cows all get thin.

December 10, 1977

... Merry Christmas – as you see by the stamp, I’m now in Kenya and will be going off tomorrow to a Borana mission on the Northern Frontier – quite close to Yavello as a crow flies. If you look at your map of East Africa, look first at Moyale, which is right on the border – then a little to the left and you will see Sololo. This is where I will be working until it is feasible to go back to Yavello. The people are Borana so the language and all will be the same. Also it feels like coming home to be talking Swahili again, which is the Lingua Franco here in Kenya as it is in Tanzania. The missionaries up there are Verona – same as the ones we worked with in Ethiopia. I’ll write you about the place later on...

April 11, 1978

... As you see I’m back in Ethiopia – to stay I hope. I was in Loliondo till a couple of weeks ago and then hearing that the situation was clarifying here in Ethiopia, I came back last week.

Shifta activity has just about halted down South and things in general are much more stable. In fact the main road seems now to be open most of the way to the border.

We are off tomorrow, that is Iede and I, Vince in still in language school for Amharic until the first week of June. We hope we are going down now to stay – but as you no doubt gather from the news broadcasts and newspapers, long range planning here is not yet possible.

The packages came, all four of them and have been in Awassa for some time. I’ll pick them up when we pass through tomorrow – thank you very much for sending them. The three of us, together with an American sister, a Canadian girl volunteer and an American brother, all of whom work in Sidamo, spent the last few days at one of the Rift Valley lakes about one hundred miles to the south of Addis Ababa. It is quite a large lake and the fishing is quite good – catfish and tilapia, which is similar to our perch. We roasted a couple of pig legs one evening on the beach and another evening marshmallows – did a lot of swimming and laying on the beach – will write soon...

September 24, 1978

..... Arrived here in Addis yesterday and found a letter from you waiting here for me. I’ll say those masses this week.

As you know, in March the situation in Yavelle started to look much better so Iede and I moved back. The Borana were still not moved back to their normal grazing areas, but the whole atmosphere was much better. I moved into a Borana village in March and continued my language and custom studies and also started a little reading and writing school in the evening for the boys and girls of the village who herd during the day.

Vince finished language school in June and also moved into a Borana village in another area. We live in Borana houses (woven sticks covered with grass – igloo shaped) built for us by the people. We are becoming integral parts (we feel) of our respective villages. My own has moved twice since I joined it (grass and water problems) so I’m beginning to feel like an authentic nomad. Beth Efus says that this living with the people much as they live, is by far the nicest thing that has happened to us so far in our lives as missionaries. The relationship is very different from that of going out from the mission to work with or visit the people.

Just in the past two weeks people have started moving back to our place at Dadim (one small village of five families so far). This means that within a short time many villages will make the move. They are hurting for grass where they are and our area hasn’t been grazed in a year and a half. Also unless there is major reversal in the trend toward peace and stability, our school will open by January - things are looking up ....

November 30, 1978

.... One of the fathers from Arba Minch with five of the sisters from there have come this week to spend a few days with us. As you know Arba Minch is where the Irish Holy Ghost Father work. They are finding this area quite a contrast to their own places. They work among settled farming people where there are quite a lot of public services, etc. Here the isolation and the nomadic population present quite a contrast. Also the freedom with which the people spend time in our house, treating it much like one of their own (a lot like Kijungu, I guess) is quite a novelty to them.

Vince and I are still living in Borana villages; we are about 20 miles apart. I’m still involved in language learning. At this point I’m writing down folk tales and trying to get songs transcribed. As it was in Maasailand this is very difficult. In the stories and songs of various types is found the literature of the Borana. The poetry that is passed down from generation to generation, and therefore contains many archaic words and poetic expressions.

I’m also teaching the herd kids in the evening after milking time, mainly the three r’s. I have a few adults also who want to learn to read and write. I’m also doing the usual odds and ends of medicine.

We do our best to live much as the people do and most of all to take an interest in the same things they do. All this of course is aimed at making us less outsiders looking in and more insiders as far as the people are concerned ...

January 1st, 1979

... Am in Addis to see about my papers for going to Nairobi at the end of the month. There is another meeting of people working with Nomads like the one a little over a year ago. I will be the only one going from among the three of us this time. Vince is preparing to go on leave in the Spring and Iede is now involved in reopening our school. We hope to get it started again the first part of February. Iede also will be going on leave later on in the year. My turn will come the following summer. I have no definite plans yet, but my leave will likely be the Summer of 1980. Thanks for sending the clothes – I look forward to getting them.

April 15, 1979

………. I arrived back from Nomad Meeting in Kenya the middle of February, coming by road thru Moiyale. Was able to spend time at the Borana mission of Maimona, which is located between Marsibit and Lake Turkana (used to be called Lake Rudolf). They are doing much the same work which we are now about to begin.

I’m here in Addis to get my ID card back. When I left the country, I had to turn it in but we have to carry it at all times here in Ethiopia. Iede tried to get the card when he came up last week to see Vince off and do some shopping, but they said I must come in person. I arrived just a couple of hours ago. I plan to go to a movie tonight, pick up the ID card as soon as the offices open tomorrow and start back down south after lunch tomorrow.

We started to teach religion in the villages about a month ago. We’re holding prayer services that are integrated into their traditional coffee ceremony. I guess it’s like the Asian tea ceremony in its formality, but here the similarity ends. Having coffee together is the normal way the Borana have prayers as a village or family. We are writing quite a bit about these things and will get copies to you as we put them out. Iede wrote a newsletter about our initial meeting with all the elders of our area to explain this thing of going to them for prayer services. This initial meeting included the coffee ceremony.

Thanks a lot for the two boxes you sent – they arrived last week in good shape. I really appreciate everything you send. I seem to wear out stuff fast...

June 26, 1979

... We have worked out a new system to get out mail a little quicker. The most southern Italian mission is about one hundred miles north of us in a place called Erga Chafe. They are in very mountainous country among a farming people called the Daraza. The country is much like the Meru Mountain in Arusha, plenty of bananas and very fertile land. The Daraza live very close together; I’m sure that there is not five square feet of unused land in the whole country. This mission in Erga Chafe is the only one among these people and was only started a couple of years before we started among the Borana. For the mission and school work, there are two priests and a brother. Then three Canadians, two nurses and a social worker have started an out patient clinic and some health education. We have arranged to pick up our mail there once a month and have left two canvas bags with them for that purpose. They travel to Awassa fairly often and can pick up our mail there. People from Awassa in turn often go to Addis so it is easy to bring our mail as far as Awassa for them. Both the Italians at the mission and the girls have been down here to visit us and now that the road is open we are looking for more frequent visits from them. For the Borana to see unmarried men is really strange, but when three unmarried women came along, it was almost too much. They were trying to figure it out and asking questions about it for weeks afterwards.

As I wrote some time ago, we have started teaching in eight villages in the area right around us here in Dadim. The first step (we are fourteen weeks into this right now) is getting them used to having weekly prayer meetings with us. For this purpose we go to each village every week. The meetings center around their making of coffee and “eating” it, which is the way they have prayer meetings traditionally. The whole beans, outer cover and all, are fried in butter, then mixed with milk and passed around in wooden cups. They customarily have this coffee together with prayer at every occasion big and small. Anything from simply receiving a visitor to the installation of a new age set. Part of every occasion is always the coffee with appropriate prayers. Part of the meeting is always a story related to village or family life followed by a discussion. We are trying to use their own traditional stories and fables for these sessions. Because of this we are collecting these stories all the time.

These fables, stories, historical legends, songs and so forth are very interesting in themselves. After a while you begin to see themes and ideas, which keep recurring. For a people with no written literature, these are the things which must carry their philosophy of life, how people should act, what kind of ideals people should aim for, etc. I came across one recently that you might be interested in hearing. This was given to me in Borana in a kind of free verse form. It is the kind of thing the old men use when reaching the younger people about life, perhaps sitting around the fire at night or in the shade of an acacia tree of an afternoon.

This fire burning here
It is our custom to burn it
This house is made of grass
If a man stays in this place of the fire, it is good
If he refuses to stay here but goes away, it is destructive (this refers to people who leave Borana land to, for example, get a job up North).
It will destroy this house
The house will burn down
The thorn bush fence surrounding the village and cattle enclosure will also burn
If he does not stay but must go away, it is very bad
If he goes it is bad
If he stays it is good
This is the way fire destroys a home

Furthermore another evil thing
Is a man
Who has wealth
Who has milk
Who had butter
Who has meat
Who has coffee
But does not share
Who refuses to share anything of his own
Who eats alone and everything he has he himself consumes
This is a very bad man
Whom nothing of his reaches another person
Who “hates” everybody
This very selfish person who shares nothing
It does not matter if this man lives or dies

But there is another kind of man
A man who is good
If a man who is good has cattle, he shares
If he has food he shares
If he has clothing he shares
If he has money he shares
He gives milk to hungry people
He invites people in if he has coffee
The spirit of this man rests in God
Whether he lives or dies is in the hands of God
He is blessed

This is an example of the kind of thing we are taking from the traditions of the people and using in our discussions and prayer services with them. There is no limit to the wealth and richness of these traditions; it just takes a little patience and effort to dig it out...

August 29, 1979

... Iede is off to Addis this afternoon so I’ll be on my own for about ten days. He wants to see about school food, beans, corn, sugar, etc., since we hope to open the boarding school toward the end of September. It has been closed for over two years because of our having to leave at the time of the war with Somalia. Now the situation is very nearly back to normal, so we feel confident to begin again. We’ll be starting with only first grade as we did before and work up year by year. We had meetings with the elders in some of the different areas to give them the opportunity to register children, and if most of the ones come who have been written down, we’ll have plenty for the first grade. Our former teacher is now an administrator of one of the areas in Borana land, so we have a different one this time. He is a Borana from very near here, and it looks as if he is going to be very good.

The dry season is much more dry than usual here in the South. During the normal period of the long rains, we got almost nothing, and the short rains aren’t expected until November. The pond, which usually is an unfailing supply of water during the dry season, is just about dried up. So unless some unexpected rains come along, most of the cattle will have to move from here. The villages themselves will not move, but some of the younger people will go off to establish cattle camps where there is water to be found. Here, we will be able to supply water from the well for the two or three cows kept to supply milk for each house in the main villages. These people are very dependent on the conditions of the land and weather. Many people here are hungry and will be a lot more hungry before the rains finally come. And this because some months ago, it didn’t rain for as long as it should have and the ponds didn’t fill up.

Vince should be in Tanzania now and will perhaps be arriving in Addis Ababa next week. When he gets back, we’ll be discussing the opening of a new place to work out of. Our evangelization program is going well here in the center of Dadim, and since it doesn’t take three of us, we are thinking of starting in a second place. It would consist of just a place to live, perhaps a corrugated tin shack with a couple of rooms. Two will probably alternate spending time out of our main place here, carrying on the evangelization program as we have here and maybe doing some adult education also...

November 18, 1979

... Thanks for your most recent letter, I will take care of the Masses you mention.

The three of us got into Addis last night. We came straight through, leaving our place at five thirty yesterday morning. We went to one of the best eating places in town and had a good steak dinner. As you know, we cook for ourselves, so it was a real treat.

Bill Headley, whom you may remember was a classmate of mine, is our new provincial. He took over in August and is now visiting some of the places around the world where the American Holy Ghost Fathers work. His plane out of Nairobi has been held up but he should arrive here by one or two this afternoon. We were not able to get permission for him to go down to our place, but we will spend the next three days with him here, talking over our work among the Borara and discussing our plans for the future.

One of the things we’ll be talking about will be the two new men we expect to be getting during next year. One is a Dutchman who has been working in Tanzania (Morogoro Diocese) for some years. That area is pretty well built up with a Tanzanian bishop and a good number of African priests. He is looking for something a little more challenging, so will give it a try with us. The other is an Irishman who has been working in the city of Nairobi for some time. He writes that when he came to Africa, he didn’t expect to meet pretty much the same situation as he left in his home country; that is a regular parish situation. So he too is looking for something a little different. The coming of the Dutchman is sure for some time in the Spring, whereas the Irishman is still at the stage where he is looking into various possibilities, we being only one of these. At any rate things are much more settled and we are even thinking of opening a new place about sixty miles to the east of us in an area called Aarero.

Thank you very much for your most recent package, Mom. The two pairs of pants and the two shirts will really help out. Riding the bike in the bush all the time really tears up clothing. I try to be careful but even with mending and patching, clothes don’t last. It is good that you always write on the outside what the package contains – Vince just got three packages, which he himself sent when he was home; everything he had not written down on the outside was stolen. Nothing has ever been taken from one of your boxes...

July 1988

January 1995

February 1996

May 1996

July 1996

October 1997

March 1998

January 1999

March 1999

Nono, one of my girls, crippled in one leg, went home during mid term leave when she heard that her brother was sick. Her brother arranged secretly to marry her to one of his age mates and have her taken by force to her husband's village. She got wind of the plot and ran away in the night, walking two days on her bad leg to get back here to Endulen. Her brother showed up half a day after she did, and demanded that I give her to him so that he could marry her to the man who came along with him and had promised ten cows for Nono. I immediately put her in the car and took her to our local constable, who had us wait while he went and found her brother and erstwhile husband to be. He came back with them after about an hour and set about warning them that if they made any more moves to take Nono before she finished her education, he'd see that they both went to prison and that the key was permanently lost. Nono has two and a half years to go at her agricultural and homecraft school run by sisters not far from Ngorongoro. Win a few, lose a few!

Some of you have asked about the leadership of our recent seminar for the girls on women"s issues. The team for our recent seminar was made up of two people. Ben and Mase. The three sons of Dean Petersen, a Lutheran Pastor who was a friend of mine in the sixties, now operate a safari company here in Tanzania. They are very interested in the voiceless plight of the Maasai people, especially the oppressed condition of Maasai women in particular. Ben is a Yale graduate in Socialogy and has come to Tanzania under the auspices of the Petersen's. The Petersen's are very interested in our efforts to train Maasai women leaders here in Endulen, and agreed to have Ben come to lead discussions we orgainized for our girls. Mase is one of my own girls now grown up, married to one of my boys, and has two children. She is very convinced of the need for the Maasai people to be making the decisions about their land, water, and everything that affects their lives. Mase is intensely interested too in initiatives to enhance the lives of her fellow Maasai women. She worked with Ben to put on the two day seminar. It went very well. We will have another one in late June when all the girls are here for their mid year leave. They number almost thirty most cannot go home during leave because their fathers and brothers will force them to be married and that will be the end of their education.

Mesic Tomislav is a Spiritan seminarian just finishing a year of pastoral experience at the mission on the lip of the crater here in Ngorongoro. Tom and his family fled Serbia when Tom and his brother were threatened with death unless they agreed to serve in the Serbian army during the Bosnia war. After his family settled in Croacia, Tom continued his studies in Ireland. Tomislav is here in Endulen for a couple of days. We are having a goat roast for him and inviting the friends he's made during his time here at Ngorongoro. He will be spending a week on the island of Zanzabar before he finally leaves Tanzania at the end of May.

Four young Maasai women, graduates of our Education for Leadership program, are now working with women's groupes aimed at improving their economic situation and raising their awareness as to their rights. One is working in the Loliondo area of North Maasai country, two in the Ngorongoro area and one in central Maasai land. They have all just recently begun this work.

Kosiande, one of our prep school students has had a very difficult experience. Her father, a man with five wives and many children, came to our school and demanded that Kosiande go home to their village, since he had arranged for her to be married immediately. In fact, the bride price cows had already been brought to his village by her prospective husband. She refused and we backed her up, telling him that she was now registered with the government as a secondary school student and had the right to finish her education before marriage. He was very angry and cursed Kosiande, telling that she was dead as far as he was concerned etc. etc.. Kosiande held firm and her father finally got tired berrating her ...and us, and went off home. On his arrival at his home villiage, he found that one of his sons, a boy of eleven or twelve had died in his absence. The boy was not ill when his father started out for Endulen some twelve hours before and died for no apparent reason. Kosiande has had a very difficult time of it the last few days, but remains firm in her desire to get an education.

Please help me to continue the work here in Endulen. Sandi Grey will receive your contribution and let me know so that I can write to you.

April 1999

Recently we had a meeting of our Christian communities of the Ngorongoro and Endulen. We were many, the leaders of the Christian communities, the catechists, and pastors, about fifty in all. During a particularly sensitive moment, when all was very still and everyone was listening carefully to one of the village elders, a piercing cry rang out. This particular cry is only used in times of extreme danger, when Maasai cattle camp is attacked by cattle raiders, or a person has been the victim of a serious accident and needs help badly. At the first sound of such a cry every one within hearing drops whatever they are doing and runs to help. The classroom where we were having our meeting emptied out in about three seconds flat. Our meeting was predominantly make up of warriors, who make up most of the leadership of our communities.

The cry was prompted by the abduction of one of my Maasai Prep School girls. Her brothers had staged a daring daylight raid at about one o’clock in the afternoon when all was quiet on the compound. They didn’t realize that our meeting was going on. It would a vast understatement to say that the two warriors carrying off the schoolgirl were surprised when thirty warrior Christian leaders descended on them like an avalanche. The girl, Kosiande, was rescued almost before they had time to get her off the compound. The local constables took the abductors off to the local lockup.

The Toyota Land Cruiser is showing the first cracks in the body, a small one above the door on the passenger side. The car is only a year and seven months old, but I guess our roads or more accurately non-roads have taken their toll. This is not a major problem but I need to have it carefully welded and watch for more as they develop. I had hoped it would be some time yet before problems would begin to develop. I still have a year and a half of payments on the car.
The secondary school being built by the Ngorongoro conservation Authority with the help of collections taken up among the Maasai people of the area is slowly taking shape. It is located about five miles from Endulen in the direction of Lake Eyasi. Three classrooms are ready now and a small block of offices in the final stages of building. The buildings are simple cement block construction but very nicely done. Embarwa Secondary School, as it will be called, takes its name from reeds growing in the stream that flows below the school. In other parts of Tanzania these reeds are used for making mats and baskets. There is no information yet on where the ongoing support of the school is to come from. We are hoping that the Conservation Authority will undertake to run the school. So many schools fail that are built with outside help and then given over to the local authorities to run on the school fees from the students. Especially in the case of boarding schools, as this one will be, school fees can’t begin to cover the costs. It will be terrific to have a secondary school in our own area of Ngorongoro.

DANIDA, a Swedish government organization, is working in the Ngorongoro area to restock the families that have lost all their cattle through disease. East Coast Fever, a tick born disease that attack calves, has devastated the herds of a significant percentage of the families in the Ngorongoro Conservation area. DANIDA is working with the traditional custom of the Maasai people to help family and clan members in trouble. DANIDA will help a family when the extended family or clan will help. If the extended family will agree to give the family a cow, DANIDA will match that traditional help with a cow from DANIDA. The project is still in its initial stages, but looks very promising.

I have talked to a few of you about our having formed a team of the catechists from our two parishes, Ngorongoro and Endulen. They, twelve of them, are off now traveling around for two weeks on foot to do intensive team teaching among our various communities. Right now they are on the Ngorongoro side. Next time, three months from now, they’ll be visiting the Christian communities on the Endulen side. This is great for the people, because they get the ideas of all the catechists, whereas usually they just see their own catechist and me. It also makes for a unity and good spirit among the catechists to be working together on a regular basis.

We had a very sad funeral a few days ago. A woman, the fourth wife of a local Maasai man, became pregnant by a man other than her husband. Her husband was so angry with her that he would not speak to her or even greet her. His attitude hit her so hard that she eventually saw no way out except to abort. One of the normal ways people try to have abortions here is by taking massive doses of chloroquine, the malaria drug available everywhere at local shops. She went to the shops and bought a handful of tablets and took them all. She killed not only the unborn child but herself too. We all knew her and liked her. The whole town of Endulen and people from many of the surrounding Maasai villages turned out for the funeral. Everyone felt terrible and, hopefully, got a lot of food for thought.

Please help me to continue the work here in Endulen. Sandi Grey will receive your contribution and let me know so that I can write to you.

May 1999

A summit of the Maasai leadership in North Maasai land took place on the fifth and sixth of June near Endulen. Maasai leaders in government from the district and village levels took part, age group and clan leaders, our three Maasai priests for whom the North of Maasai country is home, and Maasai leaders from the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority took part. The meeting was hosted by the principal Maasai Laibon, the main traditional religious leader of the North. The village of Birika, with his more than fifty wives and well over a hundred children is at Esirua some five miles from the Endulen trading center. The Maasai people of the North collected almost a thousand dollars to put on the two day event. Three oxen were slaughtered and many bags of rice were prepared.

More than three fourths of the educated Maasai leaders present at the meeting were products of out education program, either of our Osotua Education for Leadership program or the efforts of missionaries who preceded me here or in Loliondo, our other Northern Maasai mission.

The primary outcome of the meeting was a new council of Maasai leaders for Northern Maasai country. It will have the special function of dealing with the threatened take over of Maasai grazing land by tourist hotel builders, and the take over of large tracks of land for cultivation by outside interests. The council will consist of fifty one people, 12 traditional elders, 24 educated Maasai men and 18 Maasai women. The council will have it’s first meeting in October to discuss the projected take over by a hotel company of a large track of land in North Maasai country.

We are working on a basketball court for the girls here on the compound. They need some activities to keep them occupied during their leave time. We’ve cut long cedar poles in the forest and made hoops by cutting up plastic buckets. Now we are doing a little leveling of the court. The girls play this game at their various schools.

One of our girls, who has completed a tailoring program at technical school, has started informal classes here on the compound aimed at teaching the girls on leave how to use a sewing machine. She, Neema, is using our two treadle sewing machines to teach the girls how to do simple repairs on their clothing.

The fields and woods around us are fill with yellow wild flowers, the sign the the rains are finished for another year and the cold season is upon us. Although our winter means temperatures in the 60’s (about 20 C.) at the lowest in the early morning and evening. During the day, it is usually in the 80’s and 90’s (between 30 and 40 C.).

Thirteen boys who have just finished Form IV (Seniors in High School) in our diocesan secondary school seminary have been thrown out of school. They stole a pig from the school farm and spirited it away into the forest. They slaughtered, roasted and finished off the entire porker at one sitting. Evidently a prolonged siege of their usual boring fare of red beans prompted the daring daylight raid on the piggery and ham feast. Since Maasai put pig eating in the same category as snake and frog consumption, there were no Endulen students among the culprits.

This week on our way across the plains to a village for a meeting with the people, we met two lions sleeping in the middle of the track. They heard the car when we got up close, jumped up and ran into the bush. These were very different than the lions one meets in the crater. The crater lions are so used to cars, you practically have to run over their tails before they show any sign of being aware of your presence.

Once there were two gods: the black god and the red god. The black god was very humble, kind and loving, while the red god was malevolent and did not care about the people at all. These gods lived together way up in heaven, but the black god lived below the red god, and therefore closer to the people on earth.

One day famine spread all over the world. Cattle could find neither grass to eat nor water to drink and they were almost dying from starvation. Then the black god spoke to the red god and said “Let us give people water for they are about to starve to death.” The red god was at first reluctant to let people have water, for he had no liking for them, but after much pleading from the black god, he relented. It was then agree that water was to be released from heaven to earth. When this was done, it rained very hard for many days.

After some time, the red god said to the black god: You can now hold back the water, for the people have had enough.” The black god answered: Let us leave it for a few more days for the earth has been parched dry.” This was done, and when the red god again told the black god to hold back the water, he did so and the rain stopped falling.

A few more days elapsed and the black god once more asked the red god to release some more water for the people. The red god refused, and there ensued an argument between them, with the red god threatening to wipe out all the people, whom he described as having been spoilt, and the black god struggling to prevent him from doing so. And so, up to this day, when one hears loud thunder, it is the red god who is trying to get past the black god to wipe out the people on earth. But when the sound of thunder is not very loud, it is the black god who is trying to prevent the red god from killing the people.

July 1999

One of my girls, only one semester away from graduation from secondary school has run into a major problem with the headmaster at her school. He was determined that she would agree to sleep with him. She wanted no part of his attentions and continued to refuse him. The situation was very delicate because in this country it is the man who is always in the right. I didn’t want to confront him head on because I have three other girls in that school in Form IV who are not being harassed. To accuse him would put the other girls at risk of not finishing secondary school, since he would surely seek revenge against me. After a week of traveling around talking to the head teachers of various schools, I found one that would accept Selina for the final semester of high school (secondary school). It would have been a disaster after all these years that I have been working with her (six years) for her to not be able to finish secondary school with only one semester to go.

Our, what has become an annual event, cholera epidemic is over for another year with the end of the rainy season. During cholera season coming together in large crowds is prohibited by the health authorities as a source of spread of the lethal disease. This week we had our first cattle market in some months. Here in Endulen the market is much more that a cattle sale. Everything from spoons to cabbages are available on the clothes spread out on the ground by the vendors, who are both local people and others coming from fifty miles or so to hawk their wares. Multi colored cloth, blankets and beads are much sought after items by the Maasai people as are cooking pots and tin cups. Tents are erected for the day where one can have a meal of meat and rice or eat a roasted goat leg and have few beers with one’s friends. It is a loud, noisy, crazy day where friends meet and share the news since the last market, that in this case was five months ago. It is a place too, where relatives often run into each other having been out of touch for sometimes years.

For a couple of days the people of Endulen had to give a large acacia tree just below the mission a wide birth. A lion had killed a zebra and took two full days over his meal in the shade of the big flat top tree. He was a big old male, alone and very jealous of his turf. Surprisingly hyenas did not come in the night to finish off the carcass so the lion had a full second day to do justice to his meal.

Earlier this year, Dutch and American Spiritans working in Tanzania took a week off, high on Mount Kilimanjaro, Our hostesses were the Franciscan sisters. They call their retreat house "Maua", a Swahili word which in English means "the Flowers". The name fits. The grounds are a riot of flowers; every color of the rainbow is represented. I recognized roses, dalias, snapdragons, lilies, and there must be hundreds of others. Mawenzi and Kibo, the twin peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro, seem very close there. In the crystal clear air of the early morning, it feels as if one could reach out and touch them. The three one story houses containing sleeping rooms and the sitting and dining rooms are on the top of a small hill overlooking a dense gravillia and Eukaliptus forest. At the bottom of the hill is a rushing mountain stream fed by the snows on the mountain hovering above. Wherever one goes on the Maua grounds, there is in the background, the sound of water making its hurried way down the mountain to be drunk by the cattle of the Maasai out on the plains.

Kilimanjaro these days, with its' thriving Lutheran and Catholic Churches, hundreds of Catholic sisters and hundreds of Catholic priests and Lutheran pastors. It is hard to believe, the Lutherans missionaries and Catholic Spiritan missionaries began evangelizing the Chagga people on the mountain just over a hundred years ago, doing then much the same kind of thing we are doing out on the plains with the Maasai people.

During one of the afternoons, I made my way down the hill to the stream and following its’ meandering way for a couple of hours up into the mountain. As it went higher it became narrower and the trees and brush more and more dense. At one point, I came upon a beautiful small meadow filled with wild flowers bordering on the, at that point, narrow rock strewn stream. I lay down in the grass and only a half hour later did I realize that I'd been asleep for some time. What a terrific place. The only sounds to be heard were the calling of the birds and the rush of water. It was a good week.

We are now Four here in the house at Endulen. Fr. Cyril Chuwa, a Spiritan whose home is on Mount Kilimanjaro spent five years working in Zaire and a few more with the Pukot people of Kenya. He most recently did a two year course in mission studies at Louvaine in Belgium. He has been with us here in Endulen since last November. Mike Jemmitt, a Menninite volunteer from Canada has been here just two weeks, following a three month Swahili language course in Morogoro near Dar-es-Salaam, the capital city of Tanzania. Mike is here to work with our Osotwa Leadership program for Maasai young people. He has many years of secondary school teaching experience. The fourth member of our team is a diocesan seminarian doing his year of pastoral experience here in Endulen. He is a Sonjo by tribe. The Sonjo are a farming people living in the midst of the Maasai here in the North near the Kenya border. Lawrence Ndemaloi is one year from ordination and has made a tremendous contribution to our Endulen community. He often gives the homily here at the church in Endulen and in our outstations and his peppering of his talks with Sonjo stories and legends bring the gospel alive. Lawrence has also taken a great interest in our education program and has started volley ball for the boys and net ball for the girls. He also teaches English to our students.

August 1999

….and who is my neighbour?
(contributed by Mike Jemmett, the latest addition to our Endulen community. Mike is a Mennonite volunteer here at work with our Osotua Maasai Education for Leadership program)

It would seem obvious that moving from a first-world, urban environment to third-world rural requires certain practical adjustments, and I took seriously the advice of my colleagues regarding life-threatening circumstances. Then reality stared me in the face.

I contemplated how long it would take to hike down and up the valley to stand atop the far “mountain.” Solo, I struck out among aging corn stalks; waded through waist high, pale-gold expanses of tired grass; clawed into dense forest; scrambled over steep, rock- and boulder-strewn natural walls. Hours later and from 1900 meters (6,200 ft.), I commanded a spell-binding view of the Serengeti Plains, the Ngorongoro Highlands, Lake Eyasi and beyond with only the sigh of the ancient African wind in my ears.

The return was far more than I’d bargained for. Familiar with but ignoring the gentle thunder of guinea-fowl wings taking flight, I proceeded a few more dead-weight steps. The true source of the rumble was plain as I raised my bleary eyes: a 1700-lb. Cape buffalo had sprung to life from his siesta, facing me out of the grass which had concealed his massive bulk a mere twenty feet ahead. In the twitch of an ear, every story I’d heard in the village came vividly to life recalling the species’ aggressive, lightning-fast and dangerous behavior. Shot through with adrenaline, I bolted for cover behind a flimsy wall of bushes surrounding a solitary tree, while behind me that rumble grew. One stupefied hiker watched a rolling sea of grass and shrubs fade away to his right, as the beast sought solitude, not victim.

Recently asked how the normal jobs of the men and women differ in Maasai country, one of our Osotwa Prep School girls responded: “The women build the houses, go to the spring to draw water, cut and carry the firewood to the village, cook the food, care for the children, look after the young sheep, goats and calves, milk the cows, buy or borrow enough grain for the evening meal each day, maintain the house by plastering wet cow dung on the roof and walls when it rains, prepare the gourds to be receptacles for milk. Asked what is are the responsibilities of the the men, she replied, “They defend the country in time of war, make the decisions about family and village and sing.”.

In fact, the nearest telephone is at the Ngorongoro Post office some twenty miles from us here. Some of you have asked about how I send and receive e-mail. I do it by short wave radio. Using a technology originally developed by ham radio people, we use a modem that is especially constructed to link a computer to the short wave radio. Secondly there is a software program that we use called BUSHLINK that transforms the e-mail text on the computer into a form that can be read by the modem and passed on to the short wave radio a little like radio teletype transmission. In Arusha we have our own server having two short wave radios always switched on to receive and send e-mail to us. This gives us two frequencies and since we are now about forty on short wave e-mail, there is usually one or other of the two frequencies available when I want to connect to the server. Our speed of transmission is very slow compared with the 56,000 bawd that I understand is standard in the States now. Our transmission rate is about 600 bawd and much slower if there is static on the short wave radio. This is slow but very adequate for simple text. Of course photographs, clipart and long files are beyond the scope of the short wave radio system. These kinds of files are too big for us to receive at the speeds we operate at and therefore are not possible for us. It would take a couple of days of uninterrupted transmission to send or receive a photograph, but it is a great system and perfect for our needs in the bush. The whole thing runs off my solar system that also operates all the lights in the house, the VCR and coffee grinder.

If a Maasai warrior is shot, and an arm or leg broken, the surgeons are able to mend it. They cut through the flesh, take out the splinters and bring the edges of the bone together, after which they stitch up the wound with the sinew from the back of an ox, and bind the limb securely.

The only food that is given to a man with a broken limb is roast meat and the thirst-quenching medicine obtained from the “olkiloriti” (Acacia abyssinica). Should a man be speared in the belly so that the intestines protrude, the wound is washed and the intestines returned to their place; sheep’s fat (a quart or more) is poured into the wound, which is then stitched up.

Again, if a man is speared and a rib broken, the flesh is skinned from the wound, and a sheep’s rib is inserted in place of the broken one. Sheep’s fat is then poured into the wound, after which it is sewn up. The wounded man is not allowed to drink milk, and may only eat meat.

If a man is shot with a poisoned arrow, a pregnant cow is slaughtered, and he is given the udder fat to drink. This causes him to vomit and he recovers. If the surgeons see that a man’s bone cannot be mended, they fasten a tourniquet round the limb and amputate it.

The surgeons are also able to castrate bulls, rams, and he-goats by either removing or crushing the testicles. When bulls are castrated, a cord is fastened tightly round their necks and blood is extracted from the jugular veins to prevent inflammation of the injured parts.

An important new thing is happening in Maasailand. In a way, it is the beginning of what could be a small but significant revolution in the way the Maasai people are dealing with an ever more pressing problem, the alienation of their best grazing land to outsiders for the purpose of cultivation. The situation is not new. For years and years non-Maasai have been taking over the better land in Maasai country, areas with water and richer soil. They've been getting the land in all kinds of ways, through corrupt government officials, through just moving in and squatting on the land and through the Maasai themselves, many of whom are as ready as anyone to turn a quick profit. It has reached the stage in many areas that the Maasai no longer have access to their traditional watering places. The fields of corn slowly multiply in a dry season grazing area with water, till the passing of herds of cattle presents a threat to the growing fields. Meetings are then held and the non-Maasai who speak the national language, and have a certain political savvy, at least much more than do the Maasai, "decide" that Maasai cattle can no longer water in this place. Since the Maasai have no political clout, they are simply forced to move on into ever sparser and poorer country. It is true the dry season grazing is only used part of the year, and is "sitting uselessly" during the wet growing season, but it is the critical factor in Maasai pasturing. Without it as a refuge, a source of water and grass during the worst of the dry season, all the grazing land of that area becomes useless, and the people are forced to pack their belongings on donkeys and move on, displaced persons, refugees in their own country.

The Petersen brothers, Dave, Thad and Mike of Dorobo Safari are deeply concerned about the issue of land alienation in Maasai country. They are working with Maasai groups in various areas of Maasai country, helping them get title to their land, so that it cannot be sold off by an unscrupulous Maasai elder or government official. These are the same Petersen brothers who, together with their friends in the States, have taken such an interest in our Maasai Education for Leadership program here in Endulen.

September 1999

The Maasai leadership from all over Maasai country had a four day meeting in the North near the Kenya border. Many of our gray beards went from the Ngorongoro area including Birika, our traditional religious leader who I’ve mentioned in other News letters. They met to make peace between the three Northern sections of the Maasai, the Purko, Laitaiyok and Loita. During the past two years these different parts of the Maasai have been at low level but persistent war with each other. It has mostly taken the form of cattle rustling but more recently has escalated to hand to hand combat and their have been a few people killed. The traditional way of handling cases of murder is a payment of cows by the clan of the murderer to the clan of the fellow who was killed. This was one aspect of the peace process that the elders sorted out. The upshot of the meeting was that the Purko, Laitaiyok and Loita did make peace. Everyone is now hoping that it will hold. Three of our Maasai priests, all of Laitaiyok took part in the deliberations.

The other big question that was discussed was an accusation leveled at our member of Parliament here in the North to the effect that he had sold Maasai country to a group of Arabs. This land, now in the hands of the Arabs is no longer available for the Maasai to graze the cattle. With elections for parliament coming up next year many felt that the accusation was simply a ploy by the opposition to lose votes for OleTiman, the accused and our present member of parliament. As it turned out there was no witnesses or any kind of proof that OleTiman had sold the land to the Arabs. On the contrary it came out the meeting that the hand-over paper for the land was signed by the assistant of the former chairman of the district council while the chairman was away. The meeting of Maasai elders found Oletiman innocent.

The conception of the guilt of murder among the Maasai does not extend beyond the borders of Maasailand. Thus a man can only be regarded as guilty if he murders another Maasai, not if he murders a man from another tribe or race.

As soon as the murderer has been found, the relatives of the deceased will normally attempt to avenge their kinsman’s death by killing the murderer. But the relatives of the latter usually conceal and protect him until this mood has cooled off and peaceful negotiations can be held. At the meeting it is decided when the aggrieved family can go and “capture blood cattle”. The fine for murder is forty-nine cattle. The forty cattle are taken for granted and this number can be altered, but the numeral “nine” remains constant, being the number of orifices in a man’s body. In certain cases a fine of two hundred and forty nine sheep is charged, while in other cases the fine is one hundred and forty nine sheep.

The above-stated fines refer to cases where a man has been murdered, and there are no fixed fines for the murder of women. This is because the Maasai traditionally never murdered women in warfare or elsewhere. It is believed that a man will be invoking ill-luck on himself, that he will become a social disgrace, should he murder a woman. If a man kills a woman by mistake he must undergo a ceremony of expiation in which he will be cleansed and purified because it is thought that the dead will bring the disaster of a curse upon the man’s head unless this is done. The fine for the crime is forty eight or twenty eight sheep. These sheep are given to the father of the woman or her relatives. The figure “eight” in this number is related to the things normally associated with women: a loin-cloth, gut for repair-work, a needle, a calabash, a razor, an axe, a reed for cleaning calabashes and cowry-shells. This fine only applies when a Maasai woman is the victim of the killing. Otherwise the killer undergoes only the cleansing ceremony. All these fines and systems were bequeathed to the Maasai by the Founder of the tribe. When people go to collect blood property they go armed as for war. Indeed they do not go to collect it but go prepared to capture the cattle as if they were going for a raid in enemy country. If the number of cattle agreed upon has not been produced they will capture whatever cattle they can lay their hands on, belonging to the killer or his family. All these cattle have to be captured and led away in a single day. Furthermore, the captors do not accept or take any cattle which might have deformities. Before the day of the capture arrives, they have to look for an abandoned homestead to which they will drive their loot as soon as possible because they cannot be attacked once they have occupied this abandoned home and closed the gates. Otherwise they might be attacked if they are overtaken while still in the open bush. (MAASAI by OleSankan)

People in the West are often surprised and fascinated by the customs and beliefs of African peoples. The reverse is also true. A new specialization among psychotherapists in the U.S.A. is both astounding and incomprehensible to people here. It was reported this month in a BBC interview with a New York psychotherapist that increasingly dogs and cats are entering psychotherapy for separation anxiety syndrome. This condition occurs when the owners of a dog or cat get separated or divorced.

It is a quiet Sunday morning here in Endulen. Many of our students, who spent yesterday gathering firewood for the week, went early to the stream to wash their clothes. They will be dry by the time our Sunday service begins at mid-day. We start quite late because our congregation is mostly the Maasai people from their semi-nomadic encampments. The people come from distances up to about ten miles so we give them plenty of time to walk to the trading center here in Endulen.

Our service is tailored to Maasai ways of doing things. The language of the service and music is Maasai and most of the songs we sing have been composed by the Maasai people here in the Ngorongoro area. The vestments are black and decorated with cowry shells. Black is the color of the rain clouds that bring plenty to Maasai country and cowry shells have also have a religious significance. Gourds that hold milk, the source of life for the Maasai people are always decorated with cowry shells. Maasai religious leaders wear black and their staffs are decorated with cowry shells.

Our services open with gathering prayers by three people, myself and two Maasai elders. Following tradition, when elders bless, there must always be an odd number, never two, never four. When the bread and wine are brought to the altar table, we bless them with milk from a gourd decorated with cowry shells and closed with green grass at the mouth. Milk is used in all important blessings in Maasai country. It, together with the rain clouds and rich green grass are symbols of God's goodness and blessing for the Maasai. I hold a tuft of green grass during the entire service, a symbol of our desire for God's blessing on our lives and our herds. Green grass means healthy cattle and plenty of milk, the basis of the good life for the Maasai. On special days like Christmas and Easter, we also do our blessings with pure honey beer without any added sugar. This again is a tradition among the people on special days like circumcisions and when there are rites of passages ceremonies into elderhood.

During the Eucharist we bless the sick and those with special difficulties. Many Maasai forsake the help of their traditional witch doctors when becoming Christian. We try to fill this gap with a ceremony of blessing consisting of the laying on of hands, anointing with oil, and the sprinkling each sick or troubled person with milk from the special gourd, the same one used to bless the gifts of bread and wine. Elders of the community, both men and women, join with me in blessing the people who come forward.

When traveling to Maasai villages on my motorcycle, I frequently pass a certain place on the Endulen Ngorongoro track at the bottom of a small hill. Almost every day for the last two weeks there have been a couple of jackals hanging around that spot. They would stand off to one side and watch me pass by. That place has a small culvert (about twelve inches in diameter) to allow rain water to pass under the road and down the hill. I have been puzzling over their presence there and have asked a number of people and no one has been able to tell me why they are hanging around there every day. Yesterday, I found out. Two miniature replicas of the adult jackals came bounding out of the small culvert, no bigger than kittens to see what all the noise was all about.

October 1999

Fire in a Maasai house is one of the most feared calamities among the Maasai. Houses are cow dung igloos, with the main room and smaller ones connected by low narrow tunnels…death traps when fire strikes. Early one morning a couple of weeks ago, word came that fire had struck one of the nomadic encampments some ten miles from Endulen village in the direction of Oldupai Gorge. We immediately set out in our Toyota land cruiser with every water container that we could find filled to the brim. The water was not for the purpose of putting out the fire, since it takes minutes for a fragile Maasai dwelling to burn to the ground but rather to aid the now homeless people, who would not have had time to walk the five miles to the stream for water that day because of the calamity that had struck the village.

We arrived at about nine in the morning to find the two women, wives of one man, who had lost their houses in tears, but thankful that no one was injured in the fire. Their houses had both burned because they were just inches apart. It seems that about midnight, the children, in this case a group of about five newly circumcised girls were singing and playing in one of the two houses. They had heaped plenty of wood on the fire and were having a great old time. Suddenly the fire, much too big, licked at grass laid to cushion the cow skins on one of the beds. Since the girls were awake, they immediately grabbed the small children sleeping in the house on one of the beds with the woman of the house and ran outside, rousing the people in the adjoining house too. Thus all the people got out safely. Unfortunately two baby goats were burned to death, all the skins on the beds, accumulated over many years were burned together with the cooking and eating utensils of both houses. All the gourds for storing milk and whatever spare clothing the people had in the houses was lost too.

Because the fires always kept burning in Maasai homes are open cooking fires and the houses are so vulnerable, serious burns from tipped over cooking pots and falling into the fire in the case of small children is very common in Maasai country. Also, a significant number of houses burn to the ground each year, sometimes with the deaths of those inside, especially when the fires occur in the night.

Mike Jemmett, a Mennonite volunteer, works with our Osotua Maasai Education for Leadership program here in Endulen. He writes…..

Copied meticulously from the reflective sheen of the classroom blackboard into a notebook of frayed edges, the word "PUT" evolves into "PURTNS." The student now focuses on the next word. He continues, satisfied in his work yet absolutely oblivious to any error in transcription, and mostly unaware of the meaningful connection between the written word and the word he may commonly parrot.

If we had never even known the existence of an encyclopedia, and then were presented with a set in a foreign language after a cursory study of that language, what might we explore first? "Dog; rain; boat; brain"? At Osotwa, the logic, skepticism, and wonder of one Swahili mind plunged the young man into an English-language encyclopedia to grapple painstakingly with his first two entries: the rationale of the "United Nations," and the taxing concept of "light years."

The above two examples describe the range of intellectual talents that
daily file into our classroom. Not only a teacher of English and Math, I see part of my role here in helping to identify the natural leaders of intellect, instinct, creativity, ability and interpersonal skills; and in providing these young Maasai with opportunities to test their wings in these capacities.

In a basic exercise of creative problem-solving, we sat on a plot of bone-dry grass, thoroughly reviewing shapes and colors in English. One simple instruction followed: in three minutes, find a blue circle. A blue circle?! Look around! Our environment is golden grass, brown bark, grey gravel. Well, blue sky; but a circle?

The two solutions I recall vividly came in one minute from girls. One snatched up one of those ubiquitous, blue plastic bags that dance in the wind and tore out… "a blue circle." The second never left her place. She looked at her blue pen, popped off the cap, turned it around, and looked down into… "a blue circle." Two distinct methods were used: creating to fill a need; seeing what exists, invisible to others.

This creative thinking in leadership is what Osotwa is cultivating. Practically, however, quality leaders need adequate participants with skills to work in concert, to follow competently. Others here would do well to learn the value of following instructions, of completing a project efficiently, and of enjoying this satisfaction. This is cooperation, one strategy for survival.

Occasionally through Ned's "Endulen Diary" and from my angle, you will glimpse some of the methods, results, frustrations and successes of our team's local search for and training of a new generation of Maasai leaders and followers. Who will they be? How far will they go. light years?

November 1999

About five thirty this morning there came loud knocking at the front door. I had just gotten off my stepper exercise machine and was in the shower. I put on a robe and, opening the front door, found a woman from a Maasai village some five miles from Endulen in hysterics standing before me. After getting her to sit down and calm down a little, she told me that her son, a member of the new age group was just attacked by an older warrior and speared. The fight was still going on, and she didn't know whether or not he was still alive. Would I take her to the local police post to get help in stopping the imminent murder of her son.

I pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt and off we went to wake up the constable. He agreed to come, grabbed his rifle and we headed for her village cross country, there being no roads or even a car track in that direction. We arrived at the village to find a meeting of all the elders of the area in progress. They had pulled the protagonists apart and were beginning to discuss what to do next. When we pulled up, they were very angry at the woman for having gone to the police, since it turned out the boy was not speared but hit over the head with a knobkerrie, a short stick with a vicious knob at one end. He was gashed to the bone that glittered in the morning sunlight, but was in no danger of death.

The elders had quite a challenge before them. First of all the warriors involved were of two different age groups. The fight had been over the wife of the older warrior. the younger had met her secretly in the bush had had been surprised by her husband in somewhat embarrassing circumstances. In Maasai country, age groups that follow each other are natural enemies. When the older age group retires, they never do so willingly. The younger boys "force" their fathers to open the new age group by pressure of various kinds. They move around in large groups standing outside the home villages of important men among their father's age group. They sing for hours on end waiting to get a hearing. This process goes on for a couple of years slowly wearing their fathers down. As time goes on it becomes apparent to the fathers that their sons are not going "go away" and also their sons are getting older and the time to open a new age group has come. For various reason, not least among them being that the warriors have exclusive rights to serenade the young girls, The active warriors want no part of retirement. They ambush the boys and beat them up at the slightest provocation. Facing the prospect of dull elder-hood, settling down with a wife and children, no more traveling around to celebrations to dance and sing with the girls, is almost to much to bear.

Now we have a boy from the new age group taking a mistress from among the wives of the retiring warriors, their recent enemies. It is no wonder that the husband was ready to kill. Each warrior, active and newly retired, was armed with a spear, sword and knobkerrie, This was why as soon as the fight began, the boys mother took off at a run to get help.

But that is only the beginning of the complications that the elders must deal with. The co-wife of the older warrior's wife who became the mistress of the younger warrior is the younger warrior's sister. Also the young warriors older brother's wife is the sister of the wronged husband. …a real can of worms....The elders are going to having fun sorting this one out.

Fifty Sukuma warrior from the West of the Serengeti raided herds of Maasai sheep and goats near Endulen this week. Many of them had rifles and the herd kids did the intelligent thing, ran away into the bush. The two thousand goat strong herd of OleRinya was among the herds taken. Our modern thinking Maasai warrior age group immediately came to the village and borrowed two Ngorongoro Conservation cars to chase the rustlers, who had about a six hour start. The Maasai cars, trailing mile long tails of dust, caught up with them far out on the Serengeti. By then the goats and sheep had all but died from exhaustion and most were rounded up, with the rustlers dissolving into the bush. This was a bad time of year to raid for goats. They are very thin and many are pregnant in anticipation of the rains that should begin any time now. Goats are bad trekkers in the best of times and tire very easily, but are especially weak at this time of year.

The Head Teacher of our Osotwa Maasai Prep school here on the mission has been reelected as chairman of Endulen village. He got 943 votes, the second one in the running got 102 and the trailing candidate got 20 votes. It was an acrimonious race filled with slurs and personal accusations of all kinds. I guess politics is the same the world over.

December 1999

When a group of some fifteen warriors appeared on the front porch with young girl on a stretcher of cow skin stretched across rough cut poles I was not particularly alarmed. The girl was screaming but this has come to be a common occurrence with the rise in the frequency of cerebral malaria. In recent years ordinary malaria drugs have ceased to have much effect because of the drug resistant strains of malaria these days. Often also, because of the absence of ready cash, people don’t resort to the hospital until the sick person is near death and there is no other option. Presuming the girl had serious malaria, I ran for the keys to the car, bundled her into the front seat with her mother-in-law to hold on to her and set out for the hospital about fifteen minutes away. You can imagine my surprise when about four minutes into the safari the girl began to shout “etupukuo!, etupukuo!” (It’s come out! It’s come out!), and I look down to see a tiny baby emerge from between her legs. I stopped quickly and her husband’s wife grabbed the baby so it wouldn’t fall on the floor between the gearshift lever and the emergency brake handle. The mother-in-law covered the baby with her clothing to keep it warm. It began to cry somewhat less enthusiastically than its’ mother was yelling seconds before. We arrived at the hospital minutes later and the sisters took over. Needless to mention, she didn’t have malaria after all!

It has begun to rain here in the highlands while remaining very dry on the Serengeti and the rest of the lowlands below Ngorongoro. We seem to have the only green grass at the moment for miles around. The animals, especially buffalo and zebra are gravitating in our direction looking for the new growth of green. This can present a problem at night when one needs to visit the outhouse. A couple of nights ago, I went out at about eleven and narrowly missed colliding with a small herd of buffalo ambling by the front porch. Fortunately, they seemed as surprised to see me as I was to meet them. They took off a brisk trot, and left me free to finish my outing to the outhouse.

If a Maasai has paid a visit to some friends, and wishes to return home, he ties up his things. When he is ready, he says: “Well I am about to go.” The owners of the kraal reply: “All right! Good-bye! Pray to God, meet only things that are safe, and meet nobody but blind people.” (ie. “Don’t meet anyone with the evil eye” The guest then says: “Sleep with honey-wine and milk”, to which his hosts reply: “Nai” (Amen.) After this the stranger is at liberty to depart for his own country.

The rains have now arrived here in Northern Tanzania with a vengeance. They may go right through till June or stop for a couple of months between January and April. These are the rains caused by those same great winds which each year allow the small Arab dhows, small single sail ships, to travel from the Arab coasts, southern Yemen etc. to the trading ports of East Africa and back again. They used to bring cloth, pots and pans and other things like beads to trade for spices from Zanzibar and other ports on the East African coast. Even these days at the port of Mombasa in Kenya and in the ports of Dar-es-Salaam and Zanzibar here in Tanzania, there are to be seen quite a few of these old trading ships of the Indian ocean. They are crewed and seem busily engaged in some business or other, although I don't know what kind of cargoes they might be carrying these days.

Here in Endulen, it usually begins to rain about two o’clock each afternoon; you can almost set your watch by the first drops of the usually very heavy rain. It frequently rains during the night too, pleasantly drumming on the tin roofs which most of the non-traditional houses have here in East Africa. The Maasai, after a few days of rain, begin to repair and improve the walls and especially the roofs of their houses. Having lived among the Borana of Southern Ethiopia, also a semi-nomadic people, with a life a style similar to the Maasai, it is interesting to note the very different way the Maasai and Borana deal with their house building. For the Borana, a house is more a protection from the sun than the rain. Except for the little sleeping compartments in the back of the house, the rain comes through the grass thatching almost as if it were not there at all. When it begins to rain everybody in the house looks for a cow or goat skin to put over their heads like an umbrella. The Maasai, on the other
hand, put great store, in making their houses, not only cool refuges from the hot sun, but also rain proof. A woman, whose house is cracked and patchy, allowing the rain to come in, is called "enduruai", a poor house keeper. During the long dry season of the Maasai steppe (not so long here in the of the Ngorongoro highlands), the cow dung plastering on the houses dries and cracks and tends to slightly curl up and even sometimes pieces fall off. The plaiting of thin branches and tightly twisted grass, which forms the basic covering of the walls and roof even become visible in places. This is difficult to avoid during the dry season, because so little wet cow dung is to be had. But with the onset of the rains, everywhere one goes these days in Maasai country, after the cattle leave in the morning, one sees the women and girls gathering the cow dung in wet piles near their homes. They heave a moist clump on to the roof of the igloo like house and then climb up on top themselves. Then they painstakingly put down layer upon layer of new plaster onto the roofs and walls of their homes, using the palms of their hands as mason’s trowels, thus making their houses totally impervious to all but the most torrential downpour. A Maasai home is almost always a warm snug place to spend the night, with its' warm fire and well worked mattress-soft skins on the beds.

Looking back on our Osotwa Education for Leadership program for the year of 1999, we have supported 24 Maasai girls and 14 Maasai boys in secondary and technical schools. Five of these girls and six boys graduate from high school (secondary school) this month. During 1999, our one year updating program in English and Math here in Endulen has seen 22 boys and 12 girls hone their skills in these basic subjects in preparation for high school (secondary school) and technical school entrance examinations that take place this month. Due in large part to the agitation of young Maasai men and women, products of our Osotwa Education for Leadership program, the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority has agreed to support two boys in secondary school (high school) from each area within the geographical limits of the Conservation Authority. On our part, we will try to find funding to send six of our girls and two boys to begin high school (secondary school).

I hope you have a great Christmas and many thanks to all of you who have helped with our Osotwa Maasai Education for Leadership Project over the past year. Please help me to continue the work here in Endulen. Sandi Grey will receive your contribution and let me know so that I can write to you. Sandi Grey, 47 Berkshire Ct., #3B, Akron, OH 44313-6761, U.S. of America (e-mail: bcgrey1@aol.com.)

January 2000

Mike Jemmett, our Canadian volunteer, looks backwards and to the future, evaluating our Osotwa Maasai Education for Leadership program:

Our Playing Field
When Tanzanians or expatriates discover I am teaching among the Maasai, they frequently comment, “They’re such an intelligent people.” Patronizing or accurate observation? If accurate, too little seems to be invested in capitalizing on this resource. Nevertheless, academic performance is a blend of genetic and environmental factors such as diet and health, parental encouragement or the quality of primary education.

Diet and health, many would say is adequate locally; others would claim substandard. Responding to negative parental attitudes, our girls usually remain living in our dormitory between terms, forging their own sisterhood, suspecting that a trip home could get them married off against their will, and end their formal education. I have heard of and occasionally seen ways in which (rural Maasai)primary education is deficient in resources, methodology and spirit.

Money and meddling supercede merit. Children learn almost as early as breathing the effects of corrupt “politics” through bribery, theft, nepotism…. One may counter that all societies face this; here, however, they face it on a grand and blatant scale in all spheres with no recourse. Children hear it, live it, suffer it. An Osotwa grad and Ngorongoro’s number one student this year on one set of exams, thrilled with his achievement and financial support, lives nervously day to day now, doubting his acceptance into the high school of his choice, or any for that matter. He realizes that one dishonest link in the educational chain could suspend or eliminate his progress. Our students do have a deck stacked against them, yet still they seek us out.

Initially, Osotwa worked with a handful of young people, but in time its reputation has grown among the Maasai and among administrators of schools to which our students would go. In January of 1999, 33 students were admitted to our one-year prep school program, regardless of primary school performance, in the hope of improving academic skills for possible secondary education. They ranged from inability to print their names to discussing elementary astrophysics in English.

However, three issues have developed over the years: the demand for entrance to Osotwa now exceeds ability to house, feed and provide educational materials; financial sponsorship for continuing education cannot be extended currently for all students, even if all excelled; and a lower pupil teacher ratio (PTR) would improve the quality of instruction. Consequently, we faculty of three decided to hold the first Osotwa entrance examination.

With no television, radio, newspaper or mailing addresses, how do we publicize this exam in the bush? Our mass media is best arranged on the second and fifteenth of each month when, from far and wide, Endulen hosts the market day. The ancient oral tradition is alive alongside our short wave based cyber-telecommunications.

“Exam” may be an overstatement: In fact, English and Mathematics consisted of ten written questions each, from the extremely simple to the complex, to be completed in a total of 25 minutes; the individual oral interview comprised three questions in simple English, and three in Swahili on general knowledge.

All ten girls who applied took the exam and were admitted in line with Osotwa’s philosophy of extending needed socio-academic assistance to young Maasai women. Of the 23 boys, 13 were selected. Overall, girls scored higher in all categories; but of those accepted, boys scored higher in all categories except English. “Yikes! Those scores!” you gasp. Remember the standard of education from which these applicants are emerging; also, locally, 20% is a pass compared to 50% or 60% in North America.

Eng. 20% on exam 25% on exam
Math. 63% on exam 50% on exam
Interview 61% on exam 53% on exam

Those accepted will have a narrower and higher range of academic abilities, ensuring greater post primary success. Accepting fewer students does not, as some claim, “relegate” them to the poverty of pastoralist lifestyle. We are no elitist. On the contrary, with the Maasai Osotwa maintains the valve and validity of pastoralism as chosen by the tribe; but we are working with the Maasai to regain the dignity of this tradition. This work, seen broadly, requires (formal) education and awareness. To this end, Osotwa is committed to raising the bar.
Beyond our Walls

We are dedicated to more than the one-year prep school and leadership program. We are careful not to start a student in secondary (high) school unless financial support is viable for a minimum of four years. Boys and girls, fortunate to gain assistance through donations to Osotwa, are placed in schools appropriate to their abilities and interests. As of January 2000, here is where our own Osotwa-supported graduates are pursuing their futures.

First yr. 2 3 3
Second yr. 4 3 7
Third yr. 1 0 1
Fourth yr. 4 7
Form V 1
Form VI 2

In addition, there are five 1999 high school graduate girls (graduated 1999) seeking positions in the fields of health and conservation in Maasai country. Of all those heading to secondary schools through Osotwa, our program provides tuition and incidental costs for approximately one in four. Our support is primarily but not uniquely for girls, who would otherwise be neglected. The education of girls is all the more significant in a culture where women traditionally have had little voice or exposure to ideas and options in order to determine their future and that of the culture they carry.

Education for Leadership, with your support, is working and we anticipate wonderful challenges ahead.

January 2001

A few days ago my morning trip to the outhouse was memorable. While sitting and contemplating, I became aware of a dark shape in the corner. It was late enough not to need a flashlight, but still early enough for everything to be in shadow. I became more and more alarmed as the minutes went by and it gradually became lighter. The shape slowly resolved itself into a very large black snake not two feet from where I was sitting. I think what saved me was the fact that it was a cool morning and the snake was very lethargic. Anyway I didn’t know what to do except to slowly get up and back into the corner. During that move, the snake didn’t even twitch. It seemed to be sleeping. This gave me the courage to open the door, which let a lot of light in. The snake still didn’t move. The door was only a couple of feet from the snake, but since he hadn’t moved, I screwed up my courage and went out the door like an Olympic champ. My hip replacement of six months ago didn’t seem to slow me down a bit. I called a couple of the older boys, students at our prep school, and they came with sticks. By that time the sun was coming up and it was warming up. The boys opened the door; they found a cobra at least three feet long and very much alive. They killed the snake with their sticks and I vowed never to enter the outhouse again at night without looking around with a flashlight to see if there was anything in the corners or in the rafters.

Christmas here in Endulen brought together hundreds of Maasai. There was a cow slaughtered, two bags of rice, cooking oil, onions and all kinds of other stuff. People came from miles around to celebrate together. Some had a clear idea of the day being the birthday of Jesus, others came simply because there was a feast. It was great, lots of singing, dancing, and eating. Everyone had a great time and plenty to eat.

On returning here to Endulen from an Arusha shopping trip three weeks before Christmas, I found myself climbing Ngorongoro Mountain at six thirty in the evening, still some two hours from Endulen. After a week of rain, the track was very muddy and in places deeply rutted, but with four wheel drive and chains on all four of the wheels, I knew that this would present no real problem. We were six in the car, a Maasai family, the father and mother with their three children, neighbors in Endulen, whom I met on the lip of the crater walking along in the twilight; they asked for a ride home. The trip was uneventful until we reached a densely forested area not far from Endulen. Tall trees and dense undergrowth hem the track on both sides, and at night one has the feeling of passing through a tunnel. At the same time the road was a morass of mud with frequent large unavoidable puddles of water. Without warning, as we came curve in the track, we came upon two, what I thought at first were Maasai cattle, bulls fighting, horns locked in the center of the track. They were totally covered with mud, and so intent on each other, they gave no sign of recognizing our presence. On closer inspection I realized that these animals were much taller and much more massive than even the biggest bulls among Maasai cattle, and that their horns were not only huge, but very distinctive bearing no resemblance at all to bull cattle horns. I realized with dawning apprehension that these were two of the largest Cape buffalo bulls I had ever seen, and they were in such a state of frenzied anger focused on each other, they did not even notice the car some twenty feet from them. There was no way around, so we simple sat staring in stunned silence at the combat going on in the headlights of the car. After a time, it became evident that there was a whole herd around us. Here and there out of the underbrush caught in the lights of the car was a head with a gleaming pair of eyes reflected in the headlights. After about ten minutes of watching in silence the back and forth pushing and pulling with locked horns, the bulls somehow freed themselves from each other, one ending up facing us from about five or six yards away seeming to be looking straight at us through the front windshield. Although I'm sure he couldn't see us because he was looking right into the headlights. He must of thought that another threat to his domination of the herd had suddenly appeared out of the night, or was simply so beside himself with anger he was ready to attack anything that wasn't clearly a buffalo cow. He charged the car with no warning and at a speed that was totally unexpected given his great bulk. The Toyota is Land is protected by massive bull bars on the front, so when his ton and a half of muscle and bone o by a pair of horns that would demolish a normal car, hit the Land Cruiser, the impact bent the bull bars a little but did no real damage. He did shove my very heavy land cruiser back a couple of yards. As we sat dazed, not believing our senses as to what was happening, he moved back a few yards and charged again hitting us in the same place and moving us some more. At his point, he moved off to the side into the underbrush, and we breathed a sighs of relief thinking it was over. After the two charges, each of which had moved the car a considerable distance, the Toyota was backed hard against a tree. None of us said much the rest of the way into Endulen; it was a very unnerving experience. The bull bars of the Toyota will permanently bear the reminders of that nocturnal meeting. The surprising thing about this incident is that something very similar happened to me about twelve years ago on the same road and it was Christmas time then too.

February 2000

This edition of the newsletter is from the perspective of a visitor to Endulen – an old friend of Ned’s and his son from the States. We came to help with some medical assistance, and we ended up gaining much more than we could ever contribute.

Many of us have been reading Ned’s newsletter every month with great interest. He describes the life of the Maasai and his school with such vivid stories that we feel like we are living there with him.

Well, I am here with him, and it is both better and worse than you can imagine. It is better, in that Fr. Ned has helped and is helping many, many students from Maasailand to survive and prosper, and they are giving their people a voice in the complicated and difficult world of Tanzania. It is worse in that life here is so much more difficult than I had imagined.

On our first day here, I was talking with an elder in Arusha – and he asked me why I had come. I told him I came to learn what life is like in Tanzania. He told me, “Life is hard”. And he is right, life is hard here. The country is so poor, and unemployment so high, that everyone has to struggle just to survive. It is especially hard out here with the Maasai. People struggle every day just to get firewood, food, and water, let alone obtain health care and an education. The roads are unbelievably bad. Power, water and communications are barely sufficient in the cities, and non existent here in the bush. Medical care is very poor, even in the established hospitals.

On the positive side, Endulen has been a real catalyst for helping the Maasai gain a voice in the government decisions that affect them. Through Ned’s hard work and energy over the years, he is helping to educate the best and the brightest of the Maasai boys and girls. And your help has been essential to making that happen.

While educating the best, he has also picked up the least, giving the Maasai a strong example of the Christian message. He has “adopted” many handicapped children in the area, and helped them to survive and prosper. There is Kayanda, who was trampled by a cow, breaking his hip and leg. His family did not get medical help for quite some time, and by the time they brought him to the hospital, his hip and leg were gangrenous. He smelled so bad that the other patients would not share a room with him. The doctors removed the diseased bone and the leg, and it is amazing that he lived. With that kind of severe handicap, he would never survive as a nomadic herder of cattle. He now has a prostheses that enables him to walk without crutches, but he is a growing and active boy, and it will need to be periodically replaced. He is doing well in school and will have a good future.

I also met Ngume, who lost a leg because of infection. He also has a prothesis, and now he can run and play soccer. His education here will make it possible for him to survive.

When we visited a village for Eucharist on Sunday, the village leaders told Ned about a severely handicapped young man, who could not walk at all. Ned agreed to take him on to see if we can manage him here. He picked him up, carried him in, and visits with him every day. His grandmother came with to make sure he is ok. She seems to love him greatly.

Lememakwa is another young man with a severe limp, who came in first place in Northern Tanzania for grade school completion. He is a very bright young man, who could have a great future, and help his people immensely. The government will pay for him to attend secondary school, but he also needs uniforms, books, and transportation expenses. Ned already supports many students, but he felt he had to add this one. And, as Ned says, he is really a good kid.

As we were sitting on the porch the other evening, a former student stopped by. He said that Ned had helped him finish school, and got him started on his college education. He was extremely grateful. He had returned here to teach, and is now the director of the NGO that is responsible for conservation projects in this area. He lives just down the hill from the school. His is another voice that speaks for the Maasai.

The root problem is that the Maasai run the risk of being reduced to the status of dispossessed people – forever outside the mainstream of this society, with their rights taken from them at every turn. They are now barred from living in the Serengeti, and their water rights are regularly restricted. Most of their territory is either national park or a conservation district.

Fr. Ned’s school and his graduates, and the many students he supports in this area are helping the Maasai gain a voice in the decisions which affect them. Every place we travel in this area, Ned is known, and we meet his students. They have jobs that enable them to help their people. With your help, he has made a significant difference in the history of this people, and in the lives of hundreds of students.

March 2000

Baraka, who just got back after four months in the hospital to straighten out a leg totally twisted since birth, started first grade this week. They did a masterful job of surgery and he can now walk on both legs, although he has a serious limp. He is very excited about school. Since birth, he has been sidelined because of his crippled leg. His folks asked us to have him live here with us so that he can attend school.

One day last week, I rode my motorcycle to the hospital to visit the sick. I almost ran down a monster wart hog. His teeth must have been fully a foot long. Maybe it was because I was so close to it, but it seemed to be about the biggest I’ve ever seen. Those fangs looked big enough to toss both me and the bike into the bush beside the road. He got out of my way just in time.

The people now have the part of the bean crop that didn’t dry up harvested, but the corn planted during the short rains was a total loss. They’ll have to plant again now that the long rains have begun and hope for some kind of a harvest in July or August.

When I was home in January with my brothers and sisters for my mom’s last illness, I bought a chain saw. For the last couple of years we have been loading very heavy limbs of firewood on the carrier of the land cruiser. The weight has begun to take its toll. The body has developed a few cracks. I took the car to some Indian specialists in Arusha and they repaired and strengthened the body. During my three weeks at home, I bought a chain saw with the idea of cutting logs into short lengths and loading all the firewood into the car, thus saving the body from further damage. This week, my Maasai girls and I went into the forest and filled the car with two foot long chunks of firewood. The chain saw, the smallest I could buy, fit easily into my luggage for the trip back, but it does a job you wouldn’t believe. We were astounded at the job, I as well as the girls, who had never seen a chain saw in action. It was the same kind of feeling of wonder as when we fired up our solar system for the first time
years ago. That chain saw is going to make a big difference in our lives here. It used to take hours to cut sufficient wood with our axes to fill up the car. Yesterday we did it in two hours and the lengths are short so we don’t need to use the carrier any more. Thank you Susan, Art, and Ruthy (my cousins) for your help in choosing and buying the chain saw. We bought just the thing that was needed. It’s great!! We need to carry all our water from the creek, a half a mile away, so easing the difficulty of getting firewood is a big help.

During a recent evening of story telling, Kiraine, one of our Maasai prep school students told a story. I thought you might enjoy hearing it.

A hare that lived near a river one day saw some elephants going to the kraals of their fathers-in-law. He said to the biggest one, who was carrying a bag of honey: ‘ Father, ferry me across, for I am a poor person.’

The elephant told him to get on his back, and when he had climbed up, they started.

While they were crossing the river, the hare ate the honey, and as he was eating it, he let some of the juice fall onto the elephant’s back. On being asked what he was dropping, he replied that he was weeping, and that it was the tears of a poor child that were falling. When they reached the opposite bank, the hare asked the elephants to give him some stones to throw at the birds.

He was given some stones, and he put them into the honey bag. He then asked to be set down, and as soon as he was on the ground again he told the elephants to be off.

They continued their journey until they reached the kraal of the big one’s father-in-law, where they opened the honey bag. When they found that the stones had been substituted for the honey, they jumped up and returned to search for the hare, whom they found feeding. As they approached, however, the hare saw them, and entered a hole. The elephants followed him, and the biggest one thrust his trunk into the hole, and seized him by the leg, hereupon the hare said: ‘I think you have caught hold of a root.’ On hearing this, the elephant let go his leg and seized a root. The hare then cried out - You have broken me, you have broken me,’ which made the elephant pull all the harder until at length he became tired.

While the elephant was pulling at the root, the hare slipped out of the hole and ran away. As he ran, he met some baboons, and called out to them to help him. They inquired why be was running so fast, and he replied that he was being chased by a great big person. The baboons told him to go and sit down, and promised not to give him up. The hare entered the baboons’ lair while they sat down outside and waited. Presently the elephant arrived, and asked if the hare had passed that way. The baboons inquired whether he would give them anything if they pointed out the hare’s hiding-place. The elephant said he would give them whatever they asked for, and when they said they wanted a cup full of his blood, he consented to give it to them, after satisfying himself that the cup was small. The baboons then shot an arrow into his neck, and the blood gushed forth.

After the elephant had lost a considerable quantity of blood, he inquired if the cup was not full. But the baboons had made a hole in the bottom, and when the elephant looked at it, he saw that it was still half empty. The baboons jeered at him, and said he had no courage, so he told them to fill the cup.

They continued to bleed him, but still the cup would not fill, and at length he sank exhausted to the ground and died.

April 2000

We had a terrific hailstorm recently. It totally shredded the leaves on the Maasai corn stalks that have grown to about a meter high. Generally it didn't break the stalks though so the corn will likely recover. The storm also demolished the vegetable garden of the school planted just a week ago when the rains started. Some small goats and sheep were killed and some weaker huts were smashed to the ground. Afterwards, the ice was as much as ten inches thick on the ground in some places. It looked like it had snowed. The children, seeing ice for the first time, were all filling cups and other containers and were sucking on the ice the rest of the day. The rain and hail was coming down so hard, it was seeping through the walls. We ended up with half an inch of water in the house. We had a major clean up job. The house is now cleaner than it has been for years.

This should gross you out. We have had a big rat in our outhouse for some weeks, seen from time to time running along the top of the wall. We put out a trap, baited with meat and got a sprung trap with a big tuft of fur. The second day we tried again and later found the trap five feet from where we had put it, sprung and with a rat leg in it. He had chewed his leg off to get away. No more rat sightings for the last five days, three legged ones or otherwise.

I can't stop praising my chain saw. It's the best thing to come along the pike since Maasai curdled milk and e-mail. I spent about an hour in the woods on the way back from teaching in a Maasai village yesterday. We filled the car with rock hard great firewood in about an hour. If STIHL Chain Saw Company wants someone from our Maasai Prep to do a TV commercial for them, we're ready.

While at a Maasai village, a couple of weeks ago, we were asked to take, Sidima, a boy of about eight together with his very old grandmother. He is totally paralyzed and badly retarded. They say they can't take care of him in the Maasai encampment that he comes from, and don't know what to do with him. We don't know what to do with him either but he's here. He seems happy and pleased to be around a lot of people who pay attention to him and care for him. I'm going to check it out, but I don't think anything can be done for him.

Ngaishambai looks like she has done twelve rounds with the heavyweight champ and lost all twelve. Ngaishambai is another recent arrival and is a woman with epilepsy. She is having seizures four or five times a day. She is really battered from falling down and getting bashed with things, when she has the seizures. New cuts and bruises show up every day as she continues to have seizures. Again, the people at her village gave up trying to take care of her and dropped her off here. I am taking her to the hospital regularly and they are trying to get her stabilized on medication, but they don't seem to be having a lot of success.

Three of my Maasai girls, having graduated from high school (Form IV) in 1999 have gotten jobs at our Maasai hospital in the North. The doctor, an Austrian volunteer, wants a Maasai nursing staff. He has agreed to take them on and let them work in the hospital for a year. After a year, if all goes well, he plans to send the three, Nemburis, Selina, and Siyama to nursing school under the sponsorship of the hospital there in Loliondo. One couldn’t do the work and another found it difficult to be around the sick, so we’re down to one at this point.

The periodic wars between the Sukuma and the Maasai are flaring up again. Two weeks ago, a raiding party of Maasai warriors from here attacked a Sukuma village over on the Western Serengeti, taking a sizable herd of cattle and spearing a Sukuma warrior, killing him. Now the Sukuma have come and raided the Maasai of our area, driving off a large herd of cattle and shooting dead a Maasai warrior with a rifle. Things are escalating fast. The police have captured some of the warriors from here. I don’t know what is happening with the Sukuma to the West. The elders are always trying to put a stop to the cattle raiding, but it’s difficult. Many of the Maasai warriors feel it’s part of growing up to make their bones with a successful cattle raid or lion hunt.

In another event, a Tanzanian Lutheran pastor working here in North Maasai has been shot dead by Somali raiders. These outlaws are a spill over from the troubles in Somalia. It seems that in Somalia, there are great numbers of automatic weapons to be had for the taking. Large numbers of these Somali bandits operate in Kenya and a few here in Northern Tanzania. The government is constantly trying to capture them, but never seem to get them all. Maybe it’s that more keep coming. The Maasai are very afraid of them and their guns. Some few Maasai warriors take up with them to share in profits of their raids. The Maasai warriors that join the Somali themselves become outlaws and outcasts.

Sein graduated from grade school (Std. 7) in 1998 and joined our prep school here on the mission in 1999. Her father is a very important person in the area, a leguanani (Maasai traditional leader) and a power among the local Maasai people. He wanted no part of Sein continuing her education and wanted to marry her off immediately after she finished primary school. Sein herself had other ideas and came to me asking that I take up her cause to continue her education. We did and it was a real battle ending up in the local courts. We took it all the way and won mostly because of the adamant stance of Sein to continue her studies. About the middle of the year (1999), Sein came to me saying that a brother and sister were to be circumcised and she needed to go home for the festivities. I thought long and hard about this because in so many instances, school girls, who go home for even a short time, come back pregnant. Sein felt that she could deal with that and so, reluctantly, I agreed. Two months later it became clear that I had made a mistake. Sein came to me and said that she thought she was pregnant. It had happened during the festivities a couple of months before. Those of you familiar with Maasai life know that Sein would have had little practical control over the situation. Sein asked that she be allowed to have her baby here and then continue her education. As we usually do when this happens, I met with the matrons of the girls and teachers. All felt she had a strong desire to continue and the kind of strong character to carry it through. We agreed that she stay with us and have the baby. After a couple of false alarms last week, we took her over to our mission hospital and she went into labor that lasted about six hours with no good results. It seems she has some kind of bone difficulty that makes it hard for the baby to get out. They did a caesarian section and both Sein and her little baby boy came through it. Sein lost a lot of blood during the operation and needed a transfusion. Since her folks were dead set against her going to school, they weren’t around. I, luckily, have a compatible blood type and was able to give her a bottle of mine. Many people were crowding around as my blood dripped into Sein’s veins. They thought she was going to turn white for sure. To the consternation of many, it didn’t happen.

May 2000

Recently an old man came to the door yelling that he was dead. He was crying and beside himself with fear, saying that a snake had just bitten him in the big toe and he was feeling the poison spread through his body. He said the pain was unbearable and he was feeling weaker and weaker, in fact, just about to die. Knowing the virulent nature of the poison that many of the snakes around here have, we immediately had him lie down so the poison wouldn’t spread by more jumping around. We called a couple of the boys and they carried him to the car. We drove to the hospital and called the doctors and sisters, fearing the worst. The medical people all gathered around and carefully examined his big toe. The diagnosis of the best medical minds here in Endulen, with no dissenting opinions was that the guy had a big thorn in his toe and that he was very drunk. Unable to take the general laughter, the man jumped up and took off at a rapid but somewhat wobbly run for home.

We have found out a little more about the Lutheran pastor I talked about last month. He was a Tanzanian and a MwaArusha by tribe. He was the Lutheran pastor of Malambo a two-day walk northeast of Endulen. It seems that he was not targeted because of his affiliation with the church, but rather because of the clothing he was wearing. He had on an army fatigue hat and a fatigue jacket. He was taking around some white visitors. The Somali bandits stopped the car that he and his visitors were traveling in and, thinking he was army or police, shot him dead. They then stole the car and left the white people unharmed on the road with the corpse of the pastor. The Somali have a special hatred for the army and police. The feeling is mutual since the government is doing its best to get rid of the Somali brigands in any way they can. The Somali caught and executed the area police commander a year ago. The army and police on their part have captured a good number of the Somali insurgents.

The local health officials have been getting more and more insistent that everyone build outhouses (We have five one-holers on the mission here.). The threat of cholera is very real and this is the first year in five that we haven’t had a death from the disease here in the Endulen area. For the last couple of years the health authorities have been fining people who didn’t dig latrines. Now they have gotten very serious, way overly serious in my estimation. They arrested four outhouseless men and one outhouseless woman and sentenced them to six months in prison. I agree with the need to do all in our power to prevent cholera, but the punishment these Maasai people have received is way over the top in my estimation.

Comment of Fr. Gene Hillman on the story of Sein in the April Endulen Diary: (Gene initiated Spiritan work in Maasai country in the early fifties. Over the years, he has been mentor/father/guru to generations of missionaries, my own among them. As his comments indicate, he maintains a strong interest in what goes on here). Gene writes…What is the rationale, and moral right, for Sein not obeying her father? What does customary law say about the future of her child? And about the future of Sein herself? What happens in any society when the natural bond between father and daughter is ignored? Is the bond superseded by the way things are apt to be done in U.S.A?

My response: Gene…Many thanks for your letter. The beef the parents have is with me not with their daughter. They don't seem to be able to believe that the daughter could seriously take such a stand. Secondly, invariably, within a year or at most two, even this bad feeling goes by the board and the relationship between the parents and myself is restored. As the parents see with their own eyes that the girls are not lost to them, but come home to visit frequently and have the ability to be of help to them because of their education, they become my close friends. This has happened over and over again. In the fifteen years we have been educating girls, mostly initially against the wishes of the family, I have not made a single long term enemy among the parents, nor has a single girl been alienated even temporarily from her family. None of the sixty plus girls we have educated has been lost to Maasai country or to their parents. Every single one has come back to marry an educated Maasai boy and either work in Maasai country or to return to her home village and marry in the traditionally arranged way. We have taken Sein to visit her father seven times during the past year. Each time they have sat and had long talks with each other. Their relationship if anything is closer than it was before, although they are still in basic disagreement over her future. He wanted her to marry an age-mate of his, whom he had promised her to some twenty years before she was born, at the time he and her husband to be were still warriors together.

In the larger picture, it is not our primary goal to further the education of Maasai girls or boys as individuals. We are fighting a battle for survival here. To site a couple of examples: As you know, more and more of the dry season pasture land is being taken by corrupt government officials and sold to the highest bidders. Maasai traditional leaders are among the worse offenders. Large tracts in central and South Maasai are being sold to European and local rich farmers to grow seed for export. In the North, great tracts of land have been given to Arabs as a private hunting preserve. There is only one way to turn this situation around; education is the key. We need a small but vocal leadership community of Maasai men and women who can sit on an equal footing with the non-Maasai people in the decision making councils with reference to land use, water, human and animal health, education, church issues and all the rest. In this leadership pool, we need women as well as men. The women are the ones most committed to the family and the stability of the Maasai as a people. Their priorities are their children, their parents and their extended families. The agenda of men is not always but sometimes their personal enrichment at the expense of the people they are supposed to be serving. Both men and women leaders are needed, and we am trying to do my part to provide these leaders.

We have a lawyer graduated December 1999 from Dar es Salaam University, a Maasai boy from Endulen, who is now working for the rights of the Maasai people here in the Ngorongoro area and elsewhere here in the North. In one year, Naado, one of our Maasai girls, will graduate as a registered nurse (four years nursing school following graduation from High (Secondary) school. She is resolved to return to North Maasai and work in one of the hospitals here, Endulen or elsewhere in Maasai country. The hiring practices of the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority have radically changed in the time my educated boys and girls have begun to get jobs there. A small group of them are very vocal. When I came here fifteen years ago, there were a few game scouts who were Maasai. No other Maasai worked for Conservation. Now a significant percentage of Conservation personnel are Maasai, right up to middle management positions. They are on the councils that make policy. Only time will tell, if we are right in what we are doing, but nothing so far has happened to tell us that we are wrong.

I brought Sein home from the hospital 3 weeks ago. Her mother and sister have been staying with her here on the mission for some weeks and are still with us. She has a beautiful baby boy and her operation incision continues to heal nicely. Her father hasn’t visited because of advanced age, but I will take Sein and her baby to visit him shortly.

Some of you asked what happened to the two girls that didn't work out in the hospital jobs. I pushed them to go because of the promise of further education if they liked working in the medical field and at the time there was nothing better on the horizon. One now will begin a course in Community Development in July, and the other has gone back to her home village till we figure out what she might want to get into and an opportunity arises.

Fr. Pat Patten, one of our Maasai missionaries and the pilot founder of our two-airplane Flying Medical Service here in Maasailand, comments on the renewal of cattle raiding between the Maasai and Sukuma people that I talked of last month. Pat writes: Concerning the cattle raids: Years ago we were able to stop this in the Loliondo area (the far North of Maasai country near the Kenya border) by simply suggesting that the police lock up the laiboni (spiritual leader giver of amulets to protect and cure people from every conceivable ailment) every time there was a cattle raid. The warriors -- at least then --would never, ever, consider going on a raid without the blessing of the laiboni. No blessing, no raid. The laiboni is always at fault. No free laiboni, no cattle raids. The laiboni learned very quickly to stop blessings on warriors going to raid cattle.

September 2000

New Hip
I’m back in Endulen after getting a new hip in the states on July 1st. The arthritis pain is gone and I hope to throw away the cane in another few weeks.

Kaiyanda breaks an arm…..
Last week, about the time I was getting off the plane from Europe, Kaiyanda broke his arm. Kaiyanda is a six-year-old boy, one of fourteen handicapped girls and boys we care for here at our place. They would otherwise just vegetate at home, not physically able to herd cattle, go for firewood or draw water. These children attend the local government school here in Endulen that is quiet close to the mission.

About two years and a half ago, Kaiyanda was herding the cattle of his mother. His father died years ago. Two bulls began to fight and Kaiyanda tried to separate them by hitting their horns with his stick. In the course of the battle, while Kaiyanda was standing beside them, one of the huge animals fell and Kaiyanda was in the way. The rump of the bull landed on his leg and smashed it flat. As often happens in Maasai country, the people didn’t immediately take the boy to the hospital. Lack of cash money and the reluctance of people to carry a stretcher over 50 miles to the hospital resulted in Kaiyanda staying at home untreated. When gangrene was already far up the leg, the people finally decided to make a stretcher and take him the 50 odd miles to our hospital here in Endulen. At the hospital, it was clear that the only way to save Kaiyanda’s life was to immediately amputate his leg. They did that and it was necessary to take most of his hip too. He recovered and his mom asked me to take him here so that he could go to school.

I was able to get a prosthesis made for him here in Tanzania and he finally came out walking on the artificial leg with only a limp. He has even gotten to play football with the other kids and runs faster then some on his wooden leg. Last week one of the fastenings on the wooden leg gave way during a football game and Kaiyanda fell, breaking his arm. He’ll be wearing a plaster for some weeks and then, I’m sure, will be back on the football feild.

Fr. Dominic Gathurithu describes the three big surprises he got when he went to prepare Maasai people for marriage at Engaruka. (taken from the East African Spiritan Newsletter of July, August and September 2000)

My First Surprise: The chairman of Engaruka church has five wives. Now, for those unfamiliar with Maasai culture, this may come as a surprise. The number of wives a man has is a measure of his wealth. Some have 15 wives! We asked the man, who was baptized with his five wives a few years ago, to marry in the church – with one wife of course. He asked, “Can you let me marry one more wife before this?” And I asked him why he would need another wife when he had 5 already. Answer: “In our culture one should have and even number of wives, so that three are on my left and three on my right – five is not acceptable.

I told him that marrying another wife was out of the question, and that, strictly speaking, he should live with only one wife. After an hour of questions and answers he gave his final word that he would not take the sixth wife, but would have to take her later – maybe next year. We had no choice but to strike his name from the list of families to be married. He commands a lot of respect among the people there, but I wonder whether he should continue being chairman of the church. How far can we go in accommodating cultural values?

My Second Surprise: Another elder asked in Swahili: “Nikifunga ndoa, je nitakubaliwa tena kumpiga fimbo mke wangu?” (When I marry in the church, will it be alright to continue to beat my wives?) This was question posed by a middle-aged man on our second day of instructions. Again, for those unfamiliar with Maasai culture, wife battering is commonplace. I explained to the men that love must be the foundation of their marriage. That their wives deserve respect. The very act of beating your wife is beastly. They must be ready to forgive, and correct each other in a dignified way. My point was received with much laughter, a sure indication that…wife battering is here to stay and that there is no better way of showing that you are in charge.

My Third Surprise: Of the eight men present, only three had brought their wives. Excuses: Some had gone to visit relatives far away and two had just given birth. One young man said he didn’t bring his newly wedded wife because he needed to know her better. I explained to them that it was advisable, actually necessary, that before marriage the two should adequately know each other – especially about character and other traits. I further explained that they should be driven to marriage by the love they have for each other, since “the two shall become one flesh.” That got their attention and scared one woman badly. The woman, who was not yet baptized, had missed the first two days of instruction. She said that she would much rather be with her women companions than with her husband all the time as becoming one flesh indicated. We explained to her that becoming one flesh did not mean that she would have to spend all her time with her husband. They would not be tied together as a literal translation of the Swahili: “kufunga ndoa” (to tie the marriage) might indicate.

Fr. Dominic says that, in spite of the surprises we shall be back to Engaruka for more instructions – and the remarkable day when the spouses will finally say “I do” is set for 1st October.

October 2000

No matter how long I live here in Endulen, I never seem to grow weary of the local sights. This afternoon, on the way to the hospital, I passed a long line of donkeys, driven by boys and girls and carrying grain to Maasai villages far out in the bush. Having bought the corn at the local shops here in Endulen, they were starting off on a trip of a number of days to reach their homes down on the edge of the Eastern Serengeti. They were laughing and calling to each other as they went, untroubled by the prospect of the thirsty and hungry journey ahead. A little further on, a warthog ran across the track in front of the car, proudly holding his tussled tail at full mast. Two giraffe stood in the shade of a tall Acacia tree with their long necks bow and their eyes closed. Some hundreds of yards further on was a herd of zebra, forced to leave the plains of the Serengeti, now a desert. They were getting little in the way of grass here in the Ngorongoro highlands. It is almost as dry here as it is on the Serengeti, visible in shimmering waves of dust far below us here in Endulen. Just before arriving at the hospital, we passed a small herd of impala desultorily scratching for what grass they could find in the virtual dust bowl that Endulen has become during this dry season.

Nosikito is not yet twenty. Ages are hard to figure out in Maasailand, but she has been married about three years and has a little boy still nursing; Kirika, her son, is closer to two than he is to one. She was married pretty young, as is usual here, where less than one in a hundred kids go to school. Boys usually don't marry till they are well into their twenties and sometimes beyond, but the girls are quickly married in their early teens to men of the older age groups, and as often as not into polygamous households. Nosikito and Kirika live in a Maasai village visible from our front porch, just twenty minutes walk across the valley. She is married to Lorore, a man of the age group, which at this point is ruling in Maasailand, men who are in their early forties to early middle fifties.

The significant thing about the life of Nosikito is that, although she is the younger wife, she has never hit it off with her husband. It is unclear, at least to me, how the falling out began. Perhaps he thought she was taking too much of an interest in the young warriors, people of her own age. He, almost, from the very beginning of their marriage has indicated that she is no more than tolerated, and is simply there to bear children. He never buys her a new cloth, never checks to see if she and her young son might be hungry during the dry season when there is little milk, and people are depending on corn flour which must be bought for cash at the shops. He very often beats her, and she has a good many scars on her back and shoulders, mementos of his frequent anger.

These days we read a lot about powerlessness, and that somehow, we should do something about empowering the powerless, but for the life of me, I can't figure how I might help Nosikito. Maasai women, are a pretty powerless lot. They do have effective control over the milk they get from the cattle assigned to their own house by their husband, and although this gives them a bit of a clout in certain situations, it is not helping Nosikito much. Her last milk cow died of Heartwater, a tick born disease, just last week. It will be a year or more before the two calves she has have their first calves and begin to give milk. Her co-wife, Ngoto Lande, is not helpful. In fact she speaks about Nosikito often to their husband, exaggerating Nosikito's faults, insuring that whatever help is available from their husband continues to come to her exclusively.

What kind of redress does Nosikito have within the Maasai society? Very little. Beating is not only allowed but it is said that a wife should be beaten from time to time, just to remind her who is boss. She can call together elders of her fathers' clan and accuse her husband to them, but to do this, she must have clear evidence that he has overstepped his prerogatives. To prove that is difficult, since elders have so much leeway in dealing with their wives. Even in normal conversation, the way one asks a women who her husband is is to ask, "Who do you belong to?". The only real out she has is to go back to her father. Here there are two major difficulties. Not all the time, but often, her father is not in a position to take her back because in accepting her back into his household, means giving giving her cows to milk. For this and any number of other reasons, her family may find it inconvenient for her to move back in with them. The second reason and by far the more compelling one for Nosikito and others in similar situations, is that her son stays with his father. She has no rights whatsoever in regard to what we would term "custody". Not only that, but any subsequent children she may give birth to at her fathers village or anywhere else, are the property of her husband, and after they are weaned, he will come to collect them. Nosikito talks of returning to the village of her father, but with little conviction. No matter how difficult she finds the going in the village of her husband, it is preferable to living without her son, Kirika.

November 2000

Our Osotwa Prep students gave their teachers, matrons, and cook a party this week. It was graduation time and they found a goat and took up a collection among themselves to buy soda and beer (beer for the teachers). They even put on a short play for us. We were really bowled over by their sensitivity and thoughtfulness. I think it is unusual to find a group of twenty 15 and 16 year olds who would take the time to plan such a thing and find the money to put it on.

Ngoto Morindat stopped by yesterday. In the course of our conversation as we sat on the front porch, she told me that she badly needs an operation on her leg. She had polio as a child and had an operation some years ago that helped her to walk more normally, but one leg is substantially shorter than the other. Now, the pressure on her hip, because of walking on the toes of one foot for years, her whole side gives her constant pain. She needs an operation that will cost about a hundred dollars to put her right. She is the first wife of a man with six wives, one of the richest men in this area. When she asked him to help her get the needed operation, he was quite up front with his feelings in his response. He said: “I’m not helping you older women any more. Find the money yourself or live with the leg as it is”. This is a common attitude on the part of Maasai husbands. The younger wives get all the attention and help. The older ones fall by the wayside as far as interest and help goes on the part of the husband. The only thing an older wife has to fall back on is a grown son. Ngoto Morindat has a half grown son who is presently off visiting people in Kenya. The only thing she can do is to borrow the money for the operation and hope that her son can help her pay it back when he returns.

It seems to me, although viewing the situation from the outside, that the retiring warrior age set, "Ilking’onde" as they are called, has some real problems. They are the people who were teenagers in the eighties and now are entering young elder hood. The younger ones would be in their middle to late twenties and they go all the way to almost forty. The age group above them made a smooth transition to elder hood. They are the "ruling" elders these days and can be seen playing the board game with its parallel rows of scooped our places representing cattle crawls. They play with small smooth stones representing cattle. It is a little like our cribbage. The person rounding up the most cattle at the end of the game wins. These "Ilmakaa" elders sit in the shade and play this game in the heat of the day. In the morning, it is they who decide and tell the young boys where the cattle are to be taken for grazing that day. When the herds are to be watered every third day, they usually go along to make sure everything goes well. Theirs too is the task of doctoring the cattle with pills or injections when necessary. During the day from time to time they ask for progress reports on the herding of the young calves and very young goats which is done near the village and is the chore of the young children, watched over by the women. They elders usually take a nap in the afternoon, and always have plenty of time to shoot the breeze with fellow villagers and passers by. Life for them usually goes on in an unhurried pleasant way. Somehow this model, which has been the life style of successive age groups of elders from time immemorial, does not fit our retiring warriors. The country is not that much different than it always was. Very few of these people have gone to school. It is hard to put ones finger on just what has changed. There is a new restlessness in the air, a desire for change manifested mostly by dissatisfaction with the life style that brought contentment in the past. These young men can't fit into the old way of being elders and they have no new models to latch on to. Here in the Endulen area great numbers of them have taken to drinking. In fact, there are few to be seen in the villages during the day. On the other hand the local beer shops, and there are many here in Endulen, do a thriving business. And as one passes by a large proportion of the patrons seem to be the "Ilking’onde", the retiring warrior group. I don't want to be over dramatic, but it appears to me that a whole generation is going down the drain. Leaders from the government and from the missions need to do some really creative thinking about this.

Mike is a Canadian volunteer doing a three-year stint of teaching at out Osotwa Maasai Prep School here on the mission at Endulen.
Rats! Dozens, hundreds, thousands of ravenous rodents; eating, gnawing, burrowing, stealing our food, perforating our clothing, disturbing our sleep, all at the speed of greased lighting. What to do? Perhaps the top three traditional lines of attack have been cats, poison and the classic rattrap.

Although many Osotwa students already knew how the last option works with deadly efficiency, just to be sure, we demonstrated one. Then, as part of the creative problem-solving aspect of the education program here, I turned the rat problem over to the students for inventive solutions. However word must have gotten out, because the entire campus pest population mysteriously decamped en masse that very week.

Goal: To produce a rattrap that is:
1. Effective (It catches rats)
2. Easy to handle
3. Re-usable

Purpose:
1. To have fun
2. To Exercise your creativity
3. To reduce or control the local rat population

Method:
1. Safety first
2. Work in teams of two to discuss, draw plans and make one or more working models of a rat trap designed to catch one or more rats, dead or alive.
3. Test the trap in a suitable location where you, other people and animals will not be hurt.
4. Re-design and re-test the model if necessary.
5. Make a finished product.

Notes:
1. Your own team’s ideas and efforts are important. Do not ask for outside help.
2. You may ask for, borrow, find or but any materials needed. Do not take without asking.
3. Try to keep your designs and model secret. Do not let others copy your work.
4. Products will be judged on originality and effectiveness.

After the three weeks, the students’ productivity was rather paltry. Of ten teams, only four participated: one wan an antiquated commercial trap (disqualified); two were recreations of the classic (unoriginal in design, but originally reworked from scrap materials); and only one showed ingenuity.

With rubber straps, thick sticks hewn from trees were attached to a gallon (five liter) plastic container with a narrow mouth. The sticks provide stability for the container, and access to the mouth at the top of the trap. Once the rat dives in for the bait, there is no escape back up the slippery plastic sides, and the victim is trapped for future disposal.

A few eyebrows were raised by non-participants as we awarded third and second prizes; and many jaws dropped and eyes popped as a shared 10,000/= shilling (almost $13 US) first prize was dealt out. “But we didn’t know we could get anything for this! We didn’t see the point of bothering! The slackers whined; the winners beamed. Ah, such are the surprises of education for leadership; such are the rewards of life.

December 2000

A Christmas gift for the Maasai people (a potential leader):
One very dry morning last month, just before the onset of the rains, I left the car at the top of a small hill. I tramped a short distance through a heavily forested place to a group of Maasai villages for my regular round of meetings during which we talk about problems the people are having, possible ways to deal with them and have some religious teaching. It is normal to meet Maasai along the path, some on their way to cut firewood others to draw water and still others going to the Endulen shops with their donkeys to buy corn flour, which is their staple diet when milk is insufficient. Coming along the path toward me I noticed a young girl. As other teenage girls soon to be married, she was decked out in a beautiful goatskin skirt covered with intricate patterns of brightly colored beads. She wore an eight inch wide beaded leather belt, the special garb of the unmarried young girl. Its striking patterns of red, blue and white beads complimenting her leather skirt and the bright red cloth tied at her shoulder reaching to her knees. Circling her head she wore a brightly beaded straps, which sparkled like a crown in the early morning sun. Around her neck was the colorful platter of beads fastened together with wire, the everyday necklace of Maasai women and girls. Hers was replete with the sky blue and white beads favored by her age group.

She greeted me in the traditional way of young boys and girls by bowing her head for me to touch her momentarily on the top of her head with my open palm. Then I said hello with the customary words "My little mother, be in good humor". From then on our conversation was anything but normal. Instead of simply passing on her way, she, in a nervous yet determined tone of voice which bespoke the tremendous effort it must have taken for her to have screwed up her courage to speak to me, a virtual stranger, she blurted out, "I want to go to school."

This was the beginning of a month of endless and intricate negotiations with her father. She was already "married" in the sense of everything was prepared, and her prospective husband, a man in his late fifties, was distinctly unhappy at the prospect of losing his young bride, to say nothing of her father who was looking foreword to the expansion of his herd of cows, the marriage of Naitira would bring. Her father has now agreed and Naitira will begin our prep school program here on the mission in January. Following the year here, she will begin secondary school and just maybe, after her education, will take her place among the young women in leadership positions here in Maasai country, graduates of our OSOTWA MAASAI EDUCATION FOR LEADERSHIP here at Endulen Mission.

WHAT WAS
WHAT IS
WHAT MAY YET BE
(Contributed by Mike Jemmitte, Canadian volunteer here at Osotwa Prep.)

Year 1999
Osotwa’s academic year runs from mid-January to mid-June, and mid-July to late October. When I arrived in July of 1999, I was just building up steam in Swahili, so initially I sat and the back of the class soaking up appropriate subject vocabulary and observing the teaching methods and student response. Within a couple of months, I became far more active.

Teachers often teach as we were taught. Although my two untrained Maasai colleagues were well meaning and energetic, their traditional methods, especially in English, favored rote verbal repetition, and copying from the blackboard into notebooks. The language style, inherited generations back, was often formal and colonial, and comprehension was usually incidental.

Our class of 36, crowded elbow-to-elbow, seven to a bench, copied answers and errors from each other on exercises and tests, with questionable diligence and invalid test results. Under such circumstances, bright students are often bored, challenged ones lost.

Over a decade and a half, Osotwa had grown marvelously, but I could see a place for improved and varied methods to match the (still limited) resources of time, materials and finances.

We introduced a simple entrance exam to select fewer but higher-skilled students. In part, this was undermined by “politics” and we ended up with 24 primary school graduates: only one could write the alphabet in three minutes; a few could barely read Swahili with minimal comprehension; a third had difficulty adding double-digit numbers; and only a small but significant number met our anticipated levels of competence. Teachers and students alike, we rolled up our sleeves and dug in.

The academic timetable was restructured and expanded to accommodate more realistic student levels of interest and energy.

Emphasis was placed on practical, modern English in all the skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing; speed, accuracy and alternative routes to correct answers in math were stressed.

I added an ad-hoc advanced English class, usually once a week, attendance optional, in the second term for the 3 to 8 who participated, we played, worked and laughed strictly in English.

Previously in storage, about 200 story books at all levels and various reference materials, including encyclopedias, maps and current (2000) National Geographic magazines (pictures can spark reading curiosity) are now available in a newly- constructed cabinet. Managing the Osotwa Library, two students demonstrated their organizational skills, responsibility and leadership.

A bulletin board was installed across the top of the blackboard to summarize and reinforce important learning material.

Not a music teacher by any stretch of the imagination, I did experience some success working with the students’ natural penchant for singing, a more productive and fun form of rote memorization.

A student vegetable garden was instituted with modest success in tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and broccoli. Individuals and pairs exhibited commitment, cooperation, leadership and physical stamina in the face of a hail storm (piled ten inches/25 cm deep), draught, disease, bug infestations and marauding goats and little children.

In preparation for next year, we will travel as far as 200 km overall in two days to visit four areas where prospective students, interested in furthering their formal education with Osotwa, will be screened for basic and advanced, written and oral math and English skills, and for simple, quick problem-solving. Ned has tried to assure me that only those whom my team and I select without third-party interference will be invited to join the Osotwa community. Our goal is to seek out and nurture potential, modern Maasai leaders.

I hope to expand the daily time allotted to our core subjects, English and Math, while maintaining the valuable place of the social awareness course (including Maasai folklore, women’s rights and men’s responsibilities); General Studies ( a collection of elementary geography, history, science and civics); and “sermon on the mount” teaching.

The advanced English class will be formalized but remain optional and totally fun.

We will have another “creative problem-solving project” (see past newsletters)
1999 move a boulder in 15 days
2000 build a better rattrap in 21 days
2001 (top secret – stay tuned)

More music! More of the Discovery and National Geographic Channels! Field trips!

Each year we have little more than eight months to raise our students’ fluency and comprehension in literacy and numeracy, to help them be as competitive as possible in secondary and trade schools, to increase their awareness and desire to participate in developing a healthy, secure Maasai future.

As I do every year at Christmas time, I ask your financial help to continue our program for leadership here in Endulen. It is primarily aimed at Maasai girls, although we always end up with more boys than girls due to the difficulty of getting the girls. Education is the key to an articulate leadership among the Maasai people, the way for them to take charge of their affairs. This is our project here at Endulen. If you can manage to send something, it is not a good idea to send a check to East Africa. Often letters are opened and money is stolen.

January 2001

February 2001

OleSeyanoi has died. I am sorry that he died, but I’m happy that he is out of the picture here in Endulen. It was the day of the cattle market, and as is their custom, the elders had come from far and wide to sit together, eat the news and drink. OleSeyanoi, a member of the village council, and, years ago, rich and influential, was among them. His influence and respect had deeply eroded in recent years as he continued to marry more wives that he couldn’t take care of and, at the same time, sold off more and more of his cattle to pay for his heavy drinking.

The day of the cattle market was a day of heavier than usual drinking. I had rained heavily all day long and the elders had mostly done their drinking in the tent set up at the cattle market as an impromptu bar. By evening, the stream in the valley they lies between Endulen village and the and the small mountain where OleSeyanoi and his friends have their villages was in full spate. The old men followed the path that wound its way down the hill from the shops and stopped in muddled surprise on the bank of the stream. It was rushing by at a great rate and instead of its usual slow moving placid depth of a couple of inches, it was now at least a couple of feet deep and rushing angrily over its’ rocky bottom. The ten-foot width was to far to jump and they were afraid to wade through the rushing water in their unsteady condition. All but OleSeyanoi decided to return to the shops for the night. He, with great bravado shouted over the sound of rushing water that he must reach his crawl that night to see that all his cattle had returned home safely. Ignoring the protests of his friends, he stepped off the bank in the gathering darkness to take the four or five steps that would be needed to cross the rushing water. The elders shouted to him as he was swallowed by the gloom but their shouts were snatched away by the wind and driving rain, as was any response that OleSeyanoi tried to make. Whether he slipped on a rock or simply was knocked over by the rushing water remains a mystery. His body was found the next morning some two hundred feet further along the stream.

It was a sad death for his family of nine wives and many children, although he took little care of them. As is dictated by Maasai custom, his brothers will divide up his cattle and take care of his family. The second sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t.

OleSeyanoi has been an enemy of education during all of my fifteen plus years here in Endulen. In the early years, he not only fought not only the education of girls but also that of the boys. As more Maasai boys joined our prep school and went off to secondary school, he became reconciled to the education of some of the boys, but remained to the day he died, a strong adversary of girls going to school. He systematically encouraged his fellow elders to take the few girls out of our local primary school long before they finished grade 7, the final year. Thus, there was no chance that they go to secondary school, because they had been long since taken to the crawls of their husbands. My efforts to fight this situation came in for a lot of opposition from OleSeyanoi and his cohorts, the locally politically powerful. Fortunately, when he hauled me into court on three different occasions over the years, accusing me of taking married women and sending them to secondary school, I was able to win by appealing to the central government representatives in the area. The government of Tanzania is theoretically on the side of the women who want an education, so I was always on solid ground pleading their right to go on in school. It was true that theoretically they were “married”, in fact in two of the cases they had been promised and so had “husbands” since they were five and eight years old respectively. In the third instance, the girl was taken to the crawl of her “husband” as a sixth grader so that she could not go on to secondary school. Here in Maasai country marriage doesn’t take place just on the day the girl is taken to the crawl of her husband. It is a process that can begin ten or more years earlier, sometimes before the girl is born culminating when she leaves her parent’s crawl and travels to the home of her husband.

We now have our young Maasai women in leadership positions in many aspects of Maasai life here in Northern Maasai country:
• Two Maasai assistant nurses in Endulen hospital
• Two are beginning two years of advanced studies in village outreach education programs, One in the “Maendaleo ya Jamii” school in Iringa Tanzania and the other in a school by the same name in Musoma Tanzania
• One of our girls will graduate as a fully registered nurse in 2001. She will have a specialty in Pediatrics.
• Veterinary assistant at Ngorongoro Conservation
• Maasai girl in third year of registered nursing school at Huruma hospital on Mount Kilimanjaro
• Veterinary assistant in Simanjiro district of Maasai country
• Three girls working full time in the Maasai villages doing extension programs for the betterment of the lives of Maasai women
• Another is now working as an assistant nurse at our government clinic here at Ngorongoro.
• Two are now taking advanced language courses so that they may join the advisory council on tourism to the Conservation Authority of Ngorongoro.
• Others have gotten into local government on the village level.
Others have returned home to be married to our educated Maasai boys, many of who are also products of our push to develop leaders among the Maasai. The graduates to date have all returned to Maasai country and are reintegrated into the community.

March 2001

For hundreds of years the Pastoral Maasai of the East African plains have been gathering around their evening fires telling stories. These stories are the way Maasai introduce their children to their values, the things that are important to them as a people. Here is one of them.

There was once upon a time an old man who lived in a kraal with his neighbors. And this old man had a wife and a small child, and he possessed a very fine ox.
One day he said to himself: “How shall I slaughter my ox” and he said aloud to his wife: “My child! I will call the men and tell them that I am going to move. We can then slaughter our ox all by ourselves.” His wife agreed, and in the evening the old man blew his horn as a signal to his friends that he had something to tell them. His neighbors collected together, and he told them that be wished to move as the air did not agree with him. The others consented, and in the morning
he saddled his donkeys, separated his cattle from the rest, and started off, accompanied by his wife, who was carrying the child. When they had gone some distance, they halted and erected their kraal, after which they rested.

At dawn the next day the old man called his wife, and asked her why they had not yet slaughtered their ox. The woman replied: “My husband! How shall we manage to slaughter the ox? There are two things to be considered, the first is that we have no herdsman, and the second, that I am carrying the baby.” The old man then said:

“Oh, I know what we will do. I will stab the ox in the neck, then I will leave you to skin it, and I will carry the child to the pasture when I go today to graze our cattle. But when you have skinned the animal, roast some meat so that it will be ready on my return.”The old man then killed the ox, after which he girded himself with his short sword, picked up his spear and bow and quiver, put the child on his back, and drove the cattle to the grazing ground, where he herded them.
In the afternoon, as the child was asleep, the old man put it down in the grass, and went to drive back the cattle, for they had wandered far. But when be returned to the spot where he had left the child, he was unable to find it, so he decided to set light to the grass, ‘for,’ be thought, I when the fire reaches the child, it will cry, and I will ran to the place and pick it up before it is burnt.’ He made a fire with his fire-sticks, and the fire traveled to where the child was. He ran to the spot, but when he reached it, he found that the child was dead.

The old ran bad left his wife in the morning skinning the ox. And while she was skinning it, she had just reached the dewlap, the knife slipped, and she stabbed herself in the eye. She went and lay clown, and the birds came and finished the meat.
After the child was burnt, the old man drove the cattle to- the kraal, and when they were opposite to the gate, he heard his wife weeping, and saying: “Oh, my eye!” He therefore asked her who had told her the news.
“What news!” she inquired.
The child has been burnt,’ he replied.
The woman exclaimed: “Oh, my child!”
The old man then asked where his meat was, and his wife informed him that the birds had eaten it, whereupon he cried out: “Oh, my meat!” They both wept, the old man crying: “Oh, my meat!” and the woman: “Oh, my child!” “Oh, my eye!”
Look well at these people. It was for their greed that they were punished; they lost their child and their ox, the woman lost her eye, and they had to return in shame to their former home.………………………………………………………………………………………………

March 17, update…
The car battery died yesterday so Mike, the Canadian volunteer, went into Arusha with the car this morning to buy a new one. There hasn’t been a trip to Arusha for over eight weeks so there is a lot of shopping for the school and house to do anyway. We got the hospital car to give us a pull to get the car started for the trip.
I have been scanning pictures I’ve taken over the years and now have filled up a zip disk. I gave the disk to Mike with over 90 mg. of stuff on it. He will send it to Fr. Ralph Poirier, who is constructing the Endulen web site. Ralph may find some of the material useful for the site.
One of the things, I bought on my last trip to Arusha was a 5 x 50 gal. capacity rubber water tank and enough guttering for both the boy’s and girl’s dormitories. We got the guttering installed on both rooves and the one tank on the girl’s dormitory. It has been a great help collecting rain water during each rain; it is raining almost every day now. Mike will bring back a second tank to put on the dorm of the boys, which will double our capacity. The tanks are very light and can be carried on the carrier on top of the land cruiser.

Sukuma warriors raided a large here of cattle in the Endulen area the day before yesterday. Most of the herd belonged to our head teacher here at Osotwa Prep. He is also chairman of Endulen village and a member of the pastoral council that advised the Conservation Authority on the needs of the Maasai. There was calling in the distinctive Maasai way in time of danger when the raid took place from hill-top to hill-top. Maasai warriors gathered from every direction and went after the Sukuma raiders. They’re not back yet, so we don’t know what happened.

One day last week, hearing the crying of some women, I went out onto the front porch. Laying on the grass in front of the porch was an unconscious boy of about twelve or thirteen. It turned out that he had fainted from hunger. We gave him some food and let him rest. When able that evening, he explained to me that he and his father had come from OldoinyoGol. That is a Maasai area on the edge of the Eastern Serengeti some six days walk from here. He and his father had come with donkeys to buy ground corn to take back to the family a OldoinyoGol. It seems that on nearing Endulen, one of the donkeys was frightened by something or other and took off in a straight line toward the forest above us here and hasn’t been seen since. The father blamed Sangoi, his son, for the loss of the donkey. He was so angry, they he chased Sangoi away, telling him that he never wanted to see him again. After wandered around the Endulen area, a place totally strange to him, for a few days someone told him he might be able to get something to eat at the mission. He has been here now for three weeks and still no sign of his family. I’ve enrolled Sangoi in first grade at the locally primary school and am still waiting to hear from his father.

April 2001

Photographs of Maasai way of “doing” Christianity on our web site:
Fr. Ralph Poirier continues to work on the Endulen web site. He has recently expanded it to include pictures and explanations on how we are working to make Christianity make sense to the Maasai. We use their traditional symbols and ways of doing religious things.

Mike Jemmett, our Mennenite volunteer, talks the library we are putting together for our Maasai Prep School here on the mission in Endulen:

The great clay libraries of Mesopotamia; the wealth of the ancient papyrus library of Alexandria; the parchment and paper libraries of medieval Europe; and now, ladies and gentlemen, we present the Osotwa Maasai Preparatory School Library.

We have grown from a dusty stash of children's storybooks housed in three cardboard boxes. Two years ago, a couple of times a week, I used to haul these down from the upper storage shelves in my bedroom for students to exchange reading materials. Great exercise.

Last year, we tailored, hinged and varnished a pair of plywood doors to an old 3' x 6' bookcase located in our cramped and humble living room. Students were invited in weekly to make their selections from over 300 storybooks; or to poke about encyclopedias, dictionaries, and reference works on nature, science and the humanities, or a growing National Geographic Magazine series. All of these latter were well above the students' abilities, but the pictures and diagrams often spark interest: What is that? How do they do that? Why?

In bygone days, the students were normally relegated to night study by the glare of a single kerosene lamp in the dormitories on a table that doubled for dining… not always the cleanest or quietest with a dozen primary school co-boarders running about like moths. After seven years of primary school, not one of our current students entered knowing the alphabet. Many knew what a dictionary was, but had never seen one, let alone used one, even in Swahili!

In March this year, we moved the shelving into a recently vacated bedroom. The bed was pitched and in its place sprawls a vast, wooden table to seat ten on stools and a writing desk with two chairs. Ned contributed three storage chests and the shelving was slid in; we decorated the walls with pictures, posters and maps; suspended an inflatable globe down to eye level; installed a geoscope and radiometer (look those up in your dictionary), directional compasses, a clock and a large wall thermometer which they've learned to read; stored donated games: chess, checkers, backgammon, dominoes and a puzzle; and a ton of craft materials like crayons, pencil crayons, markers, watercolors, coloring books, white and colored paper, chart paper, cardboard cartons, scissors and glue.

Now our prep students have a place under solar-powered, florescent lighting that is far more conducive to productive night reading, studying or quiet gaming to stretch their minds and inspire their interests and talents with almost 400 volumes. We can spread huge sheets of chart paper along the table, and since the students were always and incorrigibly writing and drawing on the classroom desks, now they can doodle or work out academic problems to their hearts' content, and take the sheets back to their dorms when finished. They can work in smaller groups in shifts to assist and teach each other; the proficient get practice in communicating and scholastic reinforcement, while the weaker get the extra help to seek out if they wish. Today, most can find a word in a bilingual dictionary, although for a few it may take ten minutes.

Oh, how their faces light up when they do find their word through perseverance. Just recently, a young warrior who read an entire English paragraph in a pictorial text on Maasai culture exploded with, "I am understanding! I am understanding!" It reminded me of Helen Keller, the famous deaf and blind woman, "seeing the light" of knowledge in the movie 'The Miracle Worker'.

For all generous donations, past and present, large and never small, we thank you sincerely...Mike

June 2001

Some of you may have noticed that during the initial stages of creating our Osotwa web site, Fr. Ralph posted a picture of myself with a young child. I’m sorry to report that the boy, Tendeu has died. The totally paralyzed and retarded seven-year-old child was brought to the mission by his grandmother. She had brought him to us in the hope that I might find some help for Tendeu. I took her with the boy to two hospitals in the hope of finding someone who could do something for him. The answer was the same everywhere: “There is nothing that can be done.” On finding that there was no help to be had, the old lady returned with her grandson to their home village in the mountains of Ngorongoro. I recently received news that Tendeu has died; there was no explanation as to the cause of his death.

Recently a non-Maasai young man, working as a day laborer here in Endulen, was drinking with a gang of game scouts in one of our local drinkeries. The game scouts proposed a wager. If the young man could drink a box of Konyagi, the local gin, the game scouts would pay for the drinks. If he couldn’t finish off the box, he would have to bear the bar bill. A box of Konyagi consists of 24 plastic packets, each containing one shot (tot) of the gin. They look like the small plastic packets of shampoo provided in hotel rooms. The fellow finished the box, won the bet, walked to the room where he was staying and fell over dead at the door.

Warriors of the Sukuma people, whose country borders the Western Serengeti, raided the herds of Endulen Maasai cattle two weeks ago. They came with rifles and, in daring coordinated daylight raids, got away with some nine hundred cattle of various Maasai elders. The Sukuma attacked when the cattle were far from their home crawls grazing. The accuracy of the numbers of cattle taken are from the Maasai themselves and may be exaggerated, a trifle salted as we say locally. One Sukuma was killed, speared as he drove the cattle away. The rest separated the cattle into smaller bands and took off across the Serengeti, headed for home. Local Maasai warriors quickly mobilized, asked for and got Ngorongoro Conservation vehicles, and were off in hot pursuit. They obtained the use of the Serengeti Park airplane to spot the rustlers from the air. They tracked them for three days and due to the airplane that was in contact with the land rovers by radio, captured about a third of the cattle and a number of Sukuma warriors. The Sukuma, like the Maasai, believe that all cattle really belong to them, having been given to them as a gift from God during the creation phase of history. Therein lies the basic ideological difference between the two peoples, and the source of their regular to-and-fro cattle raids. Our teenagers came back in joyful bands, singing of their victory, and promising a revenge raid on the Sukuma in the near future. The killing goes on.

Lemayani OleKeriko, a very old man talks of
the feelings the Maasai have about cattle and grass.

The Maasai love their cattle very much, and consider that nothing in the world is of equal value. As with people, each cow is known by name. There is a saying: "One cow is like a man's head." This means that if a man has a cow, which he looks after and tends, it bears, and by so doing enables him to live. He will marry and have children, and thus become rich.

Now cattle feed on grass, and the Maasai love grass on this account. Whenever there is draught, the women fasten grass on to their clothes, and go and offer up prayers to God. If a warrior beats a boy on the grazing ground, the boy tears up some grass. When the warrior sees that the child has grass in his hand, he stops beating him. Again, if the Maasai fight with an enemy, and wish to make peace, they hold out some grass as a sign.

Whenever warriors return from a raid, the girls desire to praise those who have killed some of the enemy. A girl takes a small gourd of milk, and having covered it with green grass, sprinkles it over them. When people move they tie grass on to the gourds during the journey.

Should one man ask forgiveness of another with grass in his hand and his request be ignored, Maasai say that the man who refuses to listen to his prayer is a Dorobo (a member of that hunter gathered tribe), and that he does not know about cattle. Again, if a man who is traveling sees a tree that has fallen on the road, he pulls up some grass, and throws it on the tree; otherwise he fears that his journey will not be successful.

The Maasai love cattle and grass very much for they say: "God gave us cattle and grass; we do not separate the things that god has given us.

July 2001

Last week we had our regular church gathering at the community on the heights of Mount Makorot overlooking Ngorongoro crater. The atmosphere was very different than it normally is. The people came in greater numbers and they were subdued even somber. There was no talking beyond the minimal exchange of greetings. Our little thatched roof goat shed church filled to overflowing and still they kept coming.

The day before I had arrived with a very old lady and a child just days old. The previous week I had taken Sayanoi, a young girl not sixteen years old with her new born baby just hours old to Endulen hospital. Saiyanoi could not deliver the afterbirth. After traveling the two hours over our bad roads to reach Endulen she was very tired, just wiped out. The sisters and doctor worked through the night to save her but it wasn't to be. She died shortly after midnight. She was seriously anemic, and giving birth had just about exhausted her last reserves of strength. Then the long trip to Endulen tired her further.

So now I had come with Saiyanoi's grandmother and the infant back to Makorot with the heartbreaking news of the death of Saiyanoi. The reaction of her family and friends was typically Maasai, disbelief then despair, wailing, tearing their clothing, throwing themselves every which way and thrashing around on the ground. This was all very predictable. I took people from nearby villages with me to help hold on to the people so they wouldn't hurt themselves. This complex of villages comprises my Christian community. I was disappointed. I had hoped that after all my preaching and teaching about the hope we have in Jesus and about the resurrection of the dead that the reactions of the people to death would show some change from the old reaction of total despair. I together with the neighbors and friends sat together for many hours with the family not saying much but lending what support we could by just being with them.

As evening was coming on and everyone was dispersing to return to their own villages to receive the cattle and goats returning from pasture, the husband came up to me. Tomorrow there will be church as usual will there not? I said yes there would be, and went on my way.

Now it was the next day and time for our church gathering and people were coming in unprecedented numbers. The mother of the dead girl arrived, her husband came, and her father took his place in the front row. It is hard to describe my consternation. The behavior of these Maasai people represented a major departure from custom. That the family of a person dead not twenty-four hours would leave their village and gather with others for any reason is unthinkable. Mourning among these people is carefully observed, and especially in the case of a beloved son or daughter the family goes into seclusion for days. Saiyanoi was beloved by the whole community. It was said that she had "osotua" close ties of friendship among all the villages. The people said we are all "sick" because of her death. We are all "weak" because of her death. I had not expected more than two or three people for our church gather. Now well over a hundred people were crowding into our little church and the overflow was standing outside.

Everyone was quiet. The liturgy proceeded without any of its usual exuberance. The hymns were the usual ones but sung quietly. The elders who prayed never mentioned Saiyanoi by name, never mentioned that there had been a death in the community. Their prayers asked God for help in our time of trouble. They asked God not to tire of carrying us, and they asked his strength that we might carry each other. They prayed that God not leave them alone like a lone man crossing the great Serengeti without a gourd of milk. They prayed that their newfound faith in life, life without end, would be true, and they asked God to help their wavering faith in life after death. The women prayed for strength in their present trouble, and they prayed for the childless ones. It was a funeral that was not a funeral. The name Saiyanoi nor the fact that their had been a death was never mentioned, but the community had gathered for God's support and to support each other.

Traditionally the Maasai have no belief that life goes on after death. Life and resurrection goes on in their children. They put the body out to be taken by the wild animals and the person's name is never mentioned again. They do it ritually and respectfully, but that's what happens. It is a time of wailing and despair. In the case of a rich man with sons, the children may bury him. His name can be mentioned because in spirit he is living on in his children.

That liturgy was, in the light of Maasai ways of doing things, astounding. I was wrong; Jesus and his message are making an impact on the way people view death and what happens afterwards.

August 2001 Part 1

AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH NAMUNYAK ENOLDARAPOI OF NGORONGORO, NOW IN HER FOURTH MONTH OF PREGNANCY.

Namunyak laughed and said: Very little. Every kind of food is not good for a pregnant woman. Water is the only thing she can have her full of. The best kinds of food for her are the ones to be gotten from cows, but she must abide by custom in regard to them.

As to milk, she has to be careful. If she drinks a lot, the child in her stomach will get fat, and things will be difficult at birthing time. She can have a little curdled milk, but must not drink fresh milk. Fresh milk will go right to the child, and it will get fat, so curdled milk is better for her, but only a little. She must stay away from the milk of a cow that has just weaned her calf. The milk of that cow is very heavy and fattening; is bad for her.

The meat of cows, sheep and goats has rules too. She must not eat the meat of an animal that has died. It must have been properly killed. Some animals that have been slaughtered because of sickness can be eaten by her and others not.

During pregnancy a woman is often overcome with desire for a certain cut of meat. She may say, "Get me the kidney of a goat." Whatever she says she wants must be looked for and brought to her by her husband. If the thing she wants is very fattening, her husband must try to substitute something similar but less harmful. The woman herself doesn't have a choice as powerful inner forces in what she asks for prompt her.

When an animal is slaughtered anywhere in the neighborhood, her husband may go and stand near. He says, "Give me the meat of the pregnant one." He cannot be refused. Boneless meat is roast over the fire so that most of the fat parts are burned off. Then the chunks of meat are skewered on a stick and given to him.

What about food Maasai get from the farming peoples on the edges of Maasai country?

In contrast to the food of animals, a pregnant woman is allowed almost anything grown in gardens. She must be careful only of porridge made from millet, because it is such a rich grain. She shouldn't mix milk with this porridge, because the milk would make it even richer. She especially must not mix the solid heavy fat of animals with such food. This is very fattening and thus very bad for her during pregnancy.

The roots of certain plants like olonini are boiled and the juice drunk. Early in the morning before eating or drinking anything, she can drink juice made from the iseketet root mixed with water. This makes her feel lighter and less heavy. At the same time, it makes her stronger, and more able to go about her chores. There are many kinds of roots and parts of plants that can be of use during pregnancy. Especially used are those which cause vomiting. Vomiting helps to alleviate things like heartburn and other kinds of stomach pains, which bother pregnant women.

After giving birth, a woman is carefully cared for. Animals are slaughtered for her, and the best foods are given her. This is so her strength may return following the long ordeal of pregnancy.

August 2001 Part 2

First Maasai girl in Tanzania graduates as a full registered nurse:
Nine and a half years ago Naado finished primary school and I took
her from very reluctant parents to secondary school (high school) run
by the Christian brothers in Arusha. The only place I could find for
her to stay was with a WaArusha family on mount Meru, the extinct
volcano that overlooks Arusha town. The school was a good seven
miles from the home of the family she stayed with. It is hard to
believe, but she walked the fourteen miles every day of school for
four years. At one point, I bought a bike for her thinking it would
help. She tried it on a couple of occasions but became afraid of
getting mugged by someone who wanted to steal the bike, so went back
to footing it. Finishing secondary school, she spent a year at our
local hospital here in Endulen as a kind of nurse s aid seeing how
she would like a medical career. She enjoyed her year at Endulen
Hospital and was accepted into the nursing program run by the Huruma
sisters on Mount Kilimanjaro. Although four years at Huruma were
difficult, she lived at the school and had no transportation
problems. Just a couple of weeks ago, she returned here to Endulen,
finished with her final exams and with the diploma of a registered
nurse. She hasn t decided in which hospital she will nurse, only that
she wants to nurse in Maasai County. Naado received a couple of
offers to work in hospitals outside Maasai country and has turned
them down. I am very proud of her, as many of you must be who have
helped to make possible her education over the years.

Plant causes major eye trouble in Ngorongoro Highlands:
There is a plant here that grows to about three or four feet. During
the rains it is a brilliant green and at the end of the rains it put
out beautiful yellow flowers. During the dry season it is a
disaster. The flowers dry to thin wispy strands and crumble to dust
at the slightest touch. These easily get into the eyes of people and
cattle causing at least temporary blindness. This year the situation
is worst than in most years. The Maasai scrape the eyeball with the
edge of an elder s blanket to get the abrasive dust out and it
doesn t come easily. During the past couple of months I ve had to
take a couple of people to the hospital to get their eyes flushed
out.

This month saw the sudden and unexpected death of the wife of one of
my teachers. The seventeen-year-old girl gave birth early in the
afternoon and blood wouldn t stop coming. Her sister came from the
village, a mile from the mission, to call me, and we got in the car
and took her to the sisters at the hospital. She had already lost a
lot of blood and died at about 8:00 that evening. The next morning,
another teacher and I drove to Arusha and then to Kilimanjaro to call
Lazaro, the husband, who is doing an updating course on Mount
Kilimanjaro. It was a very sad time for all of us. The newborn
infant girl was very healthy. I was very surprised to learn that
there is no problem about milk for the baby. I was told that any
woman who has once given birth can suckle the child by just letting
the child nurse on her empty breast and in a few days the milk will
come. The mother of the girl who died hasn t given birth in a number
of years, yet she took the child and the milk started to come with no
difficulty in just a short time.

We have just about destroyed the seats and body in the back of our
Toyota land cruiser hauling firewood and water for the last three and
a half years. The new trailer, made for us by Indian Sing metal
workers in Arusha, is a simple open bed one to pull behind the car.
What a difference it makes! We have been using it for both water and
firewood for about a week and a half now and it was great. No more
do we fill up the back of the car with sloshing buckets and firewood
with all kinds of sharp edges to tear up everything in the back of
the car. It is great too for hauling bags of corn and beans that are
the staple diet of our prep school students.

Scabies is and always has been a big problem among the children in
Maasai country. There is a form of it that just won t respond to the
ordinary ointment. It just keeps spreading over an ever-larger area
of the body and even the hospital doesn t seem to be able to help it.
The Maasai use home churned butter mixed with the dried and ground
up long thin leaves of a dark purple flowered plant. This mixture
needs to be applied by the mother or father of twins or a person who
is a twin. The people here say that this treatment is invariably
successful.

September 2001

During this past week, as I sat talking with people under a tree at a
Maasai village, we heard some snorting off a ways. Looking up, a
herd of buffalo emerged from the bush not more than a hundred yards
away. They stopped and stood alert, watching us. Noone was
seriously concerned. Buffalo, in herds are fairly harmless, if one
doesn't get too close. For a moment everybody was frozen in
surprise. Then the women and children made for the houses and the
men grabbed their spears and began to yell and clap to scare the
animals away. The buffalo promptly turned tail and ran off into the
bush. This is the time of year for buffalo and elephants to be in the
Endulen area in some numbers. During the wet season buffalo and
elephants stay in the deep forest and in the heavy bush found in some
places in the lowlands. They move into our area in large numbers
during the dry season when the grass is finished in the lower country
and water becomes scarce in the forest. The grassy places along the
stream that winds it's way through the valley here at Endulen
provides great places for them to graze, drink and rest in the shade
during the heat of the day. This year is very dry; elephants and
buffalo are much in evedence, taking advantage of the lush grass
along our stream and in the forests close in around Endulen.

These last weeks have been very busy. It is the end of the school
year for the primary schools here in Tanzania and the time to swoop
in and help girls who want to continue their education. It has taken
a lot of preparation. We wrote letters to the head-teachers of all
the primary schools in our area some weeks ago. We asked them to
talk with their students and determine which girls want to go on and
are capable. We made follow up visits to the schools to talk further
with the teachers and students. This week the final exams take place
and is the time for many parents to quickly marry their daughters
off, making further education impossible. I have people from here at
Osotwa at each school ready ready to receive the girls that wish to
go on and have been agreed to by their teachers as having potential.

It looks like we have ten or twelve Maasai girls for Osotwa Prep:
Four girls have arrived and the eight more seem to be on the way for
2002. We are taking every precaution so that their warrior brothers
and friends will have a hard time stealing them away. These are
girls who made the choice to continue their studies. Now we must work
at firming up their resolve by having a good program here.

Contributed by Mike Jemmett, Canadian volunteer here at Osotwa Prep.
Mike will be leaving at the end of the year after three years with
us. Mike has made a great contribution to our program, bringing a
high level of creativity and dedication to his work with our
students. Mike writes...

In 1999, for their annual project, Osotwa students moved boulders to
form a directional compass. In 2000, they built better rat-traps
aiming to reduce the usual infestation. This year, 2001, it's all
fun and games.

For some time, our students were taught, in English only, how to play
the board games SORRY, CHINESE CHECKERS, CHESS AND BACKGAMMON, and
the card game UNO. These involved reading or listening to overall
game rules or instructions for each move; weighing two or more given
options to find the more advantageous; or seeking an original
solution or strategy to attain a goal.

The follow-up project had two objectives:
A: Invent an original toy that can be used more than once.
B: Design an original board game that can be used more than once.
1. Set a game goal; outline the rules clearly.
2. Test with children; modify.
3: Re-test; finalize.
4. Demonstrate the game with primary school children playing.

Project Points:
Toy Game
Durability 10 10
Originality 20 20
Interest 20 20
Swahili demonstration 20
English demonstration 30

Bonus points were awarded if the children playing used English words
during the game. This required Osotwa students to teach using
English, as they were taught, and prepares the younger ones to use
English in a playful medium.

Osotwa students working in teams of two called on cooperation;
problem solving involved creativity; designing toys and games
incorporated fun; donating the products to the children promoted
generosity.

In their various primary schools, many of our students had not used
items like glue or felt markers; and several had never handled
scissors. Have you ever watched a teenage warrior use scissors for
the first time? For these generous material donations to Osotwa and
more, we thank you.

Stay tuned for project results in the October edition of the "Endulen
Diary".........Mike Jemmett

October 2001

This week a warrior herding cattle near the mission was badly mauled by a lion. He was with other warriors grazing a very large herd of cattle on a broad grassy plain. A full-grown male lion, lurking in the bush on the edge of the open area charged the herd. It hoped to grab a calf and rush back into the bush. One of the warriors, OleKando, was very alert and near the lion's path of attack. He rushed at the lion, brandishing his spear, hope to chase it off. His strategy failed and the lion turned his attack on the teenager. By the time the other warriors were able to get to him, he had been badly bitten and mailed by the claws of the lion. OleKando is now at the hospital with his left thigh in a pretty sorry state, but the sisters say that he will recover.

Nosim EnOleKaika and Enditoenkai EnOleMoinga lost their homes to fire this week. This time of year is very dry and grass fires are rampant. It is the time of year that the women go to cut the long dry grass for building the grass roofs for the cow dung plastered igloo like homes. This way of building has become very popular here in the Ngorongoro area. When a beehive is found, the way to calm the bees for plundering is smoke. Often these small fires are not carefully extinguished and grass fire results. Also some are started intentionally to reduce the tick population, always a problem in the highlands. The Maasai say too that the grass returns stronger, thicker and more nourishing to the cattle, if the land is burned. It was the middle of the afternoon and the women of OleMangi's village were sitting under a shade tree near the houses of the village doing their bead work and watching the small children, who in turn were watching the small goats. A racing grass fire was seen on the horizon and the women raced to create a firebreak. They cut the grass short with their "panga's", long broad knives used for grass cutting, house pole shaping and firewood cutting. Before the fire arrived they were able to get a fair firebreak made, but errant sparks from the blaze jumped the brake and landed on the roofs of two houses. The vulnerable grass roofs exploded into flames and the two houses were consumed in minutes. No people or animals were hurt but the household utensils, the carefully prepared skins that cover the beds; skin ropes and personal belongings were all lost. Because Maasai homes are so vulnerable to fire, people feel it is bad luck to say, "The house burned down". Instead they say: "Water took the house".

The prime minister held a meeting at Ngorongoro to announce that no more maize and bean plots are permitted within the Conservation area of Ngorongoro. Cultivation of small plots has been allowed since 1993 has made a big difference to the Maasai people. Few have sufficient cattle to get them through the year without some major periods of real hunger, and their corn and bean plots helped people through the difficult periods. Also the prime minister announced that the Maasai will no longer be permitted to take their cattle into the crater to the salt licks bordering the salt lake, something the Maasai have been accustomed to doing from time immemorial. The response of the Maasai has been for the elders, women and warriors to hold meeting separately and together for the last number of days. They have decided to send a delegation to Dar-es-Salaam to talk to the president. The Maasai delegation hopes to be led by the Ngorongoro Member of Parliament, OleTiman, himself a Maasai. The meetings decided that each person would contribute what they can for the trip, at least the Tanzanian equivalent of $1.25 and that those able would sell a cow to finance the trip.

OleKando, the warrior that was attacked by a lion is doing much better. He is still in the hospital, but is now up and walking around. Amazing, kids heal fast. He is saying that next time a lion tries to take a calf when he is herding, he’ll look for help to chase the lion away. He told me that he wouldn’t try it again on his own. I wonder how long that resolution will last.

Ngorongoro Maasai travel to Capital Protesting Cultivation Ban….
A delegation of twelve Maasai men and women has gone off to Dar-es-Salaam led by our member of parliament. The delegation is the result of numerous meetings of the Maasai of both sexes and all age groups here in the Conservation area. The Maasai have determined that the forbidding of the limited cultivation that has been permitted since 1992 will bring real hardship to the pastoral people. They have come to depend on the supplementary source of food in the form of corn and beans. The Maasai have been able to grow these crops most years on their small plots to augment the limited amount of milk people get from their cattle.

We had a small party for our Prep School graduating class today. They are now off to look for places in secondary (high schools) and technical schools. For those of you who read the last diary, the winners of the game contest were a couple of students who created a board game modeled on the Maasai game of moving stones representing cattle along a series of holes in the ground. Whoever amasses the most cattle wins. The winner of the toy contest was a boy who sculptured a cow out of clay and hardened it in the fire. It was a great sculpture but a short lived toy.

Cultivation has been granted for three more years! Our delegation returned from seeing the president yesterday with the news that he has granted the Maasai of Ngorongoro three more years to cultivate their small plots of beans and corn. Radio Dar-es-Salaam also announced it yesterday. I am sure the media attention helped too in reversing the decision.

November 2001

We have now gathered 12 Maasai girls for the coming year of our prep school. They came to us immediately after the eighth grade (STD 7) examination. If they had gone home, their families would have implemented whatever arrangements they had to get them circumcised and marry them off. These are girls who want to continue with their education and have the endorsement of their teachers that they are capable. Our school term does not start till January, so we have worked out a program to have English lessons for the girls each day and also we are going chapter by chapter through a book that deals with the problems of young people here in East Africa. There are chapters that prompt discussions of AIDS, balancing Maasai traditional values with present day exigencies, the status of women in Maasai society, and other issues. Each chapter deals with a different issue and there are discussion questions at the end of each discussion. The girls are learning to talk about these issues that really matter to them, and to have a lot of their questions answered in the course of these conversations with each other and their leaders. Leading the discussions is one of my girls who has now graduated from secondary school and is back home here in Ngorongoro.

The Maasai have held a big meeting today to discuss their meeting with the president. It seems that there are to be tight rules as part of the decision of the president in allowing cultivation to continue here. All the people from outside the Ngorongoro Conservation area who have come to cultivate must leave. Also police, teachers, workers at the hospital and others, who live here because of some kind of a service position, are not allowed to cultivate. Only the few non-Maasai, who have lived here all their lives, can continue to come under the same rules as the Maasai, whose traditional land Ngorongoro is. The rules that no tractors or oxen may be used in the limited cultivation allowed will remain in force. All cultivation of the small farming plots must be done by hand and a person’s plot is to be 70 paces by 70 paces.

Munene, one of the girls who live in the girl’s dormitory here at the mission so that she can go to school, has become pregnant. The police are seeking the father, a local Maasai warrior. He has run away to the forest to hide. According to recently past Tanzanian law, a schoolgirl, who becomes pregnant, can have her child and then return to school. Munene, a fifth grader, frightened that if she returns home to have her baby she will be forced into marriage, is staying here on the mission. Elders from the family her father arranged to give Munene in marriage years ago, hearing she is pregnant, have now come to take their bride away. They, an elder and two warriors, have been hanging around the mission here for the past five days. They are trying to convince her to run off with them, and the family of Munene to convince her to run off with them. Her family would like to see her quietly go off with her perspective in-laws because it would mean a number of cattle and a good deal of money for them. Finally today, I got tired of it all, and went to the police. The police have warned them to stay away from Munene and us or get locked up.

Ngorongoro Conservation people have begun to go around to each Maasai village to measure the 70 step by 70 step plots that each family will be allowed to cultivate for the next three years. These plots are pitifully small when one is trying to grow corn to feed a family and little milk is available. The herds of the Maasai people, aside from the few rich individuals, have been badly hit by tick born diseases in the past twenty-five or thirty years. Most people have little milk and depend on grain for the bulk of their diet. No one is supposed to start preparing his or her garden till the people come to measure. Because the small rains have begun, many Maasai here in the Endulen area have begun to plant. No one knows what the result of not waiting will be.

December 2001

Four of my Maasai Girls graduated this from Ngarenarok Technical
School in Arusha. They have now returned home to their Maasai
villages much better prepared to become wives and mothers and leaders
in their areas. During the three year program, they have learned
sewing, tailoring, cooking, preventive health, and basic gardening
methods. Knud Erikson from Denmark is giving each one a new hand
operated sewing machine. I will also try to get each of them a bolt
of cloth to get them started on their road to self-reliance.

A couple of Maasai girls that have been staying here during school
time for the last seven years so they could attend primary school,
have finished their primary education. Today, the list of those
chosen for government secondary school was announced. Both of these
girls, Naishipai and Nasharuwa are on the list. They are both good
clever kids and, I m sure that the tutoring that we have been able to
give them over the years has helped too.

At about one in the morning, a couple of the girls went out of the
dormitory to take a pee. Sitting under the acacia tree some thirty
feet from the door of dorm was a very big lion. They told me this
morning that he didn t move a muscle just sat there glowering at
them. Needless to say, they turned tail, ran back into the dorm,
slammed the door and used a bottle. Today, Christmas eve, we are
trying to find a heavy-duty bar to put on the dorm door.

This Christmas Naish'enkAi, a fourteen-year-old Maasai girl student
of our Osotwa Maasai Prep School, here on the mission, has led me to
the solution of a problem that has plagued me for years. I have
always encouraged the people to be baptized with their Maasai names.
Each year at Easter & Christmas time I sit with the people of my
various Maasai communities and talk about names.

I remind them that when they were infants, their parents, brewed
honey beer, slaughtered a fat sheep or goat and called their local
age mates together. Sitting around eating and drinking, the parents,
their relatives and age group neighbors would discuss and finally
choose an appropriate name for their new son or daughter. Sometimes
it would be the name of a rich ancestor, sometimes a local hero or
prominent person of some kind. Always a name connected with a
successful and blessed person is chosen. Then the gathered community
blessed the child and his or her new name by the sprinkling honey
beer, milk and the spraying of spittle.

Blessing by spraying spittle seems a bit strange to westerners, but
it really make a lot of sense. Dr. Gene Hillman points out in his
article Maasai Religion and Enculturation that The act of blessing
emayiana frequently entails, together with invocations, some modest
ritual gestures, such as a spray of spittle, Blessings supported
by spitting, inkamulak , are efficacious; they are fully expected to
have divine concurrence, and thus accomplish what they proclaim.
Spittle gives life to words and expectations. Combined with the
breathing out of words, spittle becomes a very efficacious symbol of
life communicated from one person to another

Afterwards, the new mother and her baby have their heads shaved, and
the new mother comes out of seclusion. She then begins to go about
her normal tasks of going for water and firewood, tasks others have
done for her since giving birth.

I point out to the people who are to be baptized that the name that
they were given when infants is holy, blessed by God and the
community. I tell them that I would like them to stick with that
name at baptism. With people who have not gone to school, I am often
successful in my efforts. With school kids, it is another story.
They see their friends at school with non-Maasai names taken from the
bible or some other place and want to be like them. They want a
modern name. After arguing as forcefully as I can, I go with
whatever name the person decides to take, although very reluctantly
in the cases of those who want to change their home name.

Last week, I gathered the adults and children to be baptized on
Christmas and, having given my spiel on traditional Maasai names,
asked them one by one what name they would be baptized with. I asked
Naish'enkAi (The name Naish'enkAi means She who is a gift from
God ) what name she would take on Christmas. She told me that
Rebecca would be her name because of a close friend at school by that
name. Then she asked me about my name, Ned. I told her that Ned is
a nickname and that my real baptism name is Edward Thomas . She
said: Oh, Thomas must be the name of your father? I told her, no,
that in Europe and America people very often, even normally, take two
names at baptism and that both Edward and Thomas are my baptismal
names,. Naish'enkAi thought for a minute and then said: Ok! I want
to take Naish enkAi Rebecca as my baptismal name. In a moment, she
solved a problem that I have been struggling with for years. All the
other Prep School and Secondary School students immediately agreed
that was a great idea. So on Christmas, everyone who wants to take a
non-Maasai name will add it on to his or her Maasai name that was
given and blessed when still infants. Both names then become their
official legal names.

The lion sitting under a tree in front of the girl s dorm here next
to my house was not an isolated incident. There have been and still
are quite a number around both day and night in our Endulen area. We
hear them and people come across them at night and regularly during
the day. A couple of days ago, on one of my regular trips to the
hospital on foot, I saw one myself at a distance. This is really
weird. There is plenty of grass on the nearby Serengeti and
therefore an abundance of game. Also, there are plenty of animals
every place in between here and the Serengeti. No one seems to have
any idea why there would be such a number of lions in our
neighborhood. Maybe a pride got chased out of their home area by
another pride and is looking for a new place to live. Perhaps they
have chosen Endulen because of the superb quality of life here. If
that is the case, I can t say that I blame them.

January 2002

We began the new school year of our one-year prep school program for Maasai girls and boys this week. Our English and Math program is aimed at preparing our Maasai young people for secondary and technical schools. Prying the girls from home has been as difficult as ever. This year, we have 12 Maasai girls and 11 Maasai boys. Our teachers are three, two young Maasai men and one young Maasai woman. All three are Maasai, graduates of our Osotwa Maasai Prep School and of Secondary school.

We continue are program of supporting Secondary Education for Maasai boys and girls:

In Secondary School, we have seven Maasai girls, two of whom have just begun their first year a few weeks ago. Nine girls are studying in technical school, learning animal husbandry, small farming methods and simple tailoring using a sewing machine.

We support ten Maasai boys in secondary school, with two beginning their first year this month. One of our boys has gotten his law degree and another is in his final year at the University in Dar es Salaam doing land management and environmental issues. Two more of my boys will begin studies at the University of Dar-es-Salaam next year. I don't know yet what their majors will be.

Munene, the pregnant schoolgirl is still with us here and is scheduled to give birth later this month. Until now, pregnant schoolgirls were simply sent home. The perception was that the pregnancy was their fault and they should be punished both at school and at home. In Maasai country, this situation involved added difficulties because for an uncircumcised girl to become pregnant was always considered great shame. There is the warning given to uncircumcised girls that, if they become pregnant, they will be tied to a tree and left for the hyenas. I feel sure that this warning was never implemented and only used to scare the children. Seven years ago a law was passed by parliament that mandated six-year jail sentences for the young men who made schoolgirls pregnant. This law has never been implemented to any degree because the school and family always protect the boy. A year ago, parliament began the process to pass a law that said a pregnant schoolgirl should not be expelled, but rather should have her child and return to school.

Here in the Ngorongoro area, since there has been the possibility of
a few girls going on to technical and secondary schools after primary school, getting a girl pregnant has been one of the ways of making it impossible for her to continue her education. Another widespread method is to bribe the head-teacher or local government official with a cow and her name would quietly be taken off the list of school children.

In recent weeks, during the waged by the Maasai to retain cultivation here at Ngorongoro, it has been shown that a small aware and articulate group of men and women can make a difference. Mostly it is the men and women educated by Endulen mission, who have written the articles in the newspapers and led the delegations to see the president. These young Maasai people have succeeded in retaining for their people, the right to cultivate here in the Conservation area. It is my conviction that if the Maasai people are to retain their identity, they need to retain their water sources and grazing land, and to take an active role in making the decisions that affect every facet of their lives. This can only happen if Maasai men and women can sit, as equals, on the councils making decisions about these things. That is why we are educating Maasai boys and girls. I guess the percentage of women I am educating would be about one women in a couple of thousand among the population of the Ngorongoro Conservation area.

The fog at Ngorongoro these days is dense. This is especially so in the early mornings, but at times it can last the whole day. We are in the midst of the rainy season. This is the time of rain, mist and fog in the highlands; Ngorongoro is about eight thousand feet. My morning treks to the villages are frequently filled with apprehension, since I literally have little idea of where I'm going to end up when I start out from my room at the school of Makorumba, not far from Ngorongoro Crater. Recently, my destination was a village in which I was to teach that day. I had been to the village once before, so had an idea of which paths to take. After an hour of walking, I realized I was hopelessly lost, although still on a clearly defined path. I couldn't see more than a cow's length in front of me, and the country was undulating hill country covered with elephant grass and stunted thorn bush. Realizing a path as clearly defined and as well used as the one I was on, must go somewhere and as likely as not to a Maasai village, I kept followed it for another three quarters of an hour. Then to my immense relief, since by that time I was very tired as well as very lost, I heard the lowing of a couple of cows and the voices of children just ahead. Presently out of the fog became visible the high circular log stockade of a Maasai village. Through the wide high doorway I could see the familiar squat rectangular shape of dung plastered Maasai houses dimly through the soupy fog. I knew right away that this was not the place I had set out for, but was very thankful to be there anyway. The people received me with a surprised welcome and a big gourd of curdled milk, both of which I was happy to get. I say a surprised welcome since I was a complete stranger to them. They set me on a new path in a slightly different direction and off I went again through the still dense fog. After about a half an hour, the village I was looking for loomed out of the murk. There I was received by the elder of the village and his numerous wives and children; they were very surprised to see me, saying that they thought only crazy Maasai ventured out in such weather. I was given a big tin mug of sweet tea and shared a heaping plated of fried meat and fat with the old man. Our conversation for the day centered on the story of the Good Samaritan. Needless to say I had a couple of good local examples to offer.

February 2002

Munene will return to school after giving birth… .
The three primary school girls that became pregnant last year have all received letters telling them that they will not be accepted back into school after giving birth. I saw the letter that Munene received as a real put down. I contacted the teacher and asked about the boys. Are they being denied education also? It seems that special permission should be gotten from higher up to accept the girl back into school. Anyway after prolonged negotiation, we parted friends and I came away with a letter, complete with official stamp that says Munene will be accepted back into school and will be able to repeat the school year that she has mostly missed.

Munene gave birth to a beautiful baby girl last night... We’re now looking for a fat sheep that her friends will slaughter and eat with her. Munene will use the fat for herself and her infant daughter. If all goes well, Munene will return to school in three months time.

New hearing aids for Noontomon...
I was recently able to get a new set of hearing aids for Noontomon. In was no big deal because she has been using others for thirteen years. Those have now worn out. Thirteen years ago when I gave her hearing aids for the first time, it was a very big deal. Here is what I wrote at that time:

Recently, Frank Malinowski, a Spiritan, came out to visit us here in Tanzania. Maasai country problems of cattle disease and the lack of water occupied much of our conversation, but a local tragedy especially caught his attention. I told him of, Noontomon, a young married girl here in the Endulen area that is almost totally deaf. She and her friends often stop by the house for a cup of tea when they come to Endulen shopping.

Noontomon is always straining to hear what is said, wanting to be part of the conversation, but invariably unable to "catch", what people are saying. To her frequent pleas of "What did you say?.", people literally must yell a reply in her ear. Relaxing a little, she says "Oh!" and makes an appropriate comment. But by that time the conversation has moved on and Noontomon is left behind.

Since one week ago, the situation has changed dramatically. A small box arrived from Frank Malinowski. It contained a hearing aid, plenty of spare batteries and a book of instructions. It happened that on that day Noontomon, her husband, their small daughter and many people from their village came by. Everyone was sitting around drinking tea engaged in animated conversation. Noontomon, as usual was on the sidelines straining, mostly unsuccessfully, to catch a word here and there. At this point I produced Frank's box, and everyone laughed when I said inside was a small machine that would make Noontomon hear. When this was yelled into Noontomon's ear, she did not laugh. The expression on her face indicated that she was hurt that I would make a joke of something that caused her so much pain.

As I pulled the little hunk of plastic out of its' box and inserted it in Noontomon's ear I told her that it was not a joke. As soon as it was in her ear, she was transfixed, her face frozen in fear, dismay, I don't know what. Slowly it dawned on her. She was hearing, hearing voices from all over the room. She responded to a remark someone made in a quiet tone of voice on the other side of the room. All conversation stopped dead and people got funny expressions on their faces. Out of the silence, thrust a small cry from Noontomon. "I hear you."

After initial consternation, everyone wanted to talk to Noontomon. It became a game with everybody wanting to try Noontomon out in ever-lower tones of voice from further and further away.

Hey Frank…thirteen years down the road…Thanks again from Noontomon and her family.

March 2002

Two swarms of bees have taken up residence in the walls of our shower. We usually don't bother chasing them away. We get stung once in a while but they have not caused a serious problem and come every year. Feeling that the visitors I'm expecting in May will not
have the same live and let live attitude toward our boarders, prompted me to take action. Last night I made holes in the wall board and poured in the gas pellets that I use to kill the bugs every three months in our school container of corn and beans. Both swarms
died during the night. Then, in the morning, a huge swarm arrived from the forest and tried to take up residence in one of the homes of the now dead swarms that I terminated last night. They covered the outside wall of the kitchen. After about two hours, the smell and
killing power of the residue of the gas pellets discouraged them from moving in and they went off to find more hospitable lodgings.

Naisharua, one of our Maasai girls, starting secondary school this year has been found to have diabetes. For the last month, I've been working with Dr. Allen in Arusha and Dr. Helen in Boston. Naisharua's numbers are beginning to come down a bit. In addition to
corresponding with Helen frequently by e-mail to keep her informed of Naisharua's numbers etc., Helen has sent me information and alternatives to get her diet together. At this point we are slowly increasing her insulin dosages to bring the numbers within reason. This has been quite a challenge for both Naisharua and I. I think we are finally starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone here on the mission, in different ways, is helping me. She
has learned to ride the bicycle that I bought for her and since one week, except for a day now and then when there is a lot of rain, she is able to ride her bike the three miles to school and home here again in the afternoon. I am still following her in the car morning and evening, but she'll soon have enough confidence to go off on her own.

The celebration of Baptism took place last week in a Maasai village. These were the first baptisms among the Maasai of that area. For two years we've been going each week to discuss the gospel with the people of the village, and since last September we've been meeting under a central tree each Sunday for a service of readings, songs and
prayers.

Our ceremonies of Baptism employ Maasai symbols and rituals. Early in the morning, while it was still dark, each family went into their houses. They poured milk and honey beer on the hearth stones, calling on the ancestors of their family and clan to be with them and
to intercede for them as they entered upon this new phase of their Maasai family life.

Next the new fire was lit in the centre of the village. All the hearth fires had been extinguished upon going to bed the night before, signing the beginning of a new era in the life of the village. In the centre of the cattle crawl, a warrior twirled a foot long dowel like stick between his palms in a depression on a flat chunk of wood. The friction produced a spark that ignited some shavings. With additions of kindling and then larger pieces of firewood, there was soon a brusquely burning fire. The ceremony of the "lighting of the new fire" is performed whenever a new cattle camp is built or when the members of an age group come together to build a "manyata" for their age group rites of passage. The people gathered round the now leaping fire, and with a chalky like substance, I drew thick crosses on the foreheads of those to be baptized, "branding them" with the sign of Christ. Using this white paste infuses the giving of the cross of Jesus an added traditional Maasai meaning that is also an integral part of the regular Baptism ceremony, an exorcism. The Maasai smear this "chalk" on themselves during their own rituals and it symbolizes God's protection of his people against curses, witchcraft, and other evils. Hence it is an exorcism.

The new fire is then heaped with green branches and gives off great clouds of smoke. In my black robe sewn with cowry shells and wearing
a sheepskin stole, sewn with these same sacred cowry shells, I stood at the fire with three elders. Black is the colour of rain clouds, the joyful colour of God's love and care for his people. Cowry shells are a sign of the sacred. Gourds for milking always have
cowry shell sewn on them and Maasai prophets and holy women and men have cowry shells sewn on their clothing. The elders dressed in skin cloaks, cloaks usually worn by the women and considered holy, because among other reasons, the women give birth on them. We walked around the fire a few times blessing in the traditional Maasai way of sprinkling it with milk and honey beer from gourds. The mouths of the gourds are stuffed with green grass. These gourds with their stoppers of rich green grass are symbols of plenty and of blessing.
From the fire we walked through and around the entire village sprinkling the cattle, the people, and the houses with milk and honey beer from these gourds, signing that the entire village, its' people and domestic animals are blessed by God. Finally the women took
brands from the new fire together with bits of the green branches to their houses where they lit the hearth fires, signing that these new followers of Jesus need to take the light of good news of the Gospel to their whole families, extended families, village and beyond.

Next we all walked together around the outside of the entire village singing Maasai songs of praise for God and of asking for the various things they need, food, children, cattle etc. etc. We ended up in the very centre of the cattle enclosure that is in the centre of the
village. There the Baptism itself took place. Sitting on a ritually acceptable cow skin and facing the Rising Sun, each person was baptized. We pour water from a gourd since there are no rivers or streams around to get immersed in. Finally we anointed with oil,
lots of oil, smearing it all over the persons head, face and chest as is done to the celebrants during important ceremonies like weddings, circumcisions, age group ceremonies etc. In the afternoon, there were goats killed and a cow was ritually slaughtered, roasted and
shared by all.

It was a wonderful celebration. Great numbers of Maasai came together, the Christians and their friends, the women in their beaded skin skirts and brightly coloured clothes and the men in their graceful toga like blankets. Under the great wide arms of the shade tree, which we had been meeting for prayer services for over a year, we had the "Endaa Sinyati" (The Sacred Food) as we call the Lord's supper in Maasai. The liturgical celebration over, the eating and dancing continued well into the evening.

April 2002

Our District officer held a meeting today here in Endulen. Large numbers of both Maasai and non-Maasai attended. He explained that he had received a letter from the non-Maasai people of our area complaining that only the Maasai of Ngorongoro are allowed to cultivate. The letter went on to say that people working for the hospital, Conservation, the local primary school, the police and local shop keepers are unable to properly feed their families because of not being allowed to farm. They asked for a food distribution program to supplement their diet. The DC announced that there would be absolutely no cultivation in the Conservation area of Ngorongoro by anyone who is not a member of the traditional residents of Ngorongoro. The Maasai themselves are allowed to cultivate for two more years and then all farming will be forbidden for everyone.

Many Maasai women of Endulen had a march today to protest the forbidding of women’s circumcision. The police have taken seventeen into custody and fined each woman the equivalent of $25 dollars.

...... A few days later... Matei OleTiman, Member of Parliament for Ngorongoro, came to Endulen and had a meeting with the Maasai women, announcing that there will be a long jail sentence people caught circumcising their daughters. This is a very difficult thing for the Maasai people to come to terms with.

A spokesman for the retiring warriors is being chosen. Normally this takes place near the opening of an age group. The man that the IlKing'onde (Landisi) chose when they were new warriors has not worked out. He has no leadership qualities. In Maasai life, leadership, at least retaining leadership, depends on personal qualities more than having been chosen. An ineffective age group leader (Olgwanani) is simply ignored and falls by the wayside. Someone more capable slowly emerges and replaces him. The new leader often simply moves into leadership without fuss or official recognition. Less often, his selection is more public and official. This is what is happening now in the Ngorongoro area. The front-runner is a graduate of our Osotwa Education program. He is Pakai Olonyokie, who is my Head Teacher here at Osotwa Prep. Pakai is also the secretary of the pastoral council that advises the Conservation Authority on Maasai concerns and… is chairman of Endulen village.

The popularity of Pakai is surprising. He has been fully involved with me in working for the education of Maasai Girls for many years. Pakai has gone to court with me on numerous occasions and we have even, now and then, been instrumental in getting fathers, brothers and lovers temporarily locked up when they have tried to block the education of Maasai girls. The warriors are exactly the people with whom we have often come into conflict. It is a tribute to the genuine concern of the senior warriors for the good of their age group, that they would choose someone like Pakai, even though they have had many difficulties with him in the past. They are aware that Pakai is a person of integrity, who does not take bribes and is ready to fight for his convictions and stand up for people he is concerned about.

On arriving at one of our places near the Serengeti, we were met with a sea of sad faces. Last night a woman was bitten in the head by a snake while she slept. Her head swelled up and she died early this morning. Snakes often live in the walls of people’s homes.

May 2002

May 2nd......
Major flooding here in Endulen… A herd of forty goats was swept away when crossing a torrent that is usually a placid creek. All except three were able to struggle to safety. The three were found dead a couple of miles down stream caught in the branches of fallen trees..., an unwelcome feast.

Nawasa' leg was giving trouble again. For a couple of years
following her first surgery, Nawasa did well. She could run and jump
almost as well as other Maasai children. But slowly the skin around her knee joint began to harden. Heavy scars from her injury and the first operation steadily tightened their viselike grip, robbing her once more of the use of the leg. Then as the years passed she has walked in a progressively tighter crouch. Her sideways progress resembled that of a crab. Her tightly bent leg forced her to move along in almost a sitting position.

The trouble began twenty one years ago. She was four months old and she fell into the fire. Her mother had left her in the care of an older child to borrow a cooking pot from a neighbor. A little girl was sitting by the fire holding Nawasa on her lap. The cry of a calf coming into the small dung plastered house startled her. Nawasa fell to the ground and her leg came to rest in the fire. Her mother heard her terrified cries and came running, but the damage had was done. All the skin of Nawasas' leg was black and blistering and the fire had deeply eaten into her knee. She healed slowly and painfully.

I met her in my regular round of preaching. She was sitting in the
dust on a very hot morning playing with some other children near the gate of a Maasai village. The other children, prompted by their mothers, came to greet me, offering their heads to be lightly touched by my open hand.

They responded to my greetings and then stood waiting expectantly for what would happen next. One hadn't come. She was still sitting by herself near the cattle gate with her leg doubled up underneath her. It was Nawasa.

I asked about her and learned her story. Her mother and I took
Nawasa to see our local doctor in Endulen. He explained to us that
she would need and operation to free her leg from the massive scar
tissue that encased and immobilized it, and then another after some
years. That first operation was a major undertaking. The Kenya
Flying Doctor Service did the operation for free, but the trip to and from Loliondo, our most Northerly Maasai mission, which hosted the surgeons was costly, as was the three months spent in the hospital there. Nawasas' father is dead and her mother has only one cow. Disease had finished off the rest. Relatives were generally unable to help because of problems of their own, so it fell to me to do something.

Then the time for the second operation arrived and Nawasas' mother
came to me again for help. I was at a total loss as to what to do.
At this point, entered the Elfrieda Steffan, a Spiritan Associate
with her Help for the Disabled program.

HELP FOR THE DISABLED is a program of the Arusha Diocese conceived
and built up by Spiritan Associate Elfrieda Steffan. The purpose of this Spiritan project is to help with operations, artificial limbs etc... Now that Elfrieda is retired, Nurse Anna and her staff do the networking that make otherwise inaccessible help available to people like Nawasa. Help for the disabled or "Huduma ya Walemavu" as it is called in Kiswahili has helped many people, among them Nawasa and other Maasai from Endulen.

I took Nawasa to see Elfrieda and Anna. They told me that a German
plastic surgeon was coming to Arusha. Elfrieda and Anna agreed to
make arrangements for the operation and to watch over Nawasa and her
mother while in Arusha. The operation is over now and was a total
success. During their time in Arusha, Elfrieda and Anna were family to these two Maasai from far out in the bush. Besides visiting them in the hospital often, they frequently brought Nawasa and her mother meals that they had cooked themselves. On several occasions they obtained permission from the hospital to take them to their own homes for weekends. What impressed me about this effort of the Spiritan associates was not only the way they organized the needed help. Although without that Nawasa and others like her would still be in their difficulties. The thing that leaves a lasting impression is the warmth and real caring with which the help was given. There is a young woman in Endulen living a normal life, now with children of her own, who is very grateful to Elfrieda and Anna.

One of my Maasai girls of the Osotwa Maasai Education for Leadership
program in Endulen has now joined Anna in the Help for the Disabled
program. Naado Jumweiya graduated as a registered nurse one year ago.
She did her four years of nurse's training at Huruma Hospital on Mount
Kilimanjaro.

July 2002

Four of our young Maasai women graduated from Ngarenarok technical school at the end of last year. The students of Osotwa Maasai Prep celebrated their graduation just a couple of weeks ago. We slaughter two goats and had lots of soda. Everyone stuffed themselves with goat meat and soda to near bursting. Then, each of the four girls, Kosen, Siyama, Naimodu and Nasumbat, received a hand-operated sewing machine. These machines are due to the generosity of Knud Eric and his organization in Denmark. The girls now go to their home villages and will soon be married. Their education will make it possible for them to be, to a degree, self-reliant. They will be able to sew items of cloth and simple clothing to sell at local cattle markets, helping their families in various ways and augmenting the diet of their future children. It will give them skills to fall back on in case their husbands don’t take proper care of them, or in the event that their cattle are not be sufficient to provide for the families.

Last month I talked about our head teacher here at Osotwa. Augustino Paakai was on the short list of those being considered by the Kinong’de age group to be their leader and spokesman. They are now senior warriors. Their original leader or “Olaigwanani”, was chosen almost fifteen years ago at the time the Ilking’onde were young warriors, but did not fulfill the leadership expectations of his age mates. As time went by, he was less and less sought out for advice and, in recent years, was ignored altogether. The Ilking’onde acutely felt their lack of a leader. Numerous rites of passage ceremonies must be arranged, something difficult to accomplish without adequate leadership. Also, the age group needs to act as one in times of crisis, as when cattle raiders are in the area or there is a specific problem affecting the age group, for example, drinking.

Paakai was chosen to be Olegwanani and the celebration to install him as “Spokesman” for the Ilking’onde took place last week. It was a memorable event. Early in the morning, before the cattle went off to pasture, some hundreds of Pakai’s age mates gathered in the cattle enclosure of Pakai’s family. Soon there was shouting and singing as the ritual gift of his age group, a yearling heifer was driven from another village and arrived among the singing warriors. This young cow, bursting with energy and fertility, symbolized the age group’s prayer for Paakai that he has long life, many cattle and many children. They sang up a storm, as the fire stick elders of the age group symbolized the fullness of a good life that they wished for the new Olegwanani, by blessing Pakai, smearing his face with oil, milk and cattle dung. They put into his hands the Olrinka, the ebony staff of office of a Maasai Olaigwanani. He also received the flywhisk and tobacco container of an elder, which indicated the transition his age group is now undergoing. The warrior’s fathers are called their “Ilpiron”, their fire stick elders, because it was they, years ago, who twirled a dowel between their palms on a chunk of wood in wood shavings to light the new fire that inaugurated the Olking’onde age group.

August 2002

My computer died three weeks ago trashing, I first thought, my address book. I have now been able to recover the address book and can send out my July Newsletter. It was a good learning experience. Not least among the things this experience has taught me, is to make more complete and more frequent back-up of all my stuff.

The Laibon is a very important man here in Maasailand. Many times the title is translated witch doctor, but since the Maasai don't have witches among them, it doesn't really fit. The basic idea though, of being a doctor to help when the occult or unexplainable threatens does fit. It is important to keep in mind that the first question asked by Maasai and I imagine Africans generally in time of trouble is WHY. Our question WHAT is of secondary importance. The Maasai is certain that if he can deal with the root cause of the trouble which is of course some spiritual dislocation (a curse or whatever), there will be little difficulty in dealing with the physical reason for the trouble. The job of the "Laibon" therefore is primarily to explain why bad things happen to people, why a person is sick, why a woman can't get pregnant etc... He goes about the task of discovering why; it may be that the person has been cursed, is under the influence of an evil eye, or maybe some sin of the an ancestor or even of the person in difficulty himself may be to blame. He makes his diagnosis by means of little round stones of different colors which he pours out from a gourd onto a skin spread out on the ground. By looking carefully at these stones, how they have fallen, what colors are together and which colors are separated from each other, he is able to discover why the person who has come to him is in difficulty, and furthermore what might be done about it. He may decide that it is something simple like not have received a very important bracelet from one's mother at the time of her death, or something very complicated to deal with like the solemn curse of someone now long dead. Whatever the "Laibon" discovers it to be, he will prescribe a remedy. Perhaps he will tell the person to go to the source of the Oldagum, a stream in this area, and wash in the water after mixing in some particular roots. Again he may direct that a sheep be slaughtered and skin necklaces be made from the hide to be worn in a certain way for some specified length of time. If the sickness of the person begins to fade, the "Laibon" will be brought gifts in thanksgiving, and his reputation will increase. If the person doesn't get better, another "Laibon" will be sought and consulted. Very often the intervention of the "Laibon" can be helpful, but not always. Among the villages in which I teach there are three "Laibons". Very often I come upon them doing their thing with the stones. They are used to me being around and have no objection to me sitting and watching. One day I taught at the village of Olendetiai. As I arrived, I found the very old almost totally blind "Laibon" sitting under a tree with some people who had traveled to consult him from Piaiya, a place that is on the edge of the Serengeti and two days travel by foot from Endulen. It seems the son of the elder sitting under the tree with Olendetiai had been sick for years with some kind of a very serious skin decease. As I sat down at the outer edge of the small group, at whose center Lendetiai was carefully consulted his little piles of colored stones. He had poured them out some minutes before from a beautifully prepared gourd. He was saying, "Your son is cursed.". The old man asked, "But by who?” The old "Laibon" answered that it was the elders' oldest wife, who had cursed the boy out of jealousy. It seems that she herself had no son, the sick boy being the son of her co-wife. But what must I do so that my son will get better asked the old man. The Laibon gave his remedy. She must be driven from your village with out cattle or even gourds of water and never allowed to come back. I was horrified. It seemed to me that for all practical purposes the "Laibon" had just imposed the death sentence, in a totally arbitrary manner, on some poor woman who perhaps was as grieved over the sickness of her co-wife's son as anybody else.

August 2002

A local Maasai warrior has been murdered with a stab wound to the neck. Lemaiyani was working as a night guard in the Sukuma area near lake Victoria to the West of us. The story is that he was faithful about protecting the property of his employer. During an evening, time off, visit to a bar with friends, he was attacked and killed by a gang that he had repeatedly repulsed while attempting to rob the place that he was guarding. It seems that the way guards deal with robbers is by blowing whistles and banging on tire rims to sound the alarm. Many guards make deals with the gangs. Our local warrior had no arrangement in place to protect him. Lemaiyani leaves two young wives and a number of children.

This month saw the first of our Endulen Maasai girls accepted into university. She is one of the very few Tanzanian Maasai girls to be accepted into University. Seyanoi EnoLaisinet studied here at our one-year program of Osotwa Prep. Then with the help a pastor friend, Dave Simonson, I got her a place at Lutheran Maasai Girls Secondary School, where she did her four years of high school and two of junior college. She finished Form Six this year and has now been accepted into Tumaini University. She is scheduled to begin her freshman year there next month. Seyanoi would like to study law and come back to Maasai country to work for the Maasai people. Another one of our Osotwa program students and local Maasai girls has been accepted into a Medical Assistant program at Kibosho hospital on Mount Kilimanjaro. I think a medical assistant is kind of what we know as a nurse practitioner.

Three of our Osotwa Prep boys also begin university studies next month. All three, Kokell, Ipanga and Tendeu, intend to return to Maasai country on finishing their studies. A fourth boy, Moinga, one of my teachers here at Osotwa Prep has gone off to do a three year Teacher Training Course at Tanga on the Coast. Moinga says that, upon graduation, he will return to work with us here at Osotwa.

When visiting Endulen in May, my brother Dave suggested we start a computer lab here at Osotwa.

Computers are becoming part of many of the courses and jobs that our Osotwa Students go on to. Some familiarity with computers and an ability to touch type will give them a head start. Now I’ve started a touch typing class with one laptop computer and two typewriters. Naisharua, one of our Osotwa program Maasai girls and a first year student at the new secondary school near Endulen, began learning to type three months ago with the lap top and a typing book I picked up at a book store in Arusha. She is now doing about twenty words a minute and has become our typing teacher. Her students are six, three boys and three girls. Naisharua gives her typing classes in the evening when she returns from classes at high school. I have a “Learn to Type” computer program for the Laptop and Touch Typing books for the typewriters. As time goes on, I hope to add more Laptops and typewriters. We have to go with Laptops because our electricity is solar and my setup doesn’t produce enough juice for a tabletop computer lab. Later on, I’d like to expand the program to include some basic word processing and working with simple spreadsheets.

Maasai know whether it will rain or not according to the appearance or non-appearance of the six stars, called the Pleiades, which follow after one another like cattle. When the month, which the Maasai call the Pleiades, arrives, and the Pleiades are no longer visible, they know that the rains are over. For the Pleiades set in that month and are not seen again until the season of showers has come to an end: it is then that they reappear.

There are three other stars, which follow one another like the cattle, called the old men (Orion’s sword), and again three others that pursue them from the left, called the widows (Orion’s belt). Now the Maasai say that as the widows have lost their husbands, they are waylaying the old men in order to get married to them.

There is also Kileghen (Venus), and by this planet the Maasai know that it is near dawn. It is in consequence called the star of the dawn. When Kileghen is seen, women pray for warriors who are late in returning from a cattle raid.

Then there is Leghen, which when visible is a sign that the moon will shortly rise. Leghen remains in the west, and is only seen in the evening.

If the Maasai see a halo round the moon, they say that a place has been attacked and many cattle captured. The halo is supposed to represent the cattle kraal.

Then again, if they see the road, which crosses the sky (the milky way), they say that this is the road by which the warriors drive cattle when they go on cattle raids.

September 2002

Eighteen young Maasai of the Ngorongoro area, nine men and nine women, have been chosen to visit South Korea for a festival of the Martial Arts. They are scheduled to demonstrate the WAY of the Maasai
warrior. Using their shields, spears, short swords and knobkerries, they will act out cattle raids, saving Maasai damsels in distress, and protecting their herds from lions, leopards and the like. Among those
chosen for the trip, ten are graduates of our Osotwa Maasai Education Program here at Endulen Mission. During the next two weeks the eighteen will travel to Kenya where they will polish their skills with traditional Maasai weapons and strategies. Then on the 20th of this month, they'll travel to Nairobi to board their flight for Korea and what promises to be the adventure of a lifetime. Needless to say, the young people are very excited.

(From The Maasai, by Hollis 1905)
Concerning the shields and spears of the Maasai Warriors:

The warriors' shields are not all of one design; they differ. Each age group and sub-clan has its own design. In consequence, if the warriors meet an enemy, it is immediately known to what age group and sub-clan the different members of the war party belong. There are four markings for the shields, the red one, the black one, the ornamental one, and the one for bravery. Likewise with the spears, they are not all marked alike. If a spear is found, it can be ascertained by looking at the lower part to what age group and sub-clan the owner belongs.

Pakasi, one of my Prep school students, told me of the following incident that took place during his recent time at home during our semester break. He and two other boys, Kirinda and Lendapa were going downhill after climbing a very steep mountain far from their home village. The hillside was covered with shiny slate colored rocks that shown and shimmered in the mid day sun because of some kind of crystal chips embedded in them. We stumbled several times running down the hill, he told me. About halfway to the bottom Kirinda gave an anguished cry and fell. I'm dying he shouted - a snake. Lendapa and I ran over to Kirinda and there, a few feet from where he lay, was a very fat puff adder. We grabbed Kirinda by the hands and pulled him some distance away. Lendapa threw his stick at the snake and missed. I threw my spear; it caught the snake in the neck and pinned him to the ground. Lendapa easily finished him off, crushing his head with a big rock. Kirinda had been bitten in the ankle. I tied a strong cord below my friends knee as my father had taught me.

Lendapa, the son of a Maasai healer, drew the big knife he wore at his waist. He told me to hold Kirinda's shoulders and press them to the ground. He sat on the boy's thighs and held his legs firmly to the ground. Lendapa made small cuts around the area bitten by the snake. He unfastened a small piece of horn that he wore as an ornament from around his neck. He placed the horn on the wound and bled it by sucking the blood into his mouth. The horn was open at both ends and as Lendapa sucked it became full of blood, and a little went into his mouth. He spat. He did this several times. Then Lendapa ran off without saying a word. It scared me, but after a while he returned with some roots he had dug up. He pounded the roots against a rock, using his stick. He took the pounded roots and rubbed them on the bleeding wound.

Lendapa pounded other roots and put them in a gourd partly filled with water that we had with us. He shook the gourd, mixing well the crushed roots with the water, then opened Kirinda's lips. His teeth were clenched. So he put some of the dark colored fluid through the opening in the boy's lower set of teeth. Kirinda sneezed and the teeth unclenched. Kirinda opened his eyes and Ledapa made him drink some more of the fluid. "Now let him go", Lendapa said. Kirinda was too weak to move. But Lendapa said that everything would be all right. "If he hadn't sneezed, there would have been little hope," he explained.

Lendapa picked Kirinda up and, carrying him over his shoulder, we set off for our village. We took turns carrying Kirinda and arrived home late in the evening. Kirinda was very sick for a number of days, but slowly
got well.

October 2002

Yesterday, I received the following in an email from Knud Erikson in Denmark: “Thanks for you newsletter. I have five strong Adler typewriters and we would like to donate them for your project”.

This is great news. These machines will be arriving about the first of the year. With the addition of these five, our touch-typing program and computer lab will have seven typewriters and one computer. The six boys and girls that worked with the two typewriters and one computer this year have made real progress and all ended up being able to type at 15 words a minute or more.

The young Ngorongoro Maasai that went to the “Way of the Warrior” competitions in South Korea have returned. They had a wonderful time and took second place in the competition. The aborigine people of Australia won first place. The Maasai spears, shields and knobkerries were no match for the Australian boomerangs that blew the judges away. Our Maasai didn’t think much of South Korean food …fish, fish and more fish. Although they were offered something their hosts claimed was cow meat, they didn’t believe it, since they never saw a single cow during their stay in South Korea. The food was their only complaint. They found the Korean people warm, friendly and welcoming.

Today no one of the retiring age group, men between the ages of roughly 30 and 45, is to be seen. Every member of the Olking’onde (Lendisi) age group, and I mean every single one, is home at his village with his family. It is a very special time. At a mountain in central Maasai, Oldoinyo Moruak, one of the most sacred “rites of passage” of Maasai life, the final transition of the senior warriors to elder hood, the ancient rituals of Olng’esherr that have taken place at Oldoinyo Moruak for all living memory are being performed. In this full confirmation of elder hood, representatives of the retiring warrior age group come from all over Maasai country come together and their age-group name is confirmed and blessed. A large ceremonial village (emanyata) is constructed, and at its center is placed the symbol of the ceremony, a mound of cow dung containing a stone from a clear running stream, stuck in the top of the mound is a long green leafed branch from a certain tree having no thorns. Today, the day chosen by the ritual experts, an unblemished bull is brought to the village, black with a white patch on its chest and not having spots or broken horns. The bull is captured at dawn by the elders and suffocated at the center of the manyatta. Its dewlap is split, and blood is forced out by puncturing the heart. A powdered charm from the Laibon (ritual expert) is dusted into the liquid. One by one, starting with the owner of the bull and then the two generation- chiefs, the hundreds of new elders kneel and drink. As the blood diminishes, milk or honey beer is added to give each elder a sip of the ritual drink.

Inside a skin enclosure the senior elders supervise the butchering and roasting of the sacrificial ox. The initiates gather inside and the senior elders bless each new junior elder by rubbing a piece of fatty chest meat on his forehead and giving him a bite of the meat. An important part of the Olng’esherr ceremony is the blessing of the cattle sticks of the new elders. The branding irons of the elders are heated to red hot and plunged into a pool of cow urine; the new elders wave their sticks through the steam caused by the cooling branding irons in the pool. Then each elder carefully collects his branding iron that he will take home and brand his cattle with his own distinctive marks.

At the end of Olng’esherr, the skin of the ceremonial bull is stretched out to dry by the women. Special marks are made on the hairy side when the skin dries, and the skin is kept by the age group leaders.

As the final blessing of Olngesherr, one of the most revered of the senior elders circles the manyatta and plants a shoot of green grass at the cattle entrance of each new elder. He anoints the entrance poles with honey beer, whispering a blessing for the future of each new elder.

When the representatives from our area return from Oldoinyo Moruak, the new elders of each area of Ngorongoro will gather at central villages to celebrate. In our area, the designated village to celebrate is that of OleJumweiya… Some major partying is in the works.

Some weeks ago, many Maasai women from the Ngorongoro area went on pilgrimage (Elamal) some hundreds of miles North and East to the Sonjo valley. They went on pilgrimage to Sonjo to ask God for various things, some of the women are barren, others have sicknesses themselves or in their families that have not responded to modern medicine, and others went hoping for help with various other difficulties. The Sonjo are a farming people living in a single valley in North Maasai near the Kenya border. They call God Hambageyo and have a wide reputation as a deeply religious people. Our Ngorongoro women returned yesterday from Sonjo after a trip of many days on foot. They are very tired and happy to be home.

November 2002

The primary school leaving exams took place on the 25 of September. On that day, as we have every year for the last 16 years, we went around and picked up the Maasai girls that expressed a desire to continue their education and were endorsed by their head teachers for intelligence and a firm resolve to go on. Their determination has already been severely tested. The parents did not want any of the girls to study and complained to the local leaders. All of the initially stood up before their parents and brothers and spelled out decisively, their desire to keep on with their education…something that took considerable courage for these Maasai girls from the bush. It is the law of the land here in Tanzania that if a girl chooses to go on and has the opportunity to do so, neither parents nor anyone else cannot stop a girl from continuing her education. All but two of the eight girls that came on the day of the exams have left. Although they had the gumption to stand up and affirm their right to go to secondary school, their parents have since threatened to curse them and disown them if they did not return home to be initiated and married. Six were not able to stand up to these threats and have left. Two girls, at least for now, are still hanging in there.

Good news! Seven of the Maasai boys that graduated this year from our Osotwa Maasai Prep School are assured of places in secondary school. They have passed the examinations for schools in the Arusha and Kilimanjaro areas.

In the past two weeks two women have been attacked by buffalo near the mission. One, very seriously gored in the stomach has been flown out by Fr. Pat Patten’s Flying Medical Service to the major referral hospital in Moshi on Mount Kilimanjaro. The other woman sustained a broken leg and other injuries and is recovering at our hospital here in Endulen. Our Cape Buffalo are totally unpredictable, especially the lone bulls. These are often old bulls, rejected from a herd by the dominant bulls. They can be young bulls too, again chased away from the herd by the herd bull. People are as yet unsure whether it was a single individual that attacked both of the women or if they were different animals.

The day before yesterday I took four of my Maasai girls that have finished a year at our Maasai Prep School to take the entrance exams at a new high school on the shores of Lake Eyasi at the base of the rift wall. I got back with the girls this afternoon. We were very successful. All four girls passed the entrance exams that consisted of English, Math and Swahili. They will begin their freshman year on the 20th of January 2003. It looks to be a wonderful school. The buildings are fantastic...class rooms, dorms, dining room and so forth. Also they have put in a biogas system with cows that will live in a beautiful cement block house. The manure and urine go automatically by means of a slightly sloping floor into the fifty cubic meter fermentation tank. The gas is then drawn off for cooking and lighting. In addition to that they will have a huge 1800 watt wind generator with 12 massive batteries to store the electricity. The school will be run by African sisters. I met them and they look to be very capable and committed. The situation looks so good that it is pretty overwhelming. The project is just one of many put together by two Spanish priests that run the mission down there by the lake. The school fees will be formidable but I’ll find them somehow.

Immediately on our return today I bought two goats and three crates of soda. Tomorrow is the cattle market so there are plenty for sale. This evening we will celebrate our four girls being accepted into secondary school. It is not easy for Maasai girls to get a place in secondary school. For example, last year Diana Alois was one of 1700 girls that took the entrance exam for 175 places in high school. She was accepted. Two years ago Somalian Saning’o was one of 1500 girls that took the entrance exam for 150 places in Ngarenarok high school. She also was chosen; we were lucky. As you see, there are no guarantees. I am very relieved; their acceptance at such an excellent school is just great.

Our cattle market had a major casualty the other day. A man was found dead along one of the footpaths leading away from the cattle market area. People are saying that he was poisoned by the home brew raw spirits. These are distilled Maasai and others living in the area of the shops here at Endulen. Especially on market days there is a lot of drinking and many go for the almost pure alcohol that is cheap and very powerful.

January 2003

A.C. Hollis wrote in 1905 of the Maasai Medicine-man and his role in Maasai life.

Medicine-men have four methods of divining future events. The first is by means of a buffalo or ox horn. A handful of stones are thrown from the horn and they know what is going to happen by the number of which fall out when the horn is shaken.

The second is by examining the entrails of a goat which they slaughter. From what they see there they are able to predict that certain things will come to pass, such as epidemics, etc.

The third method is when they drink honey-wine and get drunk. They then are able to prophesy what will take place.

The fourth method is by dreams. They tell people what they saw in their dreams, and it is believed to be a prophecy. Should the dream not come true after the interval of several years, people cannot say it is not correct: They must wait until the medicine-man tells them that the event is about to happen.

If the medicine-man is going to prophesy by means of the buffalo or ox horn, and there are people on the road, he tells those present that he will wait, as their feet will spoil his prophecy. They always know when people are coming, even if they are afar off.

When the medicine-man makes medicine, he gets drunk before he prophesies. He sings in parables, and the people reply.

For instance, when the medicine-man named “The Father of Ngupe made medicine for the warriors of Kilepo before they went on a raiding expedition, he sang:

“The bulls that cannot move because they are so fat,
They will be beaten by Kilepo.
The bulls that cannot move because they are so fat,
Half of them have been captured.”

The warriors of Kilepo went on their projected raid against the people of Kahe, and captured half of their cattle.

All the medicine-man belongs to the Kidongi family of the Laiser clan, and they are the descendants of Ol-Oimooja or of E-Sigiriaishi, the sons of Ol-le-Mweiya.

Of all the medicine-men Lenana is the greatest. All Maasai acknowledge him as their Lord and pay tribute to him.

It is said that Lenana is the son of Mbatian, who was the son of Supeet, who was the son of Sitonik, who was the son of Kipepete, who was the son of P:arinyombe, who was the son of Kidongoi, who was the son of E-Sigiriashi, the son of Ol-le-Mweiya.

The story of the origin of the medicine-men is said to be as follows: Ol-le-Mweiya came down from heaven and was found by the Laiser clan sitting on the top of their mountain. He was such a small person that he was first of all believed to be a child. He was taken by the Laiser clan to their kraal, where it was discovered that he was a medicine-man. He married and had issue.

When he was dying he said to his children: “Do not move from this spot.” On account of this the Laiser clan do not go far from their mountain.

It is said that formerly, before Europeans ever came to these countries, he prophesied that white people would come.

Again before he died he told the people to move their grazing grounds, “for” he said,” all the cattle will die. You will first of all see flies which make hives like bees, then the wild beasts will die, and afterwards the cattle.”

Both of these prophesies have come true: the Europeans have arrived, and the cattle died.

When on the point of death, he called the elders of Matapato, the sub-district in which he lived, and said to them: “Do not move from your country for I am about to die, and I will send you cattle from heaven. If you move, you will die of smallpox, your cattle will parish, you will have to fight with a powerful enemy, and you will be beaten. I wish my successor to be the medicine-man’s insignia. Obey him.” The elders replied: “Very well” and left.

When they had gone, Mbatian called his eldest son Sendeyo, and said to him: “Come tomorrow morning for I wish to give you the medicine-man’s insignia.”

While this was taking place, Lenana, who had hidden himself in the calf-shed, overheard the conversation. He arose early in the morning and went to his father’s hut. One his arrival he said: “Father I have come.”

Now Mbatian was very aged and he had only one eye. He therefore did not see which of his sons was before him and gave to Lenana the insignia of the medicine-man (the iron club and the medicine horn, the gourd, the stones, and the bag, at the same time saying: “Thou shalt be great amongst thy brothers and amongst all the people.”

Sendeyo then went to his father, but was told that his brother had already been there and been given the medicine-man’s insignia. When he heard this, he was very angry and said: “I will not be subject to my brother; I will fight with him till I kill him.”

When he was dead, some of the people proclaimed Lenana principal medicine-man, “for,” they said, “Mbatian told us that he would give the insignia of his office to which ever of his sons he wished should succeed him.” They therefore remained with Lenana.

But others said: “We will not acknowledge this man for he is a cheat,” and they threw in their lot wit Sendeyo.

Now disease broke out amongst Sedeyo’s people, many of whom died, their cattle all perished, and they were defeated by the Germans; whilst those people who remained with Lenana did not fall ill, and they obtained cattle, as Mbatian had predicted.

The two rivals waged war for many years, and eventually Sendeyo was beaten. He came in 1902 to beg his brother to allow him to live with him, and peace was concluded between the two parties.

Before Lenana dies he will select whichever of his sons is acquainted with the work of the medicine-men to succeed him.

The principal badge of the medicine-man’s office is the iron club. If the medicine-man sends a messenger to tell his people anything, he also sends his club so that it may be known that the message comes from him.

Should a medicine-man strike anybody with the iron club, that person sickens and dies. It is said that Mbatian often struck people with his club, and waited till they were about to die, when he gave them medicine and cured them. Lenana, however, is a gentle man and does not kill people in this manner. … .

I’ll be out of touch of about four months. I’m off to get me second him replacement.

January 2003

Conservation authorities are making a sweep of the Endulen area to round up everyone who does not live or work here. One needs permission to be in the Ngorongoro Conservation area. Last time I looked, two Conservation land rovers were moving toward the gate filled with people.

The Barabai and the Maasai have been at peace for a number of years. This week that ended with a cattle raid by the Maasai. Four Barabai cattle were captured. Barabai warriors tracked their cattle to the Endulen area where they were spotted by here boys preparing to make off with a herd of Maasai cattle. The boys ran for help. Since it was a cattle market day, hundreds of Maasai warriors responded to the alarm. It was a standoff for a while with much spear rattling and stick waving, with both sides not quite sure whether to fight or talk. A police land rover arrived in time to decide the issue in favor of negotiation. The upshot of the potentially lethal situation was the Barabai deciding not to go home until their cattle were produce. The cattle did not materialize and, after a couple of days, the Barabai went off to their country.

The Barabai are a pastoral people living on the plains that border Lake Eyasi. The front porch of the house here at Endulen gives a bird’s eye view of the rift wall and the lake spread out below.

The house was fated to fall from the beginning. Two years ago Noosidan built her house. Her mother was sick in the hospital with TB. Noosidan was dividing her time between cooking food to take to her sick mother and putting up a house for her husband and little sister.

Building a Maasai house is a tough job. Lots of trips have to be made to the forest for wood of all kinds. Splits are needed for the frame work to be sunk deep in the ground. Great numbers of light branches must be found and cut for the heavy framework of the igloo like house. Then lighter ones must be found for the out frame. Grass will be tied on this one and finally a thick plaster of cow dung will be smeared. The finished house is dry in the rain and warm when it is cold, although a little smoky at times.

The problem was splits; the right ones. Cedar splits are the ones to use. Every Maasai knows this. The ants don’t eat them and the damp doesn’t rot them, but Noosidan didn’t have time to go deep into the forest for cedar. Cooking for her mother took up to much time. She settlled for soft wood splits and has regretted it ever since. No one else knew. Her friends would have laughed, she never told a soul. Noosidan had used soft wood splits and her house was destined to fall, its’ chassis, so to speak, eaten by the ants and rotted by the damp.

Yesterday it happened. The rain had come in torrents all morning. The ground was soft and the plaster of cow dung was water logged and heavy. No one was inside at the time. All the women and girls were under a nearby tree giving the goats some “pills of two colors”, our local name for tetracycline. There was a heavy squishy rending sound and all turned to see. Down came the house of Noosidan in a pulpy mushy mound with the soft wood splits exposed for all to see.

The women and girls laughed and enjoyed the joke till sunset. Noosidan laughed with them after her initial tears of dismay and frustration. They even made up a song about her, about the foolish girl who built her house of termite food and watched fall over on a rainy day.

October 2003

17th... I finally got back to Ngorongoro last Sunday. A half a year is a long time to be away. Lots of babies got born and plenty of people got married since I left. It is quite a task to catch up on everything. I guess the best part of being back is sitting on the front porch and talking with people. One bad thing that has happened is that a warrior was badly gored by a buffalo last week, but he is now off the critical list.

There was no harvest of corn at all this year in the Ngorongoro area and beyond. This has brought great hardship to the Maasai people. The plots of the Maasai are small and don’t produce much in the best of years, but do get them a few weeks further into the dry season without having to buy corn at the trading centers. There was no cushion this year. People are hungry and getting hungrier. The lack of corn has driven the price of what is available to levels, the likes of which no one can remember. When I left at the beginning of March, a four gallon tin of corn cost about one and a half dollars. Today, here in Endulen, a four gallon tin of corn costs over four dollars. The Maasai are being forced to sell precious animals to buy food, animals that represent their final resource. This week the clouds are dark with the promise of rain. People are preparing their small plots for planting and hoping for the best.

19th... Last night a very large leopard got into cattle camp of a neighbor. These camps are temporary affairs that young people put up to take advantage of the grass that has grown during the dry season near water or at the edge of a forest. Here in the Endulen area we have both permanent water and a forest on the slopes of Makorot Mountain. It was cloudy and dark in the night when the leopard came. The people woke at the terrified crying of the cows, calves and goats, but it was too dark to do much. The warriors gave chase as best they could, but the leopard got away, having killed two goats and carried off a third.

20th... In central Maasai country, a couple of hundred miles South of us here at Ngorongoro, water is an ever more critical problem for the Maasai people. Non-Maasai moving into Maasai country disrupt the fragile balance that ensures survival. First the newcomers get permission from the Maasai or local politicians to live in a place. Next, they get permission from the Maasai to share the water. Finally, after some years, they begin to claim that the Maasai cattle are trampling their crops or that the Maasai are disturbing their lives in some other way. They have now gained political influence and power and are able to totally deny the Maasai access to the water. This affects not only the Maasai people’s access to water, but also makes the land for many miles around unusable for grazing.

21st... One of the areas in the Conservation area is experiencing a problem that is prevalent in many places, but has become acute in Ematon. Ematon is on the main road from the hotels to the entrance road into the crater that is also the main drag to Oldupai Gorge and the Serengeti. For some years the teenagers of Ematon, dressed in their traditional finery, have been standing along the road flagging the tourist cars and minibuses down to get their pictures taken for a price. The Conservation authority has tried to control this by encouraging the establishment of “cultural villages” where the tourists can go, take pictures, watch dances, and buy souvenirs. The “cultural villages” have been somewhat of a success, but kids still stand along the road and tourists still stop. This influx of cash has gotten a lot of the young warriors drinking to the extent that we now have a substantial group of 15 to 20 year old alcoholics and many even younger. In addition to beer and commercial gin, locally made gin (read poison) is much in evidence. It is cheap and plentiful. This has become a major problem in the area of Ematon and becoming one in a number of other places here in the Conservation Authority of Ngorongoro.

November 2003

7th... This week has seen clashes between the Maasai warriors of Ngorongoro. The problem is grass or rather the lack of it. It is continues to be very dry here and the cattle are getting thin. In Olmisigio, a place about half way to Endulen from the crater, there is more grass than in some other areas. As things getting more and more difficult, the warriors of that area don’t want cattle from other parts of Ngorongoro to move in and totally finish off their available grazing. This precipitated a clash between the warriors of Olairobi, the immediate area surrounding the crater, and those of Olmisigio. A lot of the teenagers got seriously knocked around with knobkerries and in a couple of cases short sword wounds. Fortunately, only one morani was badly hurt and he is recovering at the hospital here in Endulen. The police intervened and stopped the “mini-war” before things got really out of hand. Then, the elders entered the picture and ruled that, at least for the time being, anyone could go anywhere to graze. Things have escalated to some extent due to the conviction of each group of warriors that the other is taking steps to put curses on them. I think the only real solution is that the rains come and the grass grows.

The origin of the Maasai and the Bantu people…
When Leeyo grew old, he called his children to him and said to them: “My children, I am now very old, I wish to bid you goodbye.” He then asked the elder son what he wanted out of all his wealth. His son replied: “I wish something of everything upon the earth.” “Since you want something of everying,” the old man said, “take a few head of cattle, a few goats and sheep, and some of the food of the earth. The elder son replied: “Very well.” Leeyo then called his younger son, and asked him what he wanted. “I should like, Father, “the younger one said, “The fly whisk you carry suspended from your arm.” His father replied: “My child, because you have chosen this fly whisk, God will give you wealth and you will be great among your brother’s people.” The one who selected something of everything became the Olmeeki (outsider), and he who received the fly whisk became the father of the Maasai. (Taken from Hollis)

I have taken the six girls who graduated this year from our one year prep school to write the entrance exams at two places, Kibosho Girls Secondary School and Ngarenarok Girls Secondary School in Arusha. That way they will have two chances to get into a school. If they don’t pass the one, maybe some will pass the other. Both of the girl's schools are run by sisters and have a good reputation. Our seven boys have taken the entrance exams at Makumira Secondary school, a secondary school near Arusha that has had great results in recent years. The competition is formidable. Many hundreds of young people have taken the entrance exams at each of these three places, resulting in very stiff competition. We now wait to hear how if Maasai boys and girls will get into secondary school.

December 2003

7th... Now that it is raining and people are beginning to drink milk, the long dry season and accompanying hunger seem like a bad dream. Recently, I ran across a description of the famine that took place at the turn of the century, about the year 1900…

Long ago there was a time when great suffering came to the Maasai people. The cattle were finished and without cattle there wasn’t much the Maasai could do to help themselves. In those days there was no rain for many months and drought covered the land of the Maasai. There came a time when the Maasai had nothing more to eat. Everywhere in Maasai country the people became frantic to find something to fill their stomachs. Some Maasai sold their children to the Kikuyu tribe to get something to eat. The Maasai scattered, some going to the Kikuyu to live in the highlands and others going to other of the farming peoples, like the Chagga of Mount Kilimanjaro. Others killed and ate their donkeys. Still others went to live in the forest to collect honey, wild fruit and hunt wild animals like the Dorobo hunter gatherers. The Maasai did these things before they were totally finished off by the famine. If they had not scattered and done these things, they would have been totally finished off, since there was no food of any kind to be found in Maasai country. This was the time when lived the warriors whose age group was called “ilmirisho”. They were the ones that ate the donkeys. The right hand of this age group of warriors is known as the ilTuati and during the famine, the left hand of their age group called “iLemek had not yet been circumcised. (Translation mine).

15th... Today is cattle market day here in Endulen. The village of Endulen is a small trading center some eighteen miles from the Ngorongoro Crater. There are some small shops here, but twice a month the population grows many times over as traders come from far and wide to set up open air shops. To the “cattle market” come the semi-nomadic Maasai from great distances. They come to buy sugar, tea, salt, corn meal, and the white, red, and tartan like "shuka" material worn by the men, which they wear draped over their shoulders toga fashion. Sold too, is the multi colored cloth worn by the women. They "shop for these things with the cash they get from the sale of their milk and butter or from the sale of a cow or goat. The highlight of the market is always the cattle auction, which also gives the Maasai access to the money needed for major expenses like getting married.

Three herds of cattle have been taken by the Sukuma on cattle market day from Osinoni, an area about an hour west of Endulen. The Sukuma live to the West of the Serengeti. The word of mouth report indicates that the total number of cattle stolen were between 150 and 200. Most of the people and, critically, most of the warriors were off at the cattle market, so there were few warriors around to fight off the raid. A Maasai speared killed one Sukuma warrior, but the rest got away with the cattle. The Maasai are at a disadvantage since they have only spears and short swords, whereas the Sukuma raiders have rifles; it is alleged, often rented from the police. The Maasai followed the cattle, but did not catch up before the raiding party had reached Sukuma country and dispersed disappeared with the cattle among the Sukuma villages. The police in Sukuma country are very reluctant to search out stolen cattle from Maasailand.

21st…I have just received word that three of my Maasai girls have been accepted into secondary school (high school) at Ngarenarok, a good school run by sisters. I am still hoping to get two more accepted somewhere else.

January 2004

A Maasai priest, Lekeny (Fred) OleKorori, wrote to me in response to the December Endulen Diary. Fred is presently doing a masters degree in Germany. I remember Lekeny’s high school and college days, especially vacation times. Lekeny would typically get a ride with me or in some other car from school near Arusha to Ngorongoro. Then from Endulen, he wouled set out on the six day journey on foot to his home at Malambo. Almost half of his month vacation was spent getting home and returning, on foot.

Thanks for your news letter of December. Let me comment two things in the letter. Your tale of the great hunger that afflicted the Maasai in the past made me reflect for a moment my family's past and history. May I briefly share it with you?

My grandfather Olekirinda Oledumuni was from the age group of iltareto. His father, my great-grandfather, was from the age group of iltuati. In summary these are my grandfather's accounts of the great famine that I received from my mother.

As olekirinda was a young boy of about fourteen. (He had already pierced his ears, the lower part, called “esekerwa"). The family of oledumuni lived among the Iloitai at narok in Kenya. The great hunger set in. Two disasters followed one another. First “Olodwa” or Rinderpest killed almost all their cattle. The whole country was rotten with animals' carcasses. Even the hyenas could not cope with great numbers of dead and dying animals. After the onset of Olodwa, it refused to rain for a long time, and the few remaining animals died. When people were without cattle, the "Ormashuku" or Smallpox descended on them like "intare naatii emwatata” (great numbers of goats and sheep in the animal enclosure). People were very weak and had nothing to eat. Many died and those remaining were eating donkeys and soaked skins of long-dead cows for their food. The Ilaikipia Maasai of kenya were their enemies too, and they helped the Kikuyu to fight against them.

One night the Ilaikipia came and raided their encampment. They killed almost all the males, including Oledumuni my great-grandfather. Others escaped the surprise attack, fleeing into the bush. They also killed all the boys in the village. My grandfather couldn't escape into the bush but he managed to save his life by dressing in mother's skin skirt, skin cloak and beads (Orkila and isosin), pretending to be a girl. The Ilaikipia took all the women and girls, including him, as their wives and some to sell to the kikuyus. While still on the trail, on the first day of the captivity at night, my grandfather escaped. There was a laikipia warrior who chose him for a wife but then became suspicious that he was a boy. The warrior dragged him out before the band of raiders to strip him and verify his suspicion that this was a boy posing as a girl. Just then a great black snake appeared in their path. My grandfather, taking advantage of the distraction, blended back into the crowd of prisoners. The pursuit and killing of the snake took most of the rest of the day, distracting attention from my grandfather and his gender. My grandfather knew he couldn't be lucky twice. So he risked escape at night when all were asleep. He fled the enemy camp into the bush and wandered for many days, eating from the carcasses of animals and wild fruit. Eventually, he reached the land of Ilaitayok where, at long last, rain had fallen and there was food to be had.

The brother of OleDumuni, my great-grandfather, “mzee” (old man) OleNgobeya had long ago moved to Ilmoru (the present Serengeti National Park) before the onset of the great famine. So my grandfather wandered far and wide looking for his relative. Finally, after many weeks, he found OleDumuni’s encampment. Olengobeya then raised him and there he started his own village and family. This is my grandfather's brief history; and consequently our family's history.

The dates are difficult figure. My grandfather died in 1972; I suppose at the age of about 80. He was very old and he belonged to the right hand of the age group-iltareto.

The second story in your letter recounted the cattle raid at Osinoni. I read the two events, famine and the cattle raiding, as interconnected with the history of our family. We lived at Osinoni as far back as I can remember between 1969 and 1976. Those years I remember well. I grew up at Osinoni and attended primary school at Kakesio, on the edge of the Serengeti. We moved from Osinoni for two reasons. Firstly, we moved due to the prohibition of agriculture at Ngorongoro area effective 1975, and secondly due to the prevalent cattle raiding between the Sukuma and the Maasai. My father wanted to save the family from the “irmang'ati” Sukuma, reminiscent of those his father i.e my grandfather escaped from during the time of the great famine. When I read the news letter; I was struck how history marks its course and repeats itself. I might have repeated the experience of my grandfather at the hands of the Sukuma if my father had not heeded the lessons of history he learned from our beloved grandfather, OleKirinda. Fred Olekarori

This week saw another cattle raid mounted against the Maasai of Endulen-Ngorongoro by the Barabai people from below the rift. This attack was in retaliation for an alleged Maasai raid against the Barabai two weeks ago.

In their retaliatory raid, the Barabai captured four herds of cattle from Esirua, a place some eight miles from Endulen. Maasai warriors gathered in great numbers and followed the raiders who were driving the cattle toward the rift wall and their encampments on the plains below the rift, bordering Lake Eyasi. They caught up with them after only a few miles, and the police, alerted by Maasai coming to the shops at Endulen, arrived quickly on the scene. The “mang’ati” (the enemy), as the Maasai refer to the Barabai, loosed arrows against the Maasai warriors chasing them. A Barabai arrow narrowly missed my head teacher Pakai, one of the warriors tracking the stolen cattle.

The police stopped the fighting and returned the cattle to the Maasai owners to await a court case. Then yesterday word came that the alleged raid by the Maasai never took place. The cattle that the Barabai thought had been stolen were actually lost and now had been found and returned to their villages.

Sandi Grey writes: Ned, please encourage our contributors to make their checks/money orders out in your name, i.e. Ned Marchessault, not mine. That way the contribution becomes tax deductible for them.

February 2004

Three Maasai warriors raided a Maasai cattle camp and made off with a herd of a hundred cattle. The alarm was raised and a large party of Maasai warriors caught up with the stolen herd near Oldupai Gorge. One raider was caught and his two companions initially got away but were later captured. The culprit’s families will be heavily fined and the thieves will do significant jail time.

A big meeting was held by the Ngorongoro conservation authority with the Maasai of the area. Hundreds of Maasai gathered for the “enkigwena”. It was announced that only Maasai are allowed to cultivate and their plots will be carefully measured, one acre for each family. As in other years, the people must cultivate by hand, no oxen or tractors are allowed. This is to help keep the size of the plots under control. The non-Maasai of Endulen, teachers, hospital workers, etc. were not pleased with the decision. Another thing talked about in the meeting was the building a second secondary school here in the Ngorongoro Conservation area. It has not been decided where it will be built.

Food help was promised by Conservation, corn at the equivalent price of five American cents for two pounds. This will be a tremendous help if it materializes. It is now about forty American cents for two pounds at the local shops.

An area some 4 miles North of Endulen village has seen repeated attacks by lions on the herds of cattle there. It has become such a problem that the warriors herding the cattle have banded together to graze their cattle together in one large herd that could be better protected by the presence of many warriors. A lion attacked a cow on the periphery of this herd yesterday. One of the young warriors got a spear into the lion, but was mauled in the process, badly bitten on his thigh. He is in the hospital doing well. The lion made good his escape.

A boy of about seven years was drowned this morning as he went to draw water at the local spring. Rain water had collected in a deep hole by the side of the path and the boy slipped and fell into the hole as he passed on the way to the spring. As you can imagine, the family is devastated.

The rains have come and everything is growing like mad. Now new problems have emerged. Elephants and Buffalo, among others are attacking the corn and bean plots of the local Maasai. Most people are forced to stay up all night to chase away wild pigs, gazelle, buff and tuskers. Elephants are not easily intimidated, and a number of people have been threatened with some seriously big flapping ears.

Our OSOTUA Maasai Education program has 39 Maasai young people in various secondary schools (high schools) this year; 23 of them are girls. Our OSOTUA Prep School (One year of English and Math) here on the mission has 20 Maasai students, 3 of the girls. The girls are as hard to pry loose as ever.

“Tiika enkawuo, miik enkong’u”
Hang up the bow, don’t hang up the eye.
(Used when a stranger comes to visit)

March 2004

A large hyena attacked a woman drawing water at a small stream yesterday afternoon. The brook meanders along the edge of the forest on the mountain overlooking Ngorongoro crater. Namunyak attempted to protect her face and neck with her hands and arms. Fortunately, some warriors nearby heard her frantic cries and came running. They were able to kill the hyena with their spears. Namunyak sustained some very deep bites on her arms and possibly a crushed bone, but is otherwise in good shape. For a hyena to attack a person is very unusual. They are usually afraid of people and keep their distance. People are trying to figure out the meaning of this weird happening.

Two Maasai young men of our Osotua Leadership program have received top marks in the National Form IV (High School) exams. Latang'amuaki Nduala from Malambo of Makumira Secondary School received a Division One with 7 points and Lememakwa OleKotonakaya from Olbalbal of Karatu Secondary School received Division One with 10 points. Both of these young men have been teaching in our “Osotua Pre-Form One” school here in Endulen waiting for their results. They will enter Form V (Junior College) in July.

Maasai men and women numbering over a hundred spent last night on top of Makarot Mountain singing and praying. They came from four of our Christian communities, Mokilal, Longojoo, Kaitekiteng’, Lemuli and Olmisigio. This was something they decided to do during the Lenten season and is reminiscent of traditional pilgrimages of the Maasai to Oldoinyo Le’Ngai, the “Mountain of God” an active volcano in the rift valley. In the morning, they came down from the mountain and we met for a prayer service at Longojoo, overlooking the crater. Although I made the prayer service, I didn’t spend the night on top of the mountain.

Last night in the Longojoo area, a leopard leaped the cattle fence of a Maasai village and killed a sheep. Warriors, alerted by the noise, chased the leopard out of the village. Due to darkness, they were not able to continue tracking the leopard. Early this morning, warriors from the village began tracking the leopard and eventually cornered it in an area of heavy bush some distance from the village. With trepidation, they closed in. In this kind of a situation with a lion or leopard, someone almost always gets hurt when the predator breaks cover. In this instance, they were lucky. Two were able to get their spears into the animal before he reached the ring of warriors.

On the way to one of my outstations on the edge of the Serengeti, we came upon a normally dry river bed. Due to rain in the hills above the rift wall that morning, the river was filled with rushing water, but was receding fast. As we waited for the water to go down, we noticed a Hyena over a dead and bloated eland some distance down the river bank. The eland looked like it had been carried down the river and snagged by something near the bank as the water receded. The eland is the largest gazelle, weighing up to two tons. It is a beautiful animal that often jumps when it runs like an impala. The hyena had eaten hugely and was totally overstuffed. A couple of hitch hiking warriors in the car, jumped down from our and cruiser and approached the hyena brandishing their spears. The belly of the hyena was so swollen with the eland feast that he could hardly move. Even when the warriors arrived a few yards from him, the hyena could only just get up and move away.

March 28th...
A teacher in the local primary school reports that a nine and a half foot snake, green with black spots, was seen entering the house of the head teacher. The troops were mobilized in the form of the school children, grades 2 to 7. Armed with stones, sticks and machetes, they searched the house for five hours, finally cornering the reptile in a pile of firewood. In an effort to flush it out of the wood pile, three gallons of kerosene were eventually poured into the pile of kindling. The snake emerged, much the worse for its five hour ordeal, and was dispatched. Needless to say, many dishes, cooking utensils and other household items were ruined during the snake hunt.

“Mepal oloitiko isirat lenyena”.
A zebra does not despise its own stripes.
(One must not hate his origins and traditions.)

April 2004

Latang'amwaki Ndwati graduated from high school (secondary school) in December of 2003. This month it was announced that he has placed among the top ten secondary school graduates in the country. There will be an award ceremony in Dar es Salaam. (See a picture of Latang'amwaki and other pictures of our Osotua Maasai Education program at:

My name is Latang'amwaki Ndwati. I am a Maasai boy from Malambo in the Ngorongoro district of Northern Tanzania. Malambo is a small village north of the Ngorongoro conservation area. It has a semi-arid climate which is accompanied by high temperature and low rainfall throughout the year. Its inhabitants are the Maasai people who are mainly pastoralist.

I completed my primary education in 1995 and I was selected to join secondary education, but due to poverty I was not able to pay school fees and outfit myself for secondary school. I stayed home for three years until 1999, when I joined Osotwa Maasai Preparation School in Endulen. The Osotua program has been able to pay my school fees which are very expensive and obtain other necessities like clothing, health care and whatever I required at school. I have completed my O-level secondary education at Makumira high school on Mount Meru near Arusha.

I have been performing well academically both in primary and secondary school respectively. In primary school I was among the pupils with the best grades. In secondary school I managed also to get the highest marks of any student in my class throughout the years of high school. Now I am at Osotwa Maasai Prep School as a temporary teacher waiting my form four national examination results. I am expecting good results.

Our Maasai society is backwards in the sense that they are illiterate. There are several factors for illiteracy among the Maasai but the major ones are poverty and cultural practices. Poverty has been a major obstacle for the Maasai young generation to get education. Most of those who are willing to get education find it difficult because there parents cannot pay the large amounts of money required.

Cultural practices have also become a threat to our education especially to Maasai girls. Such practices as circumcision, very early marriage and heavy domestic jobs have exposed our young Maasai girls to a lot of problems. Our parents are not aware of the changing world so they still hold traditions and customs which prevent Maasai girls to acquire education. Luckily Father Ned being aware of these practices has tried to take them to school. Now many of them are completing secondary schools and continue with further studies.

Due to changing climatic conditions, nomadic pastoralists are suffering a lot. Poor rainfall in 2003 has caused of them to suffer from hunger. Young energetic men with poor education are running towards big towns to look for casual jobs such as watchmen. This is because the dependable part of there lives is diminishing at a great rate. I believe that if these people had education they would have been able to adapt to changing conditions. Therefore I appeal to you and many others who feel committed to serve my society to strengthen us so that our future can improve.

April 23... Latang'amwaki is in Dar es Salaam waiting for his honor student ceremony. He writes:

I'm sorry for being late to inform you the situation of my journey to Dar...The reason behind is that I was not able to find an internet cafe easily since the environment is very new for me. All in all nothing went bad though there were some problems in identifying my hosts in the bus terminal. I managed to get them by phoning and telling where they could find me. It's my hope that you're well progressing. Dar-es-salaam is actually complex compared to Arusha. It has a lot of slums built randomly and its weather conditions are accompanied with high temperature. I'm still learning more about it. I don't know how long I will be staying here since we are still waiting other students to come. Pass my regards to Lememakwa, Lesikar, Mokotio and Naishorwa.

"Pooki olaiyoni oloinosa osina."
(The best man is the boy who was eaten by trouble.)

May 2004

In a nearby Maasai village, Namunyak was covering the roof of her house with grass in preparation for the cow dung covering that would make it a warm and snug Maasai home. From one of a load of grass she unpacked, there popped a long black snake that struck at her arm before she realized what was happening. Fortunately Sangau, a young warrior of the village, ran for one of the black stones that draw out poison venom when placed over a snake bite. Sangau quickly tied the stone to the wound with a strip of cloth and the Namunyak survived. In a separate incident in the same village, Naomon, an old lady, was bitten by a snake while building her cooking fire to prepare the evening meal. The long black snake had crawled out of the stack of firewood next to the hearthstones. Naomon, with a leg swollen to three times its’ normal size, is recovering in Endulen hospital.

I received an email from Elifuraha Laltaika, one of my students from Nainokanoka. He is presently in his third year of Law School in Dar-es-Salaam. Laltaika tells me that the results have just been released and Loleku OleNgaire, another of my students from Nainokanoka, has been selected to do a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He will begin the program at the University of Dar in July. Both Laltaika and Loleku were here for our Osotua Pre-Form I program in 1993

Rabid dogs have become a problem again here at Ngorongoro. Conservation has mounted another of its periodic campaigns against rabies. In the first stage, teams of game scouts moved into various areas shooting every dog they could find. Now, in a second stage, vets are going from Maasai village to village inoculating the remaining dog population. In Maasai country domestic dogs are found in all areas of Ngorongoro and the areas bordering the Serengeti. They are kept for guarding property and herding livestock.

A very old man, Parorik, was traveling from Olbalbal to Kakesio on the edge of the Serengeti. Dusk coming down, and tired from his full day of walking, he turned aside and stopped at a Maasai village to break his journey. The elders of the village receive Parorik, gave him curdled milk to drink and a place to sleep. Early the next morning Kadogo, the woman of the house where he had been given shelter, tried to awaken him. She could not rouse him. She called her husband and they found that the old man was dead. This caused great consternation in the village and fear too. People are discussing with each other trying to figure out why this happened to their village.

A warrior by the name of Ndekeyo of Olmisigio drank a serious amount of pure distilled alcohol last night. He passed out and could not be roused. His warrior friends made a stretcher of cow skin and carried him to the clinic at Ngorongoro. He died with out ever regaining consciousness. Ikaiyo, his mother, is devastated. Ndekeyo is the fifth of her children to die. People of her village are watching her carefully to see that she does not attempt suicide.

"Pashupashut anaa enkerai natii enkaji e koko enye."
(He is as proud as the child living at its grandmother’s house.)

June 2004

College & University
Law School
1 girl
3 boys
Med School
1 girl
2 boys
Teacher Training School
2 girls
3 boys
Veterinary Science
4 boys
Economics
1 boy
Sociology
1 boy
Geography
2 boys

Naomon was fourteen years old when she was married to Lenana two years ago. Lenana is a forty year old elder of the Endulen area. Naomon’s home is a few miles from a village called Duka Bovu (The falling down shop) not far from the town of Arusha. Years ago Lenana’s father had given a daughter to a family there. Instead of the normal bride price in cattle, a daughter yet to be born was promised. Two years ago Lenana went to collect the debt in the form of his new bride and third wife Naomon.

Naomon was terrified at the prospect of leaving her mother and village. She trembled at the prospect of traveling hundreds of miles to a strange land with a husband she had never seen before. Maasai girls take no part in the choosing of their husbands. Fathers make these decisions alone or sometimes together with their sons, but wives only rarely and daughters never consulted. In the case of Naomon, the decision was made long before she was born.

It was a sad day for Naomon when Lenana took her from the village of her father and mother. To protest did not occur to her. This was the way of the Maasai from time immemorial. She boarded the bus for Ngorongoro with Lenana, if not willingly, at least resigned to her future whatever it might hold.

The first two wives of Lenana had run away to the villages of their parents after one or two years with Lenana. He had treated them badly, not providing them with sufficient clothing and food. He beat them regularly and on the slightest pretext. When he returned home from a day spent in the local beer shop, he was always in a foul mood. In both cases, their fathers received them back and realized their impossible situations. Although Lenana pleaded for forgiveness and offered cattle to show his repentance, both fathers realized the character of their son in law and refused to force their daughters to return to Lenana.

During Naomon’s first weeks in Endulen, it almost seemed things might work out. Lenana was drinking less and only occasionally beating Naomon. On one occasion, he even bought her a brightly colored cloth to wear to local feasts. This state of affairs lasted about two months, whereupon Lenana reverted to his normal ways. He beat Naomon every evening when he returned from the local millet beer shop. He accused her of everything imaginable. He said she didn't gather sufficient fire wood, she didn’t have hot bath water ready for his return, and that she was sleeping with the young warriors while he was away. Lenana shouted all kinds of other accusations that occurred to his beer addled brain.

By the end of her first year in Endulen, Naomon was desperate. Her father’s village might just as well have been across the ocean as far as any communication would be possible for Naomon with her father. She had no relatives in the Endulen area to appeal for help, and no money to run away to Duka Bovu, even if she had known how to get there. She began to grow thin and haggard, totally despondent and despaired of getting help anywhere.

At this point she made a decision. She would force people to see her impossible situation. She would force her father to come and see her. She would not live in this hell one day longer. Naomon filled a large pot with water and rested it on the three stones of her cooking fire. When the water was boiling and bubbling, she grasped the large pot and poured it over her head. She got people’s attention for the first time in a year and a half. She even got the attention of the chronically dazed Lenana, who got the news at the beer shop that his wife had been carried to the hospital on a home made stretcher by the women of his village.

Naomon recovered permanently scarred. At the hospital it was discovered that she was three months pregnant and, by some miracle, she lose the baby. Her father was called and he came to Endulen and took Naomon back to Duka Bovu and her home village. She rested and was well fed and cared for by her mother. Some six months later gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.

Two months later Lenana showed up with a calf as a gift for Naomon’s father. He begged for forgiveness and asked that Naomon return to his village. He would not mistreat her again. Naomon’s father refused, saying that he wouldn’t let his daughter go back to Endulen. He now knew what kind of man Lenana was. Lenana promptly told him that if Naomon was not given to him he would take his sister back, the now thirty five year second wife of Naomon’s father with five children. From time out of time this has been the right of a Maasai man who quarrels with the husband of his daughter or sister. At any time he can take her away from her husband.

Since one month Naomon is back at the village of Lenana in Endulen with her infant son. These days Lenana comes home drunk each night and beats Naomon unmercifully. The future can only hold disaster.

July 2004

This morning, at dawn, I took four of our high school girls to the Ngorongoro shops, forty minutes away, to catch the bus to Arusha, the big town some 150 miles to the Southeast. During this time of the year the morning mist is a dense fog till about eight in the morning, so I didn't see the elephant till I was almost on top of him. A huge rump took shape not more than three car lengths from the hood of our Toyota land cruiser. I slammed on the brakes and just in time too, because at that moment middle aged bull turned and begun to flap his ears at us. Both his tobacco stain colored tusks were broken off about a foot and a half from where they came out of his mouth. I don't know much about the relative sizes of elephants but this one looked very big as he stood ears flapping staring at us with his tiny beady eyes out of the fog. After a minute or two he must have decided that we were no immediate threat; he turned and continued slowly on his way down the narrow track hemmed in by heavy bush on both sides. I followed at a very respectful distance. As time passed and the fog began to burn off with the coming of the sun, three other elephants, two cows and a half grown calf became visible through the gloom. None of the four elephants paid any attention at all to us and our Toyota, the initial inspection by the Bull having, I suppose, taken care of the curiosity of all of them. They ambled along browsing grass and leaves off the trees which lined the track. For more than an hour I followed them, unable to go around, and they showing no inclination to leave the open track. Only some minutes after eight o'clock, when the sun was brightly shining and we were in sight of a Maasai village located immediately on the side of the path did they turn off the track, silently swinging off into the dense brush. The most disconcerting thing about the whole episode for me was there total unconcern about the car. I didn't even make them mildly nervous as long as I stayed twenty five or so yards behind them. The reason for this total lack of fear on the part of the elephants is, I suppose, the fact that they have no natural enemies.

women gather bringing gourds of milk to the new mother. They slaughter a sheep that is called “The Purifier of the house” or simply “The Purifier.” The women slaughter the animal by themselves, and eat all the meat. No man may approach the spot where the animal is slaughtered. Having finished their meal, the women sing songs, like the following, to celebrate the new life in the midst.

August 2004

My name is Kusiande EnOleNdango. I am a Maasai girl of eighteen years. My father has five wives and seventeen children. I started primary school in 1992 and finished seventh grade in 1998. During those years in grade school I didn’t like school very much. Many times I would hide in the bush so that I wouldn’t have to go to school and often my mother kept me home to help her on her trips for water and firewood. The teachers didn’t seem to care much and my friends and I avoided school as often as we could. This situation and attitude continued till I was near the end of fifth grade, then a couple of teachers talked to me about the importance of education. Slowly I began to look around and realize that education could make a real difference to my future, my family and my people, the Maasai. I began to see that we are at a disadvantage at the shops when we go to buy things because we don’t know arithmetic. When there are government meetings about water or cattle disease, we often can’t follow much of what is being said because we don’t know Swahili, our national language. After this advice from a teacher and a lot of eye opening, I began to think that education is important and that I should try to go on to secondary school. From that time, I began to make an effort to get to school every day and to pay attention to my school work. At the same time, it was clear that my parents were dead set against my going on the secondary school. Since the beginning my father allowed me to go to school only because he was afraid of the police, not because he thought education would be helpful in the life of a person. He wanted to marry me off as soon as I would finish primary school. I decided to do as my father wanted because if I refused I would be chased away from home. I became very discouraged. I gave up hope of getting an education because of my fear of my parents. I really wanted to go on to secondary school but the obstacle was my parents.

Because I was terrified of being chased away from home, I purposely failed my seventh grade exams, so that I would not be chosen for secondary school by the government. After leaving school I went home and began to prepare for marriage. I was home for seven months helping my mother. Then I began to get the idea again of getting an education. I came to the conclusion that it was important that I go on with my education even if my family would hate me. I went to my teachers and told them my goal. They helped me get to Endulen to Fr. Ned. I studied there for one year in the Osotwa Prep School. When I finished my year at Osotwa Prep, I got a place in Secondary school in the year 2000 and finished Form IV in 2003. After secondary school, I returned here to Osotwa as a teacher where I am now. In the future, I hope to attend Teacher Training School so that I can be of help to other Maasai young people.

I want to say that this history that I have written is repeated many times over in the lives of Maasai girls here at Ngorongoro. We have great difficulty in getting an education and meet discouragement from every side, especially from our families who want to marry us off as early as possible. Many of us have been helped by the Osotwa Education Program of Fr. Ned.

After telling my story, I want to tell you that I and many other Maasai girls are thankful for the help that you have given us. Your help and support has made a big difference to so many of us.

Pakasi, one of my Prep school students told me of the following indent that took place during his recent time at home. He and two other boys, Kirinda and Lendapa were running down a steep hill. The hillside was covered with shiny black rocks that shimmered in the mid day sun because of crystal chips embedded in them. We stumbled several times running down the hill, he told me. About halfway to the bottom Kirinda gave an anguished cry and fell down. I’m dying he shouted, a snake! Lendapa and I ran over to Kirinda and there, a few feet from where he lay, was a very fat puff adder. We grabbed Kirinda by the hands and pulled him some distance away. Lendapa threw his stick at the snake and missed. I threw my spear; it caught the snake in the neck and pinned him to the ground. Lendapa easily finished him off, crushing his head with a big rock. Kirinda had been bitten in the ankle. I tied a strong cord below my friend’s knee as my father had taught me.

Lendapa, the son of a Maasai healer, drew the short sword he wore in a leather scabbard at his waist. He told me to hold Kirinda’s shoulders and press them to the ground. He sat on the boy’s thighs and held his legs firmly to the ground. Lendapa made small cuts around the area bitten by the snake. He untied a small piece of horn that he wore as an ornament from around his neck. He placed the horn on the wound and bled it by sucking the blood into his mouth. The horn was open at both ends and as Lendapa sucked it became full of blood, and a little went into his mouth. He spat. He did this several times. Then Lendapa ran off without saying a word. After a while he returned with some roots he had dug up. He pounded the roots against a rock, us
ing his stick. He took the pounded roots and rubbed them on the bleed
ing wound. Then he pounded other roots and put them with water into a gourd we had with us. He shook the gourd, mixing well the crushed roots with the water, then opened Kirinda’s lips. His teeth were clenched. When still very young children, the lower center tooth is always removed. So he put some of the dark colored fluid through the opening in the boy’s lower teeth. Kirinda sneezed and the teeth unclenched. Kirinda opened his eyes and Ledapa made him drink some more of the fluid. “Now let him go”, Lendapa said. Kirinda was too weak to move. But Lendapa said that everything was all right. “If he hadn’t sneezed, there would have been little hope,” he explained.

He picked up Kirinda and, caring him over his shoulder, we set off for our village. We took turns carrying him and arrived home late in the evening. Kirinda was very sick for a number of days, but slowly got well.

"Ntagoluoi toltau."
Be of firm heart!
(An expression often used when a person face many troubles at one time.)

September 2004

I have received news that there is hope of an operation for Enoti, one of eight handicapped Maasai children I take care of here at the mission. Enoti from Olbalbal is six years old and has spinal TB. Her spine is totally twisted and is pressing in on her heart and lungs. She is in first grade at the government school here in Endulen. She has persistent breathing and chest problems. Now Elisa, a pilot with the Flying Medical Service, has arranged for her to be evaluated by a Dutch surgeon in November, who may be able to perform an operation to help her. He and his organization will underwrite the cost of any help they can give her.

Naisimoi is happy. She has given birth to a baby girl. Naisimoi, a Maasai girl, attended primary school in Kakesio, a tiny trading center on the edge of the Serengeti. Kakesio has a shop selling ground corn, packets of tea, sugar and cooking oil. There is also a game post and a primary school. Upon finishing grade school, Naisimoi was chosen by her teachers to enter our Osotua Prep School at Endulen. Following long negotiations with the teachers, her uncle reluctantly agreed that she continue her education. Both Naisimoi’s mother and father died when she was very young; her uncle and his wife raised her. After one year of English and Arithmetic at Osotua Prep, Naisimoi elected not to try for a place in Secondary School, but to return home. I felt badly about this but in the end it was her choice. In a very short time she was married and pregnant. Just a few weeks ago she gave birth. Naisimoi gave her little girl a nick name, Kinyi ai, "my little one". The child will continue to be known by that name till her naming ceremony some three months hence. Naisimoi will allow her hair and that of Kinyi ai to grow during this time. Maasai women and girls normally shave their heads regularly. During this time Naisimoi will do little or no work around the house village. She will be taken care of by the older women and her husband will slaughter goats for her. Naisimoi will be called "entomononi", "The one who is prayed for", and will slowly get her strength back after the ordeal of pregnancy and child birth. The prevailing wisdom is that pregnant women should eat as little as possible during pregnancy. This not only makes for thin women as their time to give birth approaches but often very anemic ones.

After a few months have passed, Naisimoi will "Come out of the House," a euphemism for the day on which both mother and child are shaved and Naisimoi’s little girl will receive her permanent name. On that day the child and mother are blessed. Naisimoi’s husband must look for two black lambs with no scars or other blemishes. These are eaten by the women on different days. The second is called "an ox" and is the one used for the ritual. A strip of hide is cut from the sheep's right hind leg and Naisimoi will wear it on one of her right hand fingers. A woman and a child will accompany Naisimoi and her infant daughter during the ceremony, godparents in our terms. This woman and child have a special relationship with Naisimoi and Kinyi ai from now on and will remain life long friends of the family. Water is drawn from a spring and as Naisimoi drinks it, a woman leaves the house saying, "The children's meat is ready; the honey-beer has been brewed". At this call all the women in the neighborhood come out singing and join in the festivities. Age mates of Naisimoi’s husband and their wives gather around to choose a name for the child. The choosing and blessing of the name is serious business. The name chosen will affect the future life of the person. It must be a "blessed" name, perhaps the name of a rich person or of a highly respected person in the area. After agreement is reached on a name, the child is blessed by the age mates of Naisimoi's husband and by the women with a sprinkling of milk and honey beer. They might say "May that name live in you and bring you blessing". The little girl will continue to be called "Kinyi ai" by her mother and family, but to all others, the name that is chosen that day is the child's name.

The education that Naisimoi has received, although cut short, will be of real help to her and her family. Her outlook has changed, making her more aware of her personal worth and rights, even if those rights receive little recognition within her community. One immediate benefit of her education is that, armed with her knowledge of Swahili and math, she is less likely to be cheated when she goes to buy things at the shops.

Three of our Maasai girls have been accepted into a six month computer skills and English language program at the Baptist College near Arusha. Today, Nanana, Sumbati and Somalian begin their studies. Upon completion of their course, they will be in a much better position to be accepted for a job with Ngorongoro Conservation, Government, or an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization.) Without some computer skills, these positions are hard to get these days.

Today the handicapped team of the diocese is coming to Endulen. Leading the team is one of my Maasai girls, Naado, whom we supported through secondary school and nursing school. She is a registered nurse and mid-wife. Naado and her team work out of a center near Monduli and do outreach throughout MaasaiLand. I have a number of children for Naado to look at today. Kaiyanda, is boy with one leg; the other having been crushed when a cow fell on it. Gangrene totally destroyed the leg and hip joint. Dikaiyai is a seven year old whose hands were burned into tight balled fists. Dikaiyai needs a plastic surgeon. Kinyilai, another boy, is mostly blind, always tripping over everything. I want to ask Naado’s help in finding a special school for him. Since he sees little, he isn't doing well in first grade here at the government school in Endulen.

“Meirag te entim olotoishe.”
One who has children will not sleep in the bush.

October 2004

(In the following account some place names and other details have been changed so individuals can’t be identified.)

Deep in the hill country on the slopes of Naiyobi mountain whose summit boasts Mbakai Crater and its’ incredibly beautiful flamingo pink tinged crater lake lies a Maasai cattle encampment. Dominating these hills and valleys is the dramatic cone shaped active volcano Oldoinyo Leng’ai, the sacred mountain of the Maasai. Most of the fifty people who live in this small nomadic camp have never been out of their small valley. This is the home of Nasha, a young girl who constantly surprises me. Her will to get an education has been incredible.

It all began in a very ordinary way. Her father was chosen by government officials at random from a list of Maasai elders as one who must send a child to help fill up the first grade class in primary school. This is routinely done at the beginning of every school year. The old man thought he was being clever, thinking that as soon as Nasha reached puberty, he would pull her out school and give her as wife to his eighty year old age mate, an arrangement that was made long before Nasha was born. He underestimated burning desire Nasha would soon acquire for schooling. From the beginning of her school years, Nasha loved sit and look at Swahili and English picture books, trying to puzzle out the writing under the pictures. When she reached fifth grade and was about thirteen years old, she came to me with tears in her eyes to say that she had been told a secret by her mother. At the end of that school year, she would be circumcised and taken to the village of her husband. Her father saw no problem with the authorities. Living so far in the bush, who would ever attempt to follow Nasha and get her back for school?

I went to the local government officals and suggested that they officially place Nasha with the family of one of the female teachers at the Primary School. They agreed to write a letter making it mandatory that she live with the teacher and her family for the rest of her time in grade school. For the next three years she lived with Teacher Neema. Our next crisis took place at the end of Standard Seven, the end of her primary education. Nasha finished her primary schooling with good grades but was not one of those chosen by the government to go on the high school. At the same time there is no law in Tanzania requiring parents to send their children to secondary school. What to do? I enrolled her in a private secondary school and paid her school fees. Nasha on her side secretly fled from her village the very night that she was to be circumcised and given to her octogenarian bridegroom. She got a lift to the mission in a police land rover and I took her to school. Both she and I thought our problems were over. She was on the fast track to an education and a profession that would enable her to return to Maasai country to help her people. Wrong, at the end of the first semester, she came to me, tearfully pregnant, saying that she had been raped by the Headmaster of the school. It was true. I went to the government people in the area of the school and had them check her story out. It turned out that the teacher had made other students pregnant also. He ran and has not been heard from since. Nasha and I talked long and hard about what to do next. Here in Tanzania, it is the woman who always is in the wrong. It is shameful for a school girl to become pregnant and she invariably leaves school in disgrace. Here, as at home in the U.S., the presumption is: “Well, if she really wanted to refuse, she could have.”

We made an unprecedented decision. Nasha would stay at the mission, be cared for by our Christian Maasai women, have the child, let it grow to be three or four months old, give the baby to her mother to take care of, and then Nasha would apply to get into another school. Only if you know the African situation, can you appreciate what a radical solution and decision this was.

Nasha had her child without difficulty, all of us in our local Christian community acting as her family of love and support. After four months, we went and brought her mother and father to the mission and talked things over. They were overjoyed at the birth of their grandchild, and hopeful that Nasha would put away her ridiculous ideas about getting an education and to help her people. Her father said that the best way for Nasha to help her people would be to become a good wife and mother. Nasha, to my joy, said “No Way”. Her mother and father happily took the baby and left for home. They less enthusiastically left Nasha with me.

My next step was to contact the sisters who run a technical school near Arusha town. She began in January and has now completed one semester at the school. I am happy and more than happy to report that Nasha was among the first in her class of 45 students in her class at the end of the semester. I cannot adequately express to you my joy at her progress. We are talking here of the survival of a people, the Maasai people. Nasha is determined to do something for the women of Maasailand.

The headmaster of the secondary school here in the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority has agreed to put aside three places for the coming school year in January 2005 for our Osotua Maasai Prep girls.

November 2004

The most feared calamity...
Fire in a Maasai house is one of the most feared calamities among the
Maasai. Houses are cow dung igloos, with the main room and smaller ones connected by low narrow tunnels…death traps when fire strikes. Early one morning a couple of weeks ago, word came that fire had struck one of the nomadic encampments some ten miles from Endulen village in the direction of Oldupai Gorge. We immediately set out in our Toyota land cruiser with every water container that we could find filled to the brim. The water was not for the purpose of putting out the fire, since it takes minutes for a fragile Maasai dwelling to burn to the ground but rather to aid the now homeless people. They would not have had time to walk the five miles to the stream for water that day because of the calamity that had struck the village.

We arrived at about nine in the morning to find the two women in
tears that had lost their houses, wives of one man. They were in
tears over their losses, but thankful that no one was injured in the fire.

Their houses had both burned because they were just inches apart. It
seems that about midnight, the children, in this case a group of about
five newly circumcised girls were singing and playing in one of the two houses. They had heaped plenty of wood on the fire and were having a great old time. Suddenly the fire, much too big, licked at grass laid to cushion the cow skins on one of the beds. Since the girls were awake, they immediately grabbed the small children sleeping in the house on one of the beds with the woman of the house and ran outside, rousing the people in the adjoining house too. Thus all the people got out safely.

Unfortunately two baby goats were burned to death; all the skins on the beds, accumulated over many years were burned together with the cooking and eating utensils of both houses. All the gourds for storing milk and whatever spare clothing the people had were lost too.

Because the fires always kept burning in Maasai homes are open
cooking fires and the houses are so vulnerable, serious burns from
tipped over cooking pots and falling into the fire in the case of
small children are very common in Maasai country. Also, a
significant number of houses burn to the ground each year, sometimes with the deaths of those inside, especially when the fires occur in the night.

The new born baby's bed is beside that of its' mother, whose leather skirt serves for the baby to lie on. Here the child lies on his side when his mother sits beside him, or at night. At other times she carries her baby about with her, as a rule on her back, less often astride her hip, or on her arm. Only very small babies are carried in the arms. Only very small babies are carried in her arms, and then only in the first month of their lives. The baby still remains on its mothers back, while she works, held fast in her leather upper garment. Only if the baby proclaims its discomfort by continued screaming, is it handed to one of the women nearby to be quieted, or if it is rather older, the mother seats it on the ground in some clean safe place. The father scarcely ever holds the baby in his arms, but only takes it up occasionally for a moment. As soon as the child cries, either at night or in the day time, its mother gives it the breast, or in her absence another woman suckles it. If that does not help to quiet it, it is rocked in the arms, or a lullaby is sung to send it to sleep. Such a lullaby, universally known, is the following:

"Oh my little child, I say to you, grow and become strong in our
village filled with cattle."

Things are looking good for educational opportunities for our Maasai girls and boys. So far we have gotten seven places in secondary schools and 16 places at Simanjiro Animal Husbandry School. The secondary school places we gotten to date are three at Mbarway (Endulen), three at Wasso (Loliondo) and one at Ngarenarok secondary school. At Ngarenarok, one of our Osotua Prep graduates of this year Esta Long'ida, took first place among many hundreds of applicants in the entrance exams.

December 2004

My name is Naado Loonjumuya Shangai, and my baptismal name is Maggie. I was born 28 years ago at Irbatiti near Endulen. I am the last born of my mother’s five children, three boys and two girls. My father was a polygamist with eight wives; my mother was the third wife. It was difficult for our father to take responsibility for all of us as a father. So it was our mother’s responsibility to look after us when we are sick, to take us to hospital, and provide us with clothing and our other needs.

When a Maasai girl grows up, her father will be proud because there is cattle and other things ahead in the way of bride price. Thinking of my childhood reminds me to sit and narrate this story to somebody special who real meant a lot to my life. When I was about 5-6 yrs, the age when children are chosen for school, the government officers came around to write down the names of children for school. My mother was always praying that God would protect me so that I would not be taken to school. She was hoping that I would stay home to help her with the chores, since my elder sister was already married when I was four. I didn’t ever imagine during my childhood that one day I would see my dreams for education realized. I was always dreaming of being in school, and thinking about what school life would be like. In our Maasai tradition the right of ladies is only to be married and to take care of children and animals. That is the traditional meaning of education for the Maasai. Education among us is for what we’ll do in life, i.e. to be mothers and to take care of our families. I can’t blame that meaning of Education. Education in Maasai land is different from education in our Nation and in the world

Given this difference between Maasai education and Nation education, there is no support from parents for education outside the Maasai way of life. When I was six years old I was taken by the government people to the primary school to see if I would be written down to enter school. Since, like all parents at that time, neither my mother nor my father knew how old I was, registration in those days involved stretching one’s arm over the top of the head to see if one could touch the opposite ear. If you could easily touch your ear, you were judged to be seven years old and ready for school. If you were able to reach your opposite ear over your head, your parents have no excuse not to send you to school. In other tribes education is one of the foundations of a firm future. This is why parents take the education of their children seriously right from an early age. Thanks God that I got a chance at Endulen primary school to start first grade (standard 1), although I couldn’t really reach across my head to my other ear, I cheated a little and stretched my arm to touch my other ear and get written down for school.

When I was in third grade, my parents began to argue with each other about my school attendance. My mother was unhappy because she saw that I was too young to walk 6 kilometers every day to school, especially during the rains and with the danger of meeting wild animals along the way. My father was happy that I continue in school as a punishment for my mother because they were not getting along. In our tribe, if the father has a falling out with his wife, either he will slaughter or sell a big cow of that women or send one of her beloved child to school so depriving her of the help of that child for chores at home. This is like punishment. That is why I redoubled my efforts in my studies, to make sure that this punishment will turn out to my mother’s benefit. During primary school, I was among the best students. I learned to read and write and also tried to study small English books.

In 1989 I went to Endulen Mission to see the missionary, Fr. Ned. I told him that I wanted to go to high school but I didn’t have any idea about the processes of getting there. It was difficult for him at that time because in the village ladies who go on to secondary school are seen as lost by their parents. When a girl went to secondary school, she was treated as an outcast by the family. When I was near to go to secondary school, my friends ran away from me, because I am going to be “emeeki” (non-Maasai.) I tried to tell everyone that education will not change my love for them and my tribe, but no body believed me.

Early one morning my mother was milking and I was standing nearby, I saw father Ned and Teacher Kasoe coming from far away. My elder brother met them and Fr. Ned showed him the letter from District education office. The letter said that I was chosen to go to secondary school. My elder brother told me to hide in the tall grass. I did this because if I refused, it would be a bitter day for me and I might be beaten. I went to hide near the road that these people would use to return to the village of Endulen. When my brothers told them that I was not around, I just jump up to show my self. I decided that if I have to die, let me die because I want to go to school.

I was enrolled at Simanjiro Animal husbandry which is a vocation school. I was not very happy at Simanjiro because my intention was to join secondary school. I told Fr. Ned about my feeling; he agreed and found me a school near Arusha town, Purka Secondary School. I was very happy there although the school is a day school so it was difficult to get a place to stay. The place found for me to stay was at Sanuari, many miles from Purka School. It was a very long walk back and forth to school each day. My parents had no part in any of this. It was very painful during that time being so young and in conflict with my parents. Now I realize the cost of ignorance to our people and benefits of education. They don't think that education is very expensive and they believe that there is no advantage to education. One day when I was in form three my brothers asked me to explain to them which is better, "staying at home and getting married” or “getting an education." It was a difficult question and I was frightened that they would be angry at my answer. I told them that "my marriage can bring them three or four cows that can die even before one year, but my education is like having money in the bank that we can eat from for many years. Also a professional person can help one’s family for many many years.” It was a long discussion and in the end they told me to say that “I don't like school” because that is the only way that they can stop my studies and bring me home to be married. I didn't say that because myself I like school. I finished Form four. After that I went to Huruma Nursing School and graduated from the four year program as a Register nurse and Midwife. I am now working and walking among my Maasai people at the Rehabilitation centre for handicapped in Maasailand at Monduli. My mother and brothers now see what a great help I am to them and now are happy that I am educated.

Thank you very much for reading my story. I decided to call it "Nothing ever comes easy" My story is dedicated to young girls in our Maasai tribe. With some luck and a lot of self courage, they can succeed as I did in my safari of educational adventure. Thanks God for Fr. Ned and all the other people who helped me along the way.

The day before Christmas, the mother of one of my students went to draw water at the spring below Endulen and near her Maasai village. She was attacked by a leopard and badly clawed on her face and both arms and hands. Fortunately the leopard was startled by other women coming to draw water and disappeared into the bush. The woman survived and is recovering in the hospital.

January 2005

This year of 2005 we are sponsoring 39 Maasai girls and 24 Maasai boys in secondary (high schools) and technical schools throughout Northern Tanzania. The technical schools include computer science and animal husbandry schools. Also, we have accepted 17 Maasai boys and girls to participate in our one year prep school program (pre-form I) for this year. Our Osotwa Prep School is located here in Endulen on the mission compound.

When a man comes to the village of his father-in-law to take away his young new bride to his village she must not cross over sticks or bits of bone lying on the path. It is said that such things may have been put in her path to put a spell on her so she would not become pregnant. She must travel very slowly; in this way she shows how sorry she is to be leaving the village of her mother. Her husband often will promise her a goat or a sheep if she will agree to walk a little faster. She must not look back, because it is said that once a certain girl looked back toward the village of her mother and turned to stone. In Ngorongoro District a stone is still pointed to as an authenticated instance. The place is called Eselenkei, “the Maiden

The fog at Ngorongoro these days is dense. This is especially so in the early mornings, but at times it can last the whole day. This is the time of mist and fog in the highlands; Ngorongoro is about eight thousand feet. My morning treks to the villages are frequently filled with apprehension, since I literally have little idea of where I'm going to end up when I start out from the center of Makorumba, not far from Ngorongoro Crater. The day before yesterday my destination was a village in which I was to hold discussions. I had been to the village once before, so had an idea of which paths to take. After an hour of walking, I realized I was hopelessly lost, although still on a clearly defined path. I couldn't see more than a cow's length in front of me and the country was undulating hill country covered with short grass and stunted thorn bush. Realizing a path as clearly defined and as well used as the one I was on, must go somewhere and as likely as not to a Maasai village, I kept followed it for another three quarters of an hour. Then to my immense relief, since by that time I was very tired as well as very lost, I heard the lowing of a couple of cows and the voices of children just ahead. Presently out of the fog became visible the high circular log stockade common in the Ngorongoro area. Through the wide high doorway I could see the familiar squat rectangular shape of a dung plastered Maasai house dimly through the soupy fog. I knew right away that this was not the place I had set out for, but was very thankful to be there anyway. The people received me with a surprised welcome and a big gourd of curdled milk. Both of which I was happy to get. I say a surprised welcome since I was a complete stranger to them. They set me on a new path in a slightly different direction and off I went again through the still dense fog. After about a half an hour, the village I was looking for loomed out of the murk. There I was received by the elder of the village and his numerous wives and children; they were very surprised to see me, saying that they thought only crazy Maasai ventured out in such weather. I was given a big tin mug of tea and shared a heaping plated of fried meat and fat with the old man.

February 2005

My name is Ngaur (Helen) Muyandet and am Maasai by tribe. My father has one wife and six children so we are eight in my family. I’m the third child in my family. I entered primary school in 1988 and finished in 1994.

When I finished primary school, I was not chosen by the government to enter secondary school. In addition to not being on the government list to go on to secondary school, my parents were strongly against my continuing my education. They wanted me to be married and to get the bride price cattle. During that time other Maasai girls were being helped to go on to secondary school by Fr. Ned. I talked to him and the leaders of our village about my desire to continue in school. They were able to overcome the objections of my parents and enroll me in Osotua Maasai Prep School at Endulen, Ngorongoro.

After the year at Osotua Prep, I entered secondary school in 1997. During my time in secondary school, I came to realize the importance of getting an education. At the same time my parents renewed their efforts to force me to leave school and return home and be married. They wrote letters and sent relatives to convince me to run away. They told me that education for a girl has no meaning and that I should forget about this foolishness of wanting an education. They told me that I should be ready to get married so my father could get some cows. My father was pushing me so hard to leave school and accept the elder that he had chosen to be my husband that many times I was ready to give up myself.

I didn’t give up though and finished secondary school. After that I returned home to Ngorongoro, I see how much good my education has done for me. The other girls in my village that had not been to school are often taken advantage of in so many different ways. They are cheated when buying things at shops and have no idea of their rights. Many think that whatever their husbands, brothers and fathers say comes from God, no matter how foolish or crazy. I decided to become a teacher and went to a one year Teacher training school. Now I have finished my basic studies to become a teacher and am waiting for the government to post me to my first teaching position in Maasai country. I want to help other Maasai girls get the opportunity to open their eyes as I had mine open by education. I am married now to Ndoros, a Maasai who also received his education through the Osotua Maasai Education Program. We are beginning to build our life here at Ngorongoro among our Maasai people. We want to use our education to help our people have a better life.

Small Maasai children collect pebbles or berries, with which they play at cattle and sheep. They also build huts and kraals in the sand, and they make spears out of bulrushes. Little girls make dolls of the fruit of the sausage-tree.

Big boys play about in the herds of cattle. They choose a quiet animal and pretend it is a hut. One boy stands by the cow whilst the others go and hide. When the later return, the one standing by the cow chases them away. If one of the boys who is driven off is caught, they say the enemy have killed him; anybody who manages to escape and touch the cow has won. This game is called Sambwen.

The old men likewise have their game. This is played on a board containing many compartments, in which they move pebbles called ‘ndoto. This game is called engeshei. The warriors also play this game, but they do not care about it much. They have no boards and make holes in the earth.

March 2005

I am Narropil Siroyan, a Maasai woman of 22. My father married two wives and we are fourteen in my family. I am the oldest child of my mother who was the older wife till her death three years ago. As is usual among the Maasai people, elders are very reluctant to send their daughters to school, especially their elder daughters. My father was told that he must bring a child to school. We were just two children in the family at the time, so he took my little brother, who was much too small to start school. My brother was rejected because he was so small, and my father was told he much bring allow me to be enrolled in first grade. He refused and only under threat of imprisonment did he agree that I go to school. So in 1992 I began school and lived at the mission in Endulen. My mother arranged that I stay with Fr. Ned because the nearest school was a four round trip walk from our village in Olmisigio. I liked school and continued slowing acquiring the ability to read and write. Although I enjoyed school, I had little idea of the value of education.

When my father began to understand how much I enjoyed school, he took me to, “ilaibonok”, ritual experts to mix up my brain so that I wouldn’t understand what the teachers in school were saying. His idea was to make sure that I would not be chosen for secondary school which, in the eyes of the Maasai, is a fate worse than death for a Maasai girl. When I arrived in fifth grade I was circumcised and was promised to the man who was designated as my husband as is customary among the Maasai. I did not like that man at all, but he wanted to take me out of school and carry me off to his village. I went to my teachers and they were able to contact the government education people who threatened my father and designated husband with jail if they refused to let me finish my education. I returned to stay at the mission and attend the government school at Endulen. At the mission I met and made friends with many girls who were attending various secondary schools. During those conversations with other Maasai girls I developed a strong desire to continue my education. During those years my father continued to go to Ilaibonok, getting spells and medicine from them to block my education and force me to come home and be married. He slowly realized that the spells of the Ilaibonok were not having the desired effect. After that he cursed me many times and beat my mother whom he accused of encouraging me in my rebellion against him.

In 1998, when I was close to finishing primary school, my father redoubled his efforts to curse me and also told me that he was no longer my father and that I should go and find another father. He called my “husband” and told him to call together other young men and take me by force on the day I would finish primary school and the class seven examinations. A couple of my teachers heard about the plan and warned me. I went to Fr. Ned and told him. The day before the examination, October 10th in 1998, Fr. Ned took me to the police and we wrote out a report. The next day I went to school in fear and took the exam. After the exam, the guard sent by the education department to oversee the examination took me home. Early the next morning, Fr. Ned came to our village and took me directly to the Maasai Girls Lutheran Secondary school in Monduli some six hours drive from Ngorongoro. Unfortunately, there was no place there for me so we returned to Endulen and sent out application forms to various secondary schools. During that period I had to hide a lot in house of the matron of the girls at the mission. My father frequently came to curse me and have big arguments with the matron and Fr. Ned. Fortunately after only a few weeks we received word that there was room after all at Maasai Girls Secondary school in Monduli. Happily, I went to take the entrance exams. When I arrived at the school, I was taken to a classroom and wrote exams in English, Math and Kiswahili. A short time later, I received the news that I was accepted. I was overjoyed to be accepted into Maasai Girls Lutheran Secondary School, a school that has a high reputation here in Northern Tanzania. Beginning my freshman year of secondary school in 1999, I met my classmates. Many of them were Maasai girls who had, like me, arrived at secondary school only after overcoming the opposition of parents, brothers and “husbands.” I didn’t find secondary school easy, but I loved being there and I worked hard.

During leave times I had to stay at the mission because my father continued to work at getting me to leave school and be married. He was always telling me that education had no meaning. When I wouldn’t listen to him he would always get very angry. On the other hand, my mother was sympathetic to my desire to get an education, and always encouraging me. She often came to the mission during leave time to tell me not to give up.

After I finished Form IV, I taught at Osotua Prep School at the mission in Endulen while waiting for my Form IV results. That was a good time. I spent a lot of time talking things over with Maasai girls preparing for secondary school. I got a chance to share my strong feelings that we Maasai women have as much right to an education as men do. We talked a lot about our desires to be teachers, nurses, doctors and so forth.

When the Form IV results came out, I found myself accepted to return to “Maasai Girls” into Form IV. During Form IV and VI I took as many science courses as I could because I want to be a doctor. The studies were very difficult for me, but I studied hard and on the 4th of March, just three weeks ago I finished Form VI. Our graduation celebration will be on the 3erd of April. I hope to begin medical studies next January.

My advice to other Maasai girls is that they should study hard and not be afraid of parents or anybody else that wants to block their education. Girls have just as much ability as boys. Know too that when you are successful and your parents see that you will be of help to them, they will quickly change and be happy that you have an education and are able to help them. Never say “I am not able because I am a girl.” “Only boys can succeed.” That is just not true. The secret of succeeding for a girl is not be taken in by the sweet words and false promises of boys and even parents. Don’t take gifts from boys, brothers or anyone that wants to destroy your goals in life. Be satisfied with what you have, work hard and you will succeed.

March 2005

During the night there were signs that heavy thunder storms were on the way. In the very early morning a woman by the name of Naishorua OleEsombire climbed onto the roof of her house to spread cow dung thus ensuring that the roof would not leak during the coming storm. As she repaired her home, there was a great clap of thunder and the bright flash of lightening. The Lightening bolt struck Naishorua. She fell unconscious from the room. Her head immediately swelled considerably and she died after a few minutes.

I am Narropil Siroyan, a Maasai woman of 22. My father married two wives and we are fourteen in my family. I am the oldest child of my mother who was the older wife till her death three years ago. As is usual among the Maasai people, elders are very reluctant to send their daughters to school, especially their daughters. My father was told by the government that he must bring a child to school. We were just two children in the family at the time, so he took my little brother, who was much too small to start school. My brother was rejected because he was so small, then the education authorities told my father that he must enroll me in first grade. At first he refused and only under threat of imprisonment did he agree that I go to school. So in 1992 I began school and lived at the mission in Endulen. My parents arranged that I stay with Fr. Ned because the nearest school was a four hour round trip walk from our village in Olmisigio. I liked school and began to learn to read and write. Although I enjoyed school, I had little idea of why I was there.

When my father began to understand how much I enjoyed school, he took me to, “ilaibonok”, ritual experts to mix up my brain so that I wouldn’t understand what the teachers in school were saying. His idea was to make sure that I would not be chosen for secondary school which, in the eyes of the Maasai, is a fate worse than death for a Maasai girl. When I arrived in fifth grade I was circumcised and was promised to the man that my father arranged for me to marry. I did not like that man at all, but he wanted to take me out of school and carry me off to his village. I went to my teachers and they were able to contact the government education people who threatened my father and designated husband with jail if they refused to let me finish my education. I returned to stay at the mission and attend the government school at Endulen. At the mission I met and made friends with many girls who were attending various secondary schools. During those conversations with other Maasai girls I developed a strong desire to continue my education. During those years my father continued to go to Ilaibonok, getting spells and medicine from them to block my education and force me to come home and be married. He slowly realized that the spells of the Ilaibonok were not having the desired effect. After that he cursed me many times and beat my mother whom he accused of encouraging me in my rebellion against him.

In 1998, when I was close to finishing primary school, my father redoubled his efforts to curse me and also told me that he was no longer my father and that I should go and find another father. He called my “husband” and told him to call together other young men and take me by force on the day I would finish primary school and the class seven examinations. A couple of my teachers heard about the plan and warned me. I went to Fr. Ned and told him. The day before the examination, October 10th in 1998, Fr. Ned took me to the police and we wrote out a report. The next day I went to school in fear and took the exam. After the exam, the guard sent by the education department to oversee the examination took me home. Early the next morning, Fr. Ned came to our village and took me directly to the Maasai Girls Lutheran Secondary school in Monduli some six hours drive from Ngorongoro. Unfortunately, there was no place there for me so we returned to Endulen and sent out application forms to various secondary schools. During that period I had to hide a lot in the house of the matron of the girls at the mission. My father frequently came to curse me and have big arguments with the matron and Fr. Ned. Fortunately after only a few weeks we received word that there was room after all at Maasai Girls Secondary school in Monduli. Happily, I went to take the entrance exams. When I arrived at the school, I was taken to a classroom and wrote exams in English, Math and Kiswahili. A short time later, I received the news that I was accepted. I was overjoyed to be accepted into Maasai Girls Lutheran Secondary School, a school that has a high reputation here in Northern Tanzania. Beginning my freshman year of secondary school in 1999, I met my classmates. Many of them were Maasai girls who had, like me, arrived at secondary school only after overcoming much opposition. I didn’t find secondary school easy, but I loved being there and I worked hard.

During leave times I had to stay at the mission because my father continued to work at getting me to leave school and be married. He was always telling me that education is useful for a girl. When I wouldn’t listen to him he would always get very angry. On the other hand, my mother was sympathetic to my desire to get an education, and was always encouraging me. She often came to the mission during leave time to tell me not to give up.

After I finished Form IV, I taught at Osotua Prep School at the mission in Endulen while waiting for my Form IV (junior college) results. That was a good time. I spent a lot of time talking things over with Maasai girls preparing for secondary school. I got a chance to share my strong feelings that we Maasai women have as much right to an education as men do. We talked a lot about our desires to be teachers, nurses, doctors and so forth.

My advice to other Maasai girls is that they should study hard and not be afraid of parents or anybody else that wants to block their education. Girls have just as much ability as boys. Know too that when you are successful and your parents see that you will be of help to them, they will quickly change and be happy that you have an education. Never say “I am not able because I am a girl.” “Only boys can succeed.” That is just not true. The secret of succeeding for a girl is not be taken in by the sweet words and false promises of boys and even parents. Don’t take gifts from boys, brothers or anyone that wants to destroy your goals in life. Be satisfied with what you have, work hard and you will succeed.
Narropil Siroyan

April 2005

I have had some car trouble. Climbing a steep hill in heavy rain on a very narrow track, I came upon a lorry stuck and totally blocking the road. I attempted to turn the toyota land cruiser around on that very narrow road with deep rain dug ditches on each side. The car slid into the ditch and stayed in the ditch as I drove back down the hill with the car at a 45 degree angle with two wheels in the ditch. The scraping by rocks, roots, tree limbs and gravel did a lot of damage to one side of the car. I I spent ten days in Arusha as Indian panel beaters restored the car.

OleNagol was angry, so angry that he would not greet his favorite granddaughter. He had given orders that she was not allowed to approach his cattle camp. For Enoti to come near would mean death, cursed to die by her grandfather.

Enoti’s father Lemalali, a good friend of mine, died some years ago of a brain tumor. The lump on his head got bigger and bigger. Finally, I took him to the hospital in Arusha where doctors operated to remove the golf ball size growth. Kasiaro died on the operating table.

Enoti was left to be given in marriage by her grandfather. The old man chose a good friend of his, an age mate, a very old man. Enoti, having no say in the proceedings, was taken to the village of her husband, becoming the fourth wife of a man in his late seventies. The three older wives had the old man firmly in hand. Enoti got left out in everything. When there was money for clothing, the other wives got it all, Enoti was soon dressed in rags, the remnants of what she was wearing on the day she was married. Her husband gave her one pitifully thin milk cow that hadn’t had a calf in a couple years, so she had no milk to drink. Her co-wives managed to monopolize what little money there was for corn flour also, so Enoti had almost nothing to eat, and was reduced to sitting by the fires of the older wives existing on the left overs from their cooking pots.

She stuck it out for three years then eloped with Kimat, a young man whom I had sent to technical school for auto-mechanics and now had a good job as a driver with an organization working to help the Maasai of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Kimat built a house for Enoti and was able to buy her clothing and give her money to buy food to cook nourishing meals for them both.

Her grandfather was beside himself with anger, outraged that Enoti could so defy him by running away from the husband he had chosen for her. He publicly cursed both Enoti and Kimat and would have nothing to do with them.

The young couple tried everything they could think of to win over the old man. They sent delegations of elders on three different occasions to OleNagol with gifts of tobacco, honey beer and blankets. First went age-mates of Kimat’s father. They were turned back at the gate of the village. Next a delegation of her grandfather’s age-mates agreed to try. They were admitted to the village and given milk to drink but returned to tell Enoti and Kimat that the old man was adamant; he would not forgive them. Finally they sought the help of Birikaa, one of the most famous medicine men in all of Maasai land. His home village is not far from Endulen and Kimat often gave him lifts in the car between Endulen and Ngorongoro. Birikaa, a man universally feared in all of Maasai country, went to OleNagol and, although he was received as befits royalty, he had no better luck than the first two delegations.

Enoti and Kimat were desperate. A year and a half had now passed since their elopement and they were no closer to regularizing their union than they were on the night a hungry Enoti, dressed in rags had stolen away from the village of her husband and three older wives. Extreme measures were called for. A ritual, undertaken in only the direst circumstances, was decided upon. The ritual of Oseki was the only thing left to try, and because I was such a close friend of Enoti’s dead father, I would be the one to implement it.

Oseki is a kind of tree. When every other avenue fails, branches of Oseki are cut and carried to the elder refusing to forgive. If the cause of Enoti was just and true, OleNagol would curse himself by refusing to forgive. But Oseki is dangerous because If Enoti was in the wrong and her case not a just one, Enoti herself would be forever cursed by God.

In fear and trepidation, I agreed to go. Kimat and a couple of elders briefed me on what I should do and say. On the way to the village of OleNagol I cut a strong limb of Oseki with plenty of leafy branches. On my arrival at the cattle camp, I stood outside the village holding my great branch of Oseki in front of my like a shield. The old man together with all the women and children came out of the village to greet me clearly filled with consternation at seeing me with Oseki. They invited me to enter the village, sit by a house and drink some milk. I refused, holding my Oseki more tightly than ever, saying that what I had come for had to be dealt with first. I would not enter their village as a guest till my mission was accomplished. Well said the old man, let me bring a stool and a gourd of fresh cool milk out here so that you can sit and refresh yourself; then we can talk. Again I refused, saying that I could not sit down or touch a drop of milk till I had said what I had come to say.

I told OleNagol that Enoti was sick in heart and in body (In fact she had just been released from our mission hospital after a three day bout with a undiagnosed ailment). I explained to him that Enoti could no longer live estranged from her beloved grandfather. She was in imminent danger of simply wasting away. She had sent me with my branch of Oseki to beg for peace and forgiveness. Please, I said, forgive her and bless her. She cannot live a day longer knowing that you are angry with her. He was caught. What could he do? If he sent me away, he was calling the curse of God down on himself. He compromised. OK he said, let Enoti come and stay with me. I will bless her and she will remain at my village till I decide what to do with her. But I am still angry at Kimat and I don’t want him to come within shouting distance of my village. Make sure he stays far away from here. Feeling that I had won a very important battle and not lost the war either, I sat with the old man “ate the news” with him and drank his delicious curdled milk. Listening to my report, Enoti and Kimat were pleased. They felt certain that once Enoti was in the camp of the old man, always his favorite in past days, she would win his approval of Kimat also.

Enoti went to stay in the village of her grandfather the very next afternoon. Early the following morning, the old man forgave and blessed Enoti. In the midst of the cattle lowing impatiently to be milked and with the whole village looking on, OleNagol sprinkled Enoti with milk and honey beer from the special gourds of blessing, restoring her to the family.

Enoti stayed with her grandfather for a month. During that time, as we had hoped, she won him over completely, even to welcoming Kimat into his village. Two months later Enoti and Kimat were married with proper Maasai festivities.

I am happy to report that two of our Osotua program students, a girl and a boy, that have just finished Form IV not chosen by the government to continue, have been accepted into private Form V programs. Three others, girls, have been accepted into Ekoneforde Teacher Training School.

May 2001

The young boy I talked about a couple of months ago is still with us. You will remember that he and his father came to Endulen with donkeys to buy corn. They came from OldoinyoGoll, an area on the Eastern edge of the Serengeti, some five days trek from Endulen. Sangau was blamed for the loss of a donkey that ran away and wasn’t found. In anger, his father left him and, a couple of days later he turned up here at “Osotwa” looking for something to eat. After waiting a month to see if his dad would show up, I enrolled him in the local primary school. I guess maybe we’ll see his folks when they run out of food at OldoinyoGoll and come looking for corn again.

Mike Jemmett, the Mennonite volunteer working with our Maasai Education program writes about the new secondary school opening a few miles from us. Mike finishes his contract at the end of this year and will be returning to Canada. Mike has done a fine job. The Mennonite organization is advertising for a replacement for him. The Mennonites and I are hopeful that a woman or a married couple will respond, who will be able to work closely with the girls. Developing leadership among Maasai women is our priority here. Although, because of resistance to the education of women on the part of the elders, it continues to be a struggle to pry girls loose to continue their education. The elders are looking for instant gratification in the form of the bride price of cows as soon as a girl reaches twelve or thirteen years old.

There used to be a rutted track that wound about crumbling rocks and thorn-spiked acacia trees; that dipped into two shaded crystal streams where Maasai girls and women quietly rinsed the dust from arms and legs, and warriors paused to chat; a track that rose and dissipated into the “dry acacia bush land” of classic African bush. It is no more.

A creaky bulldozer, A thunderous steamroller and a convoy of dented blue dump trucks have been descending like a column of army ants upon that meandering track, straightening, leveling, widening, “civilizing” its length of almost six kilometers, over three miles. However, now the dust is settling, the streams clearing, the air growing still once more.

These days of transition between the wet and dry seasons, from the rising of the morning mist to the casting of the cool, evening shadows, a spear of light strikes the eyes of our Osotwa students. It is the sun dancing along the rooftops of corrugated aluminum under which mostly Maasai youth will pursue higher education at the only secondary school in this part of Maasai country. It is the first in the Ngorongoro Conservation area.

Notice was posted for the sixty government-selected students to arrive, and still they are gradually trickling in. Among those present is one of our boys, plucked and transplanted; and two of our girls. The number at the new school currently numbers thirteen boys and one girl.

So, we Osotwans tramped out to visit our alumnus and scope out the new digs. Along the route, we practiced as much English as possible, but the students’ enthusiasm and anticipation often bubbled over into Maasai and Swahili.

On arrival, we were treated to a royal tour: the terrazzo floor is slick, the plaster smooth, the paintwork sharp, the desks varnished, the windows intact, the night lighting bright, the dormitories spacious, the taps run, the toilets flush, the cafeteria is functional and serving the first arrivals. By local standards, it is palatial.

The other reality is that the school should have opened in January of 2000, and we are now one-third the way through the current academic year. Meanwhile they await the balance of the inaugural class. No one can predict just when the actual teaching will begin. For now, the students are engaged in janitorial and landscaping tasks, and teachers stamping new texts and organizing their appointed lives. Our tour guide insists, however, that they will complete the full curriculum by year’s end.

In 1999, competing Osotwa student teams moved sixteen boulders, perhaps up to 75lbs/35kg from far and wide to be fashioned into a huge directional compass and used as a forum for student-initiated discussions. The day after our trek was the last Friday of the month, at the end of which we regularly gather and sit around on the compass boulders.

“The windows are high so you can’t look out. All you see are treetops and sky.”
“I like the quiet. No shops, no children. You can study better.”
“It’s big. You can do science in the laboratory.”
“I like the toilets…no smell.”
“They have a generator and a pump. Students will not have to carry water from the stream... more time for rest and study.”
“The food smells good.” (Boiled corn flour is the staple diet).
“If I sleep on the top bunk, I will have a dream and fall off!”

Sometimes the dream alone is worth the risk of falling off. The old rutted track is no more, but perhaps Maasai students will dream of forging their own paths linking the past to a secure future.

May 2005

Bulati is a very very isolated area of the highland area on the far side of Ngorongoro Crater. Since it is on the almost inaccessible Eastern rim of Mbakai Crater, no outsider ever visits there. Mbakai is an incredibly beautiful wooded crater whose bottom is entirely taken up with a lake populated the year round with flamingoes. The Maasai say the lake is bottomless. Nearby at Bulati we were in the midst of a service in our small Maasai Christian community. Just about the time the gifts of bread, wine, milk and butter were being brought to the altar in procession, we heard the movement of many people and the sounds of excited voices outside our mud walled grass roofed church. Fearing some calamity was taking place we stopped our Eucharistic celebration and all trooped outside to see what was going on. A young warrior lay on a roughly made stretcher of cow skin stretched across saplings. About fifty of his age mates stood around the motionless figure. The warrior had been gored by a buffalo some three hours walk to the East in the heavily wooded mountains. He had been on a honey collecting expedition with other young men and had surprised a bull buffalo in a thicket. Giving the warrior no chance for retreat, the buffalo charged hooking his horn through one side of the warrior’s lower abdomen and out the other side. A good portion of his intestines came out with the horn. Hours later they reached Bulati on their expected two day trek to the nearest hospital. Surprisingly enough, he was still very much alive and even able to talk, but of course in deep shock and a lot of pain. We were in luck having the jeep there and after finishing our service we put him in the car on the laps of three of his warrior friends. The two hour trip back to my base outstation here at Nainokanoka was a nightmare. We traveled slowly but the “road” is just a track through the forest and across the flatland. The way very bumpy, pitted with potholes and strewn with rock. He groaned constantly at the erratic movements of the car. Arriving at Nainokanoka, we call the offices of the Conservation authority on the other side of Ngorongoro Crater for help. They sent aToyota Land Cruiser fitted out as and ambulance. He was still able to speak a little as we loaded him in the Conservation car some hours later. The young man lived for only a short time after finally arriving at the hospital some six hours later.

My name is Emanuel Lekishon Shangai. I was born at Endulen village but in 1985 we moved to Alamunyani because of the long drought that resulted in many of our cattle dying. I grew up in a poor family. Our cattle were raided by the Sukuma in 1982. Due to the loss of our cattle and the fact that cultivation was not allowed in the Conservation Authority of Ngorongoro, we made the move to Alamunyani. There we cultivated a small plot using a hand hoe. In 1992 the small scale cultivation was again allowed in the Endulen area of the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority and we moved back to Endulen and acquired a small plot for cultivation. In 1991 I had been enrolled in the primary school at Arash near Alamunyani. These places are on the North side of the Serengeti and outside the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority. In 1994, having completed grade 4, I transferred to the Endulen primary school where I completed my primary education in 1997. In 1998, I joined Osotua Prep School and began to realize the possibilities for my life and the importance of education from Fr. Ned and the teachers there. I studied for a year at Osotua where I got a lot of experience from different teachers, especially Mwalimu Moinga Ikayo, a most kind and knowledgeable teacher.

In 1999, I got a place at Kilimanjaro Boys Secondary School and completed Form IV there in 2002. When the results were published I found myself on the list of those that had passed and been chosen to go on to Form V. I looked for a scholarship to continue, but was not successful in getting one. I went to Mwanza on Lake Victoria hoping to find a job as a security guard, but the pay offered was so poor that I didn’t take the job and continued to look here and there for a job to enable me to pay for my continued studies. Nothing materialized and I finally returned to Endulen very much discouraged. In 2004 Fr. Ned was in a position to help me again and I went back to Kilimanjaro Boys for Form V & VI. I am now just beginning Form VI that I hope to complete this year. My dream is to go on to University. I give thanks for our beloved father and all those who work with him to help me and other Maasai young people. I want to tell to all Maasai boys and girls that nothing can be impossible in the world if you work hard and don’t give up…..Lekishon Shangai

June 2005

As we begin the second half of 2005, I am happy to report that our Osotua Maasai Education Program has 38 Maasai girls and 31 Maasai boys in secondary and technical schools throughout Northern Tanzania. Also, we will be sending three Maasai girls to begin Teacher Training College at Tanga on the 25th of July. Another one of our Osotua girls will soon begin a three year “Assistant Medical Officer” program under the auspices of Salien Lutheran Hospital at Machame hospital on Mount Kilimanjaro.

My father who is of the alteritoi age group (now very old men), married three wives and we are 13 children in my family. I am the third born of my mother who is the second wife among the three. One wife died and the other ran away to leave my father and he remained only with my mother . in 1989 my father had ordered by the government to give a child for school. He was told to send my older brother. He didn’t want my brother to go because he was the only one of us of an age to herd the family cattle. Instead, he promised the government to give a child in the coming year. In 1990 I was taken to school even though I was very young, so young that I couldn’t reach my left ear with my right hand by reaching over my head. This is the traditional test to determine if a child is big enough to go to school.

In fact it was not the intention of my father to take me to school but rather he was forced to do so by the government. Always in maasailand, in those years, school was the place to take the children who were least favored physically or mentally. Parents believed that a child taken to school will be lost to them, alienated from village and even from Maasai country. They believed that the child would never be seen again.

I completed my primary education in 1996 and then I stayed one year in our family village home. During that time my father took me to a certain group of people who have power to confuse the brains of children so that education is hateful to the child and he or she finds it impossible to learn anything (These people are called IRKIPOROON). My father took two of us to those people, the other was a brother who had also completed primary school. After I observed how the ORKIPOROONI totally confused the brain of my brother, I refused to go them again.

Then I decided to go to OSOTUA PREPATORY SCHOOL where I met other Maasai boys and girls preparing to go to secondary school. I went to father Ned and he allowed me to join 1998 I spend one year and 1999 I was chosen to join to the Arusha Catholic Seminary. My father refused that I go to secondary school, but my mother was on my side and advised me to call together some sympathetic elders. These men convinced my father to let me continue my education.

In 1999 I started form one at Arusha catholic Seminary were I completed in 2002. My results were good enough to go on to junior college (Form 5 & 6), but I could not look for a school because Fr. Ned was away in the states getting his second hip replacement. I stayed at Osotua Prep School in Endulen and helped out with the teaching there for the space of a year. I continued to look for sponsorship to continue at school but didn’t find anyone to help me.

Immediately after fr. Ned came back from America I went to him and first of all I gave him “Pole” by giving him a goat as a welcome home gift. I wanted thank him for helping me until I completed “O” level
studies. And after I explained what had happen to me, he agreed to help me again. We applied to Kilimanjaro Boys Secondary School and I was accepted there for Form 5 & 6. I am now in Form Six and doing well.

My advice to other Maasai boys and girls who find their desire for and education blocked by family and others is not to give up. You will succeed in the end.

September 2005

Pakasi, one of my Prep school students told me of the following incident that took place during his recent time at home during our semester break. He and two other boys, Kirinda and Lendapa were going downhill after climbing a very steep mountain far from their home village. The hillside was covered with shiny slate colored rocks that shown and shimmered in the mid day sun because of some kind of crystal chips embedded in them. We stumbled several times running down the hill. About halfway to the bottom Kirinda gave an anguished cry and fell. I’m dying he shouted - a snake. Lendapa and I ran over to Kirinda and there, a few feet from where he lay, was a very fat puff adder. We grabbed Kirinda by the hands and pulled him some distance away. Lendapa threw his stick at the snake and missed. I threw my spear; it caught the snake in the neck and pinned him to the ground. Lendapa easily finished him off, crushing his head with a big rock. Kirinda had been bitten in the ankle. I tied a strong cord below my friends knee as my father had taught me.

Lendapa, the son of a Maasai healer, drew the big knife he word at his waist. He told me to hold Kirinda’s shoulders and press them to the ground. He sat on the boy’s thighs and held his legs firmly to the ground. Lendapa made small cuts around the area bitten by the snake. He unfastened a small piece of horn that he wore as an ornament from around his neck. He placed the horn on the wound and bled it by sucking the blood into his mouth. The horn was open at both ends and as Lendapa sucked it became full of blood, and a little went into his mouth. He spat. He did this several times. Then Lendapa ran off without saying a word. It scared me, but after a while he returned with some roots he had dug up. He pounded the roots against a rock, using his stick. He took the pounded roots and rubbed them on the bleeding wound. Lendapa pounded other roots and put them in a gourd partly filled with water that we had with us. He shook the gourd, mixing well the crushed roots with the water, then opened Kirinda’s lips. His teeth were clenched. So he put some of the dark colored fluid through the opening in the boy’s lower set of teeth. Kirinda sneezed and the teeth unclenched. Kirinda opened his eyes and Ledapa made him drink some more of the fluid. “Now let him go”, Lendapa said. Kirinda was too weak to move. But Lendapa said that everything was all right. “If he hadn’t sneezed, there would have been little hope,” he explained.

He picked up Kirinda, and carrying him over his shoulder we set off for our village. We took turns carrying Kirinda and arrived home late in the evening. Kirinda was very sick for a number of days, but slowly got well.

My name is Parkepu Olenakuroy and I was born in 1984 in Ndean area of Ngorongoro. My people are the Maasai. I am last born of my mother, and also the last born of all of all of my father’s four wives. My father is Alaigwanani, the leader and spokesman of his age group in our Maasai pastoral society. Although he was an important leader of Maasai society, he had no use for education. My father was forced by the Tanzania government to send me to school. I started primary school in 1991 at Endulen primary school here in the Conservation area of Ngorongoro Crater. Finishing grade school in 1997, l joined Osotua Prep School and spent two years, 1998 and 1999 preparing for secondary school entrance exams under the direction of Fr Ned. In 2000 I entered Arusha Catholic Seminary or Oldonyo Sambu Seminary. I did my "O" level studies i.e. form one to form four in Seminary and graduated from high school in 2003. After graduation, I went home to Ngorongoro and the village of my father for three months to wait for the results of the Form four examinations. In February of 2004, the national examination Council of Tanzania had announced the results, but I knew before that God would help me get through my final exams. I was praying hard and God heard my crying. It turned out that I was among the students in Tanzania who scored division three. After the results being announced, l went to check the list of students that the government had selected to enter Form IV (junior college). l was not selected. I talked it over with Fr. Ned and we decided to look for a place in a private secondary school. Off I went to Rombo on Mount Kilimanjaro to apply for a place at Kilimanjaro Boys High School. I started my "A" level studies (Form 5 & 6) at Kilimanjaro Boys on 15th July 2004. The fees at my school are very expensive, but Fr Ned continuous to support me. I expect to complete Form Six in February next year (2006). I do always pray hard and study harder and request God to grant Fr. Ned and those who help him long life that they may continue to help Maasai society. My people have been marginalized, especially with regard to education. Education is the key to the liberation of human beings in general and the Maasai people specifically. Moreover, my goal is to become is to do environmentalist studies. I continue to pray that God to grant me the strength to persevere in my studies and eventually to be of some use to my people, the pastoral Maasai. I remain always yours, Parkepu. S. Olenakuroy.

October 2005

October 22nd… Osotua Prep girl graduates Law School…
Seyanoi EnoloLaisinet graduated from Tumaini University at Iringa on October 22nd. She is the first Maasai girl from Endulen Ngorongoro to graduate from university and the first Maasai woman that I know of, to become a lawyer. Thirteen of our Osotua Maasai Prep School girls from Endulen traveled with me to the graduation. It was quite a trip. Iringa in the South of Tanzania is a 1,500 mile round trip from Ngorongoro.

Fourteen of us crowded into our Toyota Land Cruiser and off we went. Given the narrow two lane roads here where one must constantly dodge huge long-haul buses and 18 wheelers, it was a nerve racking four day trip. Rocketing buses and trucks come at you from the front and others are frantically looking to pass from the rear. At the same time bicycles and foot traffic on the shoulder make for constant threats. At one point a passenger car trying to pass a bus was caught in the on-coming lane with traffic coming head on. The driver was forced to take to the ditch. Amazingly no one was badly hurt. Keeping alert and safe hour after hour of this kind of driving was quite a challenge.

For the thirteen Maasai girls, never having traveled away from Maasai country at Ngorongoro, it was a tremendous adventure. In some areas, coffee farms and sisal plantations stretching as far as the eye can see, were visions from another world. Then there were banana trees, palm trees and so many other things never before seen. The girls commented on the lack of cattle, once we left Maasai Country. “How do these people manage without cattle?” We stopped frequently along the way at roadside kiosks for tea and chapatti and for soda and cookies.

Tumaini University is a Lutheran school and Seyanoi has been helped by sponsors found for her by the Lutheran Church during her university education. Her secondary education was also supported by sponsors the Lutheran Church found for her. Lutherans are doing wonderful work in the area of education here in Tanzania and particularly in Maasai country.

The graduation was great. Our Maasai girls were inspired by Seyanoi’s accomplishment. Hopefully they will be encouraged in their own efforts to get an education. As we placed the flowered circles around Seyanoi’s neck and gave her our gifts, she was clearly overjoyed to have so many of her friends from Ngorongoro with her. It is hard to get used to the idea that one of our own Osotua Prep girls is now a lawyer.

Often our meetings with the people take place under a shade tree that is central to the villages in a particular area. It eases the burden of hospitality that would otherwise fall on a particular village to host our gatherings. Often we meet near or in the shade of an Oreteti tree. This is a tree sacred to the Maasai. The Oreteti are beautiful large leafy shade trees without thorns. Whenever a passing one of these trees, the Maasai stop to say a short prayer for a sick family member to ask God’s blessing on their herds. The people often leave a small offering in the branches; a bunch of green grass, a small bracelet, or a string of beads to emphasis their prayer. These trees have had this function of being sacred places for hundreds of years, so it seems fitting that we should join the tradition of praying in the shade of the Oreteti tree that is a special sign of God’s presence for the Maasai.

Late this afternoon I went with some of our students to cut firewood in the forest above Endulen. We go about once a week to fill our small trailer with firewood that we pull behind the land cruiser. A chain saw acquired about a year ago makes things much easier. On the way down the mountain the sun was just setting and the sky was a deep red. Against the background of the sunset appeared a herd of more than twenty eland startled by the noise of the passing car. These are the largest and heaviest of the antelopes and can weigh up to a ton and stand up to six feet at the shoulder. The herd of huge animals passed in front of us bounding along like a herd of seventy pound impala. It was an awesome sight. We stopped the car and watched them till they disappeared into the bush.

October 2005

Tumaini University is a Lutheran school and Seyanoi has been sponsored during her university education. Her secondary education was also supported by sponsors the Lutheran Church found for her. Lutherans are doing wonderful work in the area of education here in Tanzania and particularly in Maasai country.

November 2005

There are a lot of buffalo around Endulen these days. From time to time people and buff’s get in the way of each other. There was an especially bad attack three weeks ago when a woman, Totaiyo Enololejumweiya was drawing water at the Oldogom, the spring fed stream that winds its’ way through Endulen village. Unfortunately she was alone, an unusual situation. Usually women go to draw water in groups making a dreary chore into a social gathering marked by sharing their family news and enjoying each others company. Totaiyo was alone and the buffalo was hidden in the heavy bush bordering the stream. He surprised her as she filled her recycled plastic cooking oil container in the stream. She was gored in the chest, face and knee. Totaiyo saved herself by laying flat on her stomach and holding on to the grass. After the initial attack, the buffalo moved off and the woman survived.

These days I'm quite concerned about three children, two little girls with destroyed leg tendons and one older boy of about sixteen with what looks like a bone infection. The boy arrived here at Endulen with his mother a couple of days ago. The wound, just above the knee, looks like it had healed and reopened any number of times. At the moment it is open and very nasty. At first, his mother explained, the wound just didn't look serious enough to travel the many miles to the hospital, then later whatever help was gotten was to little to late. Now the wound has clearly gone very deep. I will take them, he and his mother, to the hospital, but things don’t look for him.

The girls are both from the same Maasai village down on the plains at Olbalbal. Noontomon, the older of the two was pierced in the knee with a thorn about a year and a half ago. Nothing was done. Her mother, husband dead and she very poor, didn't have the means to take Noontomon to the hospital. The wound was left to fester over a number of weeks, and when she finally did get to the hospital in Endulen, it was too late. The tendon was destroyed. The knee has healed, but she will always walk with a limp. She now stays at our place and attends first grade at the local government school. It is hard to tell what her future will be. After a recent gathering of the church in that area, and while visiting Noontomon's family, I notice a small girl of about six years limping around. I was told that another child hit her in the leg with a stick while playing. The same thing developed as had with Noontomon, only this second little girl had never been taken to the hospital. Her leg healed but she will hobble around for life, dragging her tendon less leg along behind her. I don't know how the people could have neglected her seeing what had happened to Noontomon.

When the morning star appears the people of Maasai know that it has dawned. At this time it is still night, although the chill of the morning spreads across the plains. The Maasai say that it is the time of the buffalo. Then when it begins to get light they say that the whiteness has gone round. Now the tending of the cattle begins. Women begin with the milking. When the women and girls have finished milking they call the shepherds to drink milk so they may get ready to drive the cattle to pasture. When milking is finished, the children separate the calves so that they won’t follow their mothers to pasture.

During the rains the cattle they don’t drive the cattle far for pasture. The women open the gates of the village and the cattle stand and lay down outside. The elders look the cattle over to see if there are any sick or lame among them. While the cattle are lying down outside the village enclosure, the men sit around the open air fireplace warming themselves and discussing the news.

Families that have sheep have more work than those with only cattle. Sheep need to have their enclosure cleaned to prevent disease. The Maasai build strong fences for them because they are the favored meal of nocturnal prowling leopards. In areas where leopards are numerous, they build a guard hut and the warrior who watches there needs enough firewood to last the night. Shepherds do not take the sheep and goats to pasture till the sun burns off the dew. The children tend the sheep so that they do not wander away. The elders look over the sheep carefully, treating the tame ones and others who are ill. They brand and earmark the lambs. The owners go around pulling off ticks and sewing aprons on the rams yet to be castrated. Warriors fit the castrated rams with collars and bells.

In wet years the men drive the cattle to pasture at the crack of dawn while the dew still lies on the ground. When the dew begins to disappear, the shepherds drive the cattle back home and women and girls milk them. If the cattle are very thin and find new grass, their stomachs swell and some may die. There are some people who know how to effectively treat this condition.

It is in the morning during the rains women of collect fresh dung for plastering the huts. Sometimes a woman does not use up the dung she collected in the morning and leaves it lying around. Some say that if cows find it on their return from pasture, the dung will hate her calves and the best one may die. When it rains a lot, then a great deal of mud enters the villages and maggots with tails get into the mud and the village “goes bad”. When a village “goes bad,” the people build a new one.

After the shepherds drive the cattle, sheep and goats to pasture, the women get a break. Many sit basking in the early day sun sewing their skin skirts or making bead jewelry. Later when the sun is overhead, one does not work much. The women move into the shade to do their hand work and talk together. Others go into their huts to rest.

November 2005

December 2005

Our Osotua program has 80 Maasai boys and girls in secondary, college level, and technical Schools, 40 girls and 30 boys. Among these are three girls in Teacher training college, one girl in the Assistant Medical officer course, three girls in hotel management school, and one girl just graduated from law school. We also have ten, five girls and five boys in our Pre-Form One prep school program here in Endulen.

In the New Year we’ll be sending eleven more girls and nine more boys to secondary and technical schools. Congratulations and thanks to all of you out there who are helping make this program possible.

We slaughtered a cow and cooked a gunny sack of rice for Christmas. There were crowds of Maasai people with much singing and dancing. It was a huge celebration and I am very happy that it is over.

Often flies are very troublesome in Maasai villages. When the cows leave the village, all the flies return home. It happens that when you look at children and women it is as if they are carrying colonies. When you look at the mouths and eyes of the children, you would say they have beards because of the flies. That is why eye disease is so common among the Maasai. In the afternoon, when the sun begins to lose some of its ferocity, the women go to cut firewood. As evening approaches the goats, sheep and calves arrive home and the women guide them into pens. When the cows arrive and everyone is very busy, husbands may become annoyed at lazy wives who do not quickly free the calves to suck at the udders of their mothers. When the women begin milking, they first throw upwards some milk with lids of their milking gourds as a prayer to God. Some women sing to the cows to calm them during milking. When a cow's calf dies, they coax here to give milk with a dummy calf made from the skin of her dead calf stuffed with grass. A calf whose mother has died will be fed milk and boiled herbs with a funnel sewed from skins. When the women finish the milking, they feed the children. The older people then have their food. Their diet varies little. Normally the Maasai drink milk and eat only gruel made from corn flour.

Later the children gather to sing and dance and play games like “kill the charcoal,” where something is hidden and then all must look for it. Often the children sit together and tell stories. The old men sit together and discuss. If there is a family that has slaughtered, the boys go to eat meat together. It is in the evening that children go to their grandmothers who tell them stories and legends of long ago. The boys go to their grandfathers who tell them of wars that they fought and the cattle they captured.

During the dry season, men sit up very late outside the houses discussing the news. Little children go to sleep very early, but boys sit up very late. If the locality is dangerous, men do not sleep heavily, so that if animals attack at night, they can defend the cattle.

During the frequent times of drought and sickness among the herds, there is much work in the villages. If there is little milk, they shoot cattle in the neck with a blocked arrow and draw blood for cooking and eating. The children know about the cattle troubles and droughts suffered by the Maasai. Their fathers and mothers tell them about the history of their people while they sit together talking in the evening before they go to sleep.

January 2006

Endulen mission encompasses about half of the Ngorongoro conservation area, the central feature of which is the crater itself, with its' heavy concentrations of wild animals. The great herds of buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, gazelle and the many predators, lions etc. make it, perhaps, the major tourist attraction of East Africa. To the North and West of us are the vast Serengeti plains, and to the South and East, the shear walls of the Rift Valley give onto breathtaking views of the Salt lakes on the Rift floor. The entire Ngorongoro highland area, of which Endulen is a part, is traditional grazing land of the semi-nomadic Maasai, and the landscape is dotted with their cattle camps.

Endulen itself is a small trading center some eighteen miles from the Ngorongoro Crater. There are small shops here, and twice a month there is the cattle market to which Maasai come from great distances. They come to buy sugar, tea, salt, corn meal, and the white "shuka" cloth, which they wear draped over their shoulders toga fashion. They "shop for these things with the cash they get from the sale of their milk and butter. The highlight of the market is always the cattle auction, which gives the Maasai access to the money needed for major expenses like getting married. Here in Endulen, we also run a hospital for the nomads. A Tanzanian doctor and four African sisters staff the hospital. The use of the diocesan plane every couple of weeks makes it possible to do clinics in otherwise inaccessible places and to bring critically ill people here to Endulen Hospital.

An important priority here at Endulen Mission is the education of young Maasai leaders. The Maasai have little voice in the decisions which affect them. Their primary schools are much poorer than in other areas of Tanzania, and they have only one secondary school, very poorly operated compared to the seventy post primary schools in the neighboring district of Kilimanjaro, serving the Chagga people. Their permanent water and arable land continues to be taken at an alarming rate. There is only one way to turn this situation around. There must be educated Maasai sitting on decision making councils at every level. Maasai will soon be nowhere if they don't acquire a voice in the decisions that affect them. Here in Endulen, I want to do all I can to make this happen. Right now I have almost 100 Maasai girls and boys in secondary and technical schools, with a view to eventually becoming veterinarians, mechanics, nurses, teachers, lawyers, politicians etc. Also, many of our Maasai boys and girls are at University in various programs.

Kokarre comes from the far North of Maasai country very near to the border of Tanzania and Kenya. Her family lives a traditional Maasai life in the mountainous country northeast of the Serengeti plains.

When Kokarre was a little girl she helped her mother carry water from the spring some two miles from her village. She carried the water on her back in locally produced tin containers. Most Africans carry loads on their heads; Maasai differ from the rest in this respect. Accompanying her mother on trips to the forest to cut firewood was another one of her tasks as a small girl, as was herding the young calves and goats near the village. All this was to prepare her for her life as a Maasai wife and mother.

Her father, Elekana, sent Kokarre to first grade in an effort to prepare her to deal with people of other more sophisticated tribes. So often the Maasai are cheated at the shops when they go to buy salt, sugar, tea and other things because they don’t know Swahili, the national language, and especially how to count and figure in Swahili.

When she finished grade school at the end of 2005, she approached her father about continuing her education. This was something of an unprecedented step for a young Maasai girl to take. In the normal course of events, Kokarre would have been circumcised and married soon after finishing grade seven. At this juncture I heard of her desire to go on and I joined her in pleading with her father. He reluctantly agreed and Kodarre joined my Osotua Prep School here in Endulen this month. With the remedial help in English and Math she is receiving here she hopes to be pass the entrance exams and be accepted into a high school come January of 2007.

February 2006

Great Form IV Results for two students...
Two of our students, one boy named Arpakwa OleSakedie from Olbalbal and a girl named Naisharua OlDumu from near the crater have now finished Form IV with excellent results. They are sure to be selected for Form V and after finishing Form VI. If they continue to get high grades, they will have a good chance of getting scholarships to the university.

Note: In the incidents reported below, I’ve changed the names so the people can’t be recognized.

February 8th...
Woman treated unjustly...
Near the trading center of Endulen, there lives a woman named Ngais. She has three children and lived in peace with her husband for many years. There came the time when the age group “Irkidotu” was to ceremonially eat meat from the hands of their wives for the first time. During their time as warriors, young men only eat meat that has not been seen by women, and only with other warriors. Beginning to eat meat at home, with one’s wife and children, is a major step in the process of becoming elders, settling down and becoming responsible heads of households. A woman can only perform this ceremonial act of preparing meat for her husband, if she has not slept with anyone of the following younger age group, the one below that of her husband. Ngais had no trouble with this prohibition. She was highly respected and above suspicion. For this reason she brought much honor to her husband. Many wives of the age group had to decline to offer meat to their husbands, afraid of the terrible curse that would fall on them if they lied.

The ceremony passed and time moved on. Then came a day when Ngais’s husband married another wife. As often happens among the Maasai, the entry of a second wife into a family brings great trouble for the older wife. She often loses the love and attention of her husband. He showers all his attention and available money for food and clothing on his young wife. The older wife and her children are no longer looked after and get the leftovers at best. This situation came as a bitter blow to Ngais, who had brought honor to her husband by being a good faithful wife all those years. Soon it became clear that he wanted to take the cattle that he had given to Ngais to feed herself and her children and give those cattle to the younger wife. To accomplish this effectively, he saw that he must get rid of Ngais. He did just that by taking her back to her father saying that he could live with her no longer.

Fortunately, Ngais’s father welcomed his daughter and continues to care for her. Ngais’s husband kept the children and even refuses that Seyanoi come to visit them.

Word has been received here in Endulen of a cattle raid near Oldupai gorge. It seems that at about nine in the morning, three very young boys were herding cattle on the open plains. Very young kids are only sent to herd cattle in such conditions where visibility at great distances make it both easy to herd the animals and also safe for the young children because they can be kept track of by adults from far away. Things went badly wrong on this day.

In the center of the plain, surrounding a flat top acacia tree was a clump of bushes. A Sukuma raiding party from the Western edge of the Serengeti were hiding in the shaded undergrowth of the bushes planning their raid on the herd of cattle tended by the young children. As the sun climbed higher in the sky and the plains began to heat up, the cattle and the children drifted the lone tree to find a little coolness and, for the children, a place to play.

The raiders pounced and the children ran for their village to raise the alarm. One boy was caught and the raiders cut a large circle of skin from his wrist and hand, a trophy to take home. He was then released, screaming in pain, to follow his companions in their headlong dash for home. The raiders made off with the cattle westward, raising a great pillar of dust as they pushed the cattle as fast as they could travel.

People raised the alarm as soon as the children reached home, with the peculiar call that the Maasai use in times of great danger, a call that soon had people gathering from the surrounding villages. The alarm reached more distant villages by means of the cell phones that have become common during the past year, and quickly warriors were gathering from every direction. Soon the warriors set off at their ground covering lope, following the clear tracks of the cattle and later the pillar of dust reaching far into the sky that marked the passage of the herd. The inevitable battle was short and the outcome predictable as the large band of Maasai warriors descended on the small Sukuma raiding party. One raider was killed, spear in the chest as he was trying to loose an arrow while running from the warriors. The rest made their escape to return and raid another day.

On their return home with the cattle, the old man who owned the cattle slaughtered a cow for the warriors. There was much singing and retelling of the chase, and I suppose some planning of a trip to the western Serengeti.

Near Endulen lives Mepukori with his two wives and their children. This man was not rich but until recent months had enough cattle to feed his family. Then local beer took over his life. More and more, he spent his days with his friends at the beer shops. Our local beer is made from corn, fermented till it is a thick strong drink. Many people fool themselves into the belief that it is really just a kind of healthy food and is harmless. Of course, it is as addictive and gets people just as drunk as other strong drink. Mepukori soon began to sell his few cattle one by one to get money for drinking each day with his friends. Before long his cattle were finished.

After he fed his small herd to the “pombe”, local beer shop, he was lucky enough to get his name on the list of destitute people to be given cattle by “Ereto”, an NGO (non governmental organization). His wives, knowing that he would immediately begin to sell the windfall from Ereto, went to the Endulen village authorities and had the cattle written down and registered to them, so their husband could not sell them.

Seeing that he could not get access to the new cattle to feed his addiction, Mepukori became very angry at his wives and decided to sell the couple of goats that his family had left. He caught the goat of his older wife and led it away to be sold. Recognizing what their husband was doing, his wives followed him, surprised him as he reached the market and returned the goat to their village. Unable to sell the older wife’s goat and wanting revenge for what his wives had done, he caught and slaughtered a goat of his younger wife, calling together his drinking buddies to eat it with him.

The situation continued to escalate, with his wives less and less able to feed their children. Finally, the younger wife had enough and ran away to the village of her father. Her father returned her to her husband but soon she ran away a second time. This time her father realized the situation was impossible and agreed that she stay. Her father saw that the children of his daughter, still in the village of her husband, were in great trouble without their mother to care for them. He went and took the children, bringing them to his village to be with their mother. The older wife carries on in great difficulty living with her husband.

March 2006

Two Maasai warriors of the Korianga age group joined with two young men of the adjoining Wairaq people to mount a cattle raid against the Barabai people below the rift. They successfully cut out twelve cattle from a Barabai herd and began to drive them in the direction of the Kenya border with the idea of selling them in Kenya and returning to buy untraceable animals here in Tanzania. Their plan did not remain a secret and reached the ears of our local village authorities. The warriors together with their small herd of stolen cattle were captured at Mbarwai near Endulen. The thieves received lodging in our local lockup, were fined 12 cattle in addition to the ones that were returned to their owners and a further fine of 700,000/= Tanzanian shillings, about $710.

Our new prime minister, Edward Lowasa, held a public meeting here in Endulen this week. He spent much of the meeting listening to and helping to resolve the difficulties of individuals. A woman with one arm rose to tell her story. She had been chased away from her home and land by a local official. He claimed that she was living on land that was a path used by wild animals. When she resisted his orders to move, he caused her and her children, students in the final years of primary school, to be locked up. When freed, fearing further persecution from the official, her children ran away, leaving both their mother and school. They traveled to Mwanza on the Western side of the Serengeti where they remain working as night guards. Mr. Lowasa took the side of the women, directing that she be given back her home.

Another woman spoke of her daughter who had become pregnant. The young girl wanted very much to continue her education and applied to leaders on numerous occasions for their help. They always put her off. The prime minister was sympathetic, arranging there and then for her return to school and even giving her 50,000/=, about $47 to help her with the expenses of returning to school.

The rains have come and with a vengeance. But the hunger brought on by many months of drought is very much still with us. Corn that augments the meager milk supply of the Maasai has become very scarce indeed and ever more expensive. The Maasai people of the area have made the decision to ban the making and sale of local corn beer at the trading center of Endulen. It is amazing the volume of corn that is regularly used in the brewing of local beer. This decision will increase the corn that is available for food.

A terrific hail storm with thunder, lightening and very heavy prolonged rain visited us with the intensity that hasn’t been seen since 1997. This was especially shocking since it came in the midst of the most serious drought that we’ve experience in many years. In Esirua and other places, beans that had been planted in anticipation of the coming rains were totally destroyed. The streams were so swollen that some wild animals like gazelle and many sheep and goats were carried away by the spate. It was a day to remember!

A meeting of two days decided, at least for now, the problem of bride price brought before the elders of the Endulen area. The daughter of OleTumate was taken to the village of Parkepo be his son’s wife. Parkepu agreed to pay eight cows for the bride. OleTumate agreed to the petition of the bridegroom that he receive only four of the eight cows and the rest would be used to build a house for the bride. Then later, the remaining four cows would be paid. But now, five years on, OleTumate has received nothing, not even the first four of the promised eight animals. OleTumate said at the meeting that if it had not been for the present intervention of elders, he would have already taken his daughter back to his village, since not only had the cows not been paid but no house had ever been built for his child.

The elders in the meeting begged OleTumate not to deprive the young man of his wife, even though the husband lacked the means to pay him anything even now, years after the marriage. The elders prevailed upon OleTumate to agree to wait seven more months to receive the bride payment for his daughter. During that time Parkepu and his son would call meeting of their clan to ask help in paying the bride price debt. Also, the elders of the meeting took up a collection to pay for the travel expenses of OleTumate back home to his village at Engamka.

April 2006

Young warriors look for glory and recognition by killing a lion or a buffalo. As happens only very seldom, warriors of the Ndamaragi age group went off to the forest to hunt a lion. They trekked to the stream called Enkeju ng’iro and ranged as far as Ndutu. These warriors had gathered from the different areas and numbered eighteen on the hunt. At about seven o’clock in the morning they entered the forest of Mlima Matiti on the edge of the Serengeti. For a couple of hours they combed the underbrush looking for lion and eventually came upon a lioness. The warriors surrounded the thicket where the lion had taken refuge. They tied bells to their legs to confuse the lioness when she would make a break for it. All of a sudden a game police car was seen in the distance. Then, because they had no permission to kill a lion in the Conservation Authority of Ngorongoro, they hid themselves in the forest. After the game scout’s car disappeared, the warriors again began to look for the lion. They hunted through the forest of Mlima matiti all the rest of the day but found no further sign of the lioness or of any other lion. They dispersed and returned their home villages empty handed. Although these hunts are very few and far between and have no impact on the lion population, chalk one up for our precious lions of Ngorongoro.

A lucky meeting with Br. Frank O'Shea in a shop in Arusha has radically changed the prospects of one of our Osotua Maasai girls. I have written of Naisharua in the past. She has a serious diabetic condition has been living here with us while attending Mbarway Secondary school. Now she has finished Form IV with excellent results and had been posted by the government to Korogwe Secondary school 400 kilometers to the South for her two years of junior college. I have been very worried about sending her so far away because she needs to have her sugar levels tested twice a day and get insulin injections in the morning and at night. Also a special diet is required to keep her numbers within reason. Very fortunately, the Christian Brothers are now adding Form V and VI to their already excellent Edmund Rice Secondary school near Arusha town. Brother Frank readily accepted Naisharua into their new Form V program. The junior college facility has all new buildings consisting of Biology, Chemistry and Physics laboratories, dormitories, and classrooms. In addition to these facilities, there is a computer lab with internet access. They have hired excellent staff and agreed to figure out a diet for Naisharua with the school cook. Also, Naisharua will be able to keep her insulin in the brother's frig. Brother Frank, the headmaster, and the other staff look to be a very dedicated group of people. What a lucky break for Naisharua and for me. I would have had to make the 800 km. round trip to Korogwe regularly to make sure that Naisharua was getting along well.

Nasee enOlMasoi of Losilale was till a few weeks ago 5th grade student at our local primary school. When her parents realized that she was pregnant, they began to look for the one responsible and discovered that it was a young man by the name of Toret OleSurumbu from Losilale near Endulen. Some days after Toret realized that he was discovered and that people were looking for him, he up and ran away West to Shinyanga. The head teacher of our primary school called the parents of both Nasee and Toret to his office and questioned them. On finding out that both sets of parents knew that Toret was the culprit some time before he ran away, the head teacher took all four to the police station. The parents of the girl were locked up for four days and then released. The parents of Toret remain in jail and there is an ongoing case against them and their son. The parents of Toret have been told by the court that when their son Toret gives himself up, they will go free.

At the primary school of Mokoromba near the crater, Namelok, the daughter of Olkitok was a student in the 4th grade. Her parents took Namelok out of school and married her to Oltikika, a young man from Olbalbal on the edge of the Serengeti. The girl was taken by force to the village of her husband. Her father received cattle in bride price and Namelok started married life with Oltikika. Her parents were happy that their child was out of school and that they had received the benefit of a significant number of cattle. Time passed and, Olkitok, the father of Namelok got very sick and soon died. After about three years Oltikika and Namelok were not getting along any more and frequently fighting over many things. Namelok ran away to the home of her parents, but since her father had died, she met only her mother at home. Namelok told her mother that she wanted to return to school. The girl went to the police to report that years earlier she had been forced to leave school and obliged to marry Oltikika. Namelok was allowed to return to school and continue in the 4th grade. A court case was then brought against her mother and Oltikika, the man that she had been forced to marry. Now the case continues in the court without as yet any resolution. The next hearing of the case will be at the end of this month of April.

Cattle’s raiding has become an everyday occurrence in our area of the Ngorongoro highlands. Esere about eight miles from Endulen is a favorite among the Sukuma raiders from Lake Victoria. The day before yesterday early in the morning soon after the young boys had driven the cattle off for the days grazing a Sukuma raiding party attacked the herd of Oltetia. The young herd boys fled to raise the alarm and the raiding party took the cattle driving them toward the Western Serengeti and Lake Victoria. The twelve Sukuma warriors had not traveled far with the cattle before the young boys had spread the news of the raid to the village of Oltetia and others in the neighborhood. Warriors gathered from every direction and followed the tracks of their cattle and those of the Sukuma warriors. The Maasai warriors with three rifles in addition to their spears and bows, caught up with the raiders before they reached the boundary of the Serengeti. A fight ensued and one Sukuma was killed outright by a bullet from a Maasai rifle. Another was shot in the knee and hid in the bush, while the remaining ten got away to the West. As the Maasai gathered their herd for the short journey home, they came upon the wounded Sukuma. Some wanted to kill him outright, but the more merciful prevailed and carried him to their village where the police were called. When the law arrived, they forced the wounded one to give up the names and home villages of the one who had been killed and also of the remaining ten that got away. He was then taken to Endulen hospital where the bullet was removed from his knee. The body of the dead Sukuma warrior was also retrieved from the bush and brought to Endulen to await his relatives from Sukuma, who were called to come and take the body home. The police, having their names and home villages, continue to look for the other Sukuma bandits.

May 2006

The two incidents that I write about this month are pretty depressing with the exception of the help given by the Flying Medical Service. There are good things happening too. Our three girls in teacher training college will finish in a couple of months. Hopefully they will be assigned to Maasai primary schools and we will have three more Maasai teachers for our Maasai children. Also, our two girls at Assistant Medical Officer School at Machame on Mount Kilimanjaro are finishing their first year and are doing well. The names have been changed in the following two incidents.

Two brothers had a terrible fight. They are the sons of the same father but are sons of different wives of their father. Some time ago Tiyo, the older of the two, went to Mwanza near Lake Victoria to look for work. When he returned, he found his wife to be pregnant. He questioned his wife as to who got her pregnant and she admitted that it was Takeu, his younger brother. According to Maasai custom, Tiyo was not allowed to do anything to his brother. Although sons of the same father they did not have the same mother. Therefore, Takeu had done nothing wrong in the eyes of the Maasai. Olkiria could not get satisfaction by bringing Takeu up before a council of Maasai elders. He began to look for some other way to get revenge. This week they went together to drink the locally distilled alcohol called enpinyo. The older brother got very drunk and the two began to argue and a screaming match ensued. Takeu struck his brother on the arm with his knobkerrie. The older then struck his brother on the head with his heavy stick. The younger replied by striking the older a terrible blow on the head laying his head open to the bone and cracking his skull. We were called and Fr. Lawrence Ndemeloi picked up the two and took them to our hospital here in Endulen. Tiyo, the older with the cracked skull, did not improve and his situation was getting worse by the hour. Fr. Pat Patten’s Flying Medical Service was called by shortwave radio and Tiyo was airlifted to KCMC hospital in Moshi and remains there in critical condition. Without Pat’s timely intervention Tiyo would have had little chance of survival. Takeu the younger was taken by the police and detained in our local lockup and allowed to continue his treatment as an outpatient at the hospital.

May 7th, When the father of a child makes his daughter pregnant, all the women gather to beat him, but not when he is a Very Important Person

Shortly after arriving at high school on Mount Kilimanjaro, Noonkipa gave birth and tried to hide what had happened by throwing the newborn child into the outhouse. She hoped that her quick action would prevent everyone realizing that she had given birth or had even been pregnant.

Noonkipa is from Losilale here in the Endulen area. She finished seventh grade last year and started her freshman year in high school on Mount Kilimanjaro. When Noonkipa’s mother Nadupa lost her husband some years ago, she attached herself to Lemalali, a local Maasai leader and government official. It was Lemalali who fathered Noonkipa and paid her school expenses in primary school and her tuition when she was accepted into high school on Mount Kilimanjaro.

The other children heard an infant crying in the outhouse and called the head teacher, who ran to the outhouse but was too late to save the small infant. Almost immediately it was clear that the dead child in the outhouse belonged to Noonkipa. After she had recovered a little from her ordeal, she was asked who the father was and she readily gave the name, accusing Lemalali, her mother’s lover.

When Lemalali heard about it, he immediately traveled to Kilimanjaro to talk to Noonkipa, his daughter, and convince her that she must say it was someone else that made her pregnant. But when asked by her mother and brothers who made her pregnant, Noonkipa told the truth that it was her own birth father who had fathered her now dead child. A criminal case has been brought against him the Arusha court.

Among the Maasai when the father of a child makes his own child pregnant, all the women of the area gather and beat the culprit with sticks. He must also give the women a goat that the women eat together. In addition, he is fined a heifer that is given to the mother of the child that gave birth. In this case, because the offender is such an important person, he will not be beaten but must pay the fines.

June 2006

June 26, A very special Maasai wedding
A wedding in our village of Endulen is a very special event. The one that took place yesterday was especially significant for me because the groom was Moinga Olelengine, a boy that I have had the privilege of educating since his primary school days. He is now a registered teacher educating Maasai children here at Ngorongoro. Moinga and his bride Rehema, a Maasai girl from down South, graduated in the same class from Teacher Training College. They work together at Esere primary school near Endulen.

During our Maasai wedding ceremony the bride and groom clasped their right hands and I smeared fat on their joined hands. Among the Maasai, different kinds of fat are used for different kinds of blessings. When a person dies, an ox or sheep is slaughtered and the body anointed with the fat of the slaughtered animal. At our wedding ceremony we used butter made that morning from the milk of a cow that had given birth many times. The living butter that we smeared on their clasped hands was a clear sign of life and the blessings that we hoped would follow this new family.

We replaced the usual exchange of rings with traditional Maasai symbols. At marriage a girl puts on a light chain attached to her ear called emonyorit. Moinga placed this emonyorit chain around the neck of Rehema. A chain may not be the most appropriate sign of marriage for many, but it is the custom among the Maasai. When it is time for the circumcision of his child, a Maasai man puts on a unique necklace of dark blue beads that he wears for the rest of his life. Rehema placed the engonongoi necklace around the neck of Moinga at the wedding ceremony. Both the chain and necklace were liberally smeared with the living butter during the wedding ceremony. The ceremony closed as the father of Moinga blessed the newly married couple with a sprinkling of milk from a gourd whose mouth was stuffed with rich green grass. This is a traditional way of blessing among the Maasai asking God to bless the new couple with cattle and every kind of good thing.

People came from far and wide to celebrate with Moing and Rehema. There was the slaughter of an ox and goats, dancing and celebrating till the evening. It was a great day for all of us.

Maasai warriors were patroling their borders near the Serengeti boundary on June 13th. When they were crossing the dry river bed of Engiju Ngiro, they came upon the tracks of many Sukuma warriors, traditional enemies of the Maasai. They followed the trail for some hours and presently saw a column of smoke in the distance. Approaching the smoke stealthily, they came upon a carefully concealed camp of young men hanging the meat of wild animals on branches to dry. Strewn around were the remains of the partially dissected carcasses of zebra, wild pig, antelope, and even what looked to be a giraffe. After assuring themselves of what they were seeing, leaving two warriors to keep watch on the camp of the poachers, the body of warriors traveled loped to Endulen to alert the game authorities. It came out later that the purpose of the camp was to provide a base for spotters to search out where the large herds of Maasai cattle might be and to make preparations for a major cattle raid. The game police waited till about nine that night, then mounted two land rovers and led by the Maasai warriors, traveled to the poachers camp. Dousing their lights, they approached the camp silently. The culprits had no inkling up to this point that they had been discovered. When they realized that game police were cautiously approaching, they began shooting. The police returned fire and killed ten of the culprits in the ensuing firefight. Eight ran off under cover of darkness and two of these were captured. One was seized unhurt and the other was hit in the leg. The wounded one had lost a lot of blood by the time he arrived at our hospital here in Endulen. The unhurt prisoner was taken to District headquarters at Loliondo on the Kenya border. The wounded one was closely questioned by police and admitted that he came from the village of Sakasaka Senani near Maswa in Shinyanga He was asked how long they had lived in their camp near the Serengeti. He responded that they had been living at their camp for three weeks. He went on to say that they had eaten the maize flour that they had brought with them during the first few days. When that was finished, they began to hunt wild animals for food. He told the police that there were twenty in the raiding party. After three days, during which the wounded Sukuma was being treated in the hospital, another Sukuma man showed up in Endulen clearly in a bad state from lack of food. He went to a village leader but was so weak, he could not speak. He was given food and when he had regained a little strength asked for money to travel home to Kahama in Shinyanga. He was given money, found a car going his way and went off home. It soon became apparent that he was one of the raiding party that had gotten away. The wounded Sukuma warrior fingered him as one of the raiders, but by that time, he had already left for home and got away clear. After he gets well, the wounded Sukuma will be taken to District headquarters to face poaching and other charges with the his unhurt companion.

The Maasai people do not hunt wild game and it has been fear of the Maasai that has preserved the great herds of wildebeest, zebra and the other wild animals on the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro areas.

June 10, Bornana Ethiopian ordained for Nairobi slum ministry.
Today I received a newsletter from Fr. Vince Stegman, one of our Spiritans and an American working among the Borana. He describes the celebration this month of the ordination to the Catholic priesthood and the traditional reception into Borana elder hood and leadership of Dide Wario. Borana elders wrapped the ceremonial black turban around the head of Dide and presented him with the ceremonial whip. It must have been quite a day spiced with great platters of Meat, rice, and enjira, the huge round Ehiopean flat bread.

Dutch, American, Nigerian and East African Spiritan Missionaries have been active among the semi-nomadic Borana people of Southern Ethiopia for 33 years. They have worked to establish Christianity in and through the Borana traditional culture, making many of the traditional religious symbols and practices of the Borana vehicles to enflesh gospel values and church celebrations. The traditional Borana coffee ceremony is an example of this. Traditionally it is a rite of prayer and community bonding. Spiritans have seen it grow into a Christian Liturgy celebrating our dependence on and gratefulness to God, a celebration of sharing food and good conversation.

July 2006

My name is Sitau Lekitony and my father has three wives and many children. I am a daughter of his older wife. As a little girl I helped my mother to cook and sweep to wash the dishes and to milk the cows, I went also to herd the cattle and goats. One time when I was herding goats with other children of my village, a lion attacked us and killed two goats, dragging off one large pregnant ewe. We all ran back home and raised the alarm. By the time warriors gathered and reached the place the goats had been grazing, the lion had long gone with the goat. These two goats did not belong to my family but to a neighbor. It was very scary for me and the other children.

Another time two lions jumped the thorn bush fence of our village and strangled one of our cows dragging it outside the village away into the bush. The dogs all began to bark furiously and my father woke up and went outside and began to shout and all the neighbors began to gather and my father told them of how the lions had grabbed a cow and dragged it away. All the elders decided to follow the lion and to kill it. They followed the tracks of the lion some distance but lost the tracks and returned to the village. This was hard on my mother because it was one of her milk cow that was taken by the lions.

When I was in the third grade I began to get the idea that I would like to get an education beyond primary school. After finishing seventh grade I asked my father and mother if I could continue school and they agreed if I could find someone to pay for my education. When my brothers heard that I was going to continue school, they became very angry and look for ways to block me. They told me that if I went to school no one would pay for school fees and uniforms and then I would get big trouble. My father told me to go and ask Padre Ned. So that is how I came to Osotua Maasai Prep School at Endulen. My brothers followed me to Endulen and tried to take me home by force but I refused and went to the village leaders to have my name written down officially as a school girl. My brothers wanted to take me and trade me for a wife for one of them, but once I was written down, they would be caught and sent to jail by the police if they made trouble for me.

I have the idea to continue my education because I would like to have a better life for myself and be able to help my family, especially my mother who is always having trouble finding enough food during the dry season and seems never to have nice clothes. I have been enrolled in Simanjiro Animal Husbandry School and hope to gain the knowledge to help the people of my village and of all Ngorongoro to have more healthy cattle. Cattle and the food that they provide are the foundation of our lives as Maasai.

One of the graduates of our Osotua Prep School went home to be married seven years ago. Sendeu had decided not to continue her education. Reluctantly, I agreed to her decision. During the following year she gave birth to a little boy and was happy with her life. This week she came to tell me terrible news and ask for my help. Her little boy and gotten hold of a bottle of dip medicine. This is the stuff the Maasai buy by the bottle to wipe their cattle down with, killing ticks and preventing various diseases carried by them. It seems that the child had found the bottle at the back of the skin covered bed in the house of his mother. Thinking it was orange soda, he drank some of it and became very ill. Now Sendeu needed money to take her son to the hospital. I helped her and she went off to take the boy the hospital. We have not heard how things worked out.

August 2006

Apology: Sorry for the extra copies of the newsletter last month. First I lost the connection to the internet while sending my newsletter, and then when the connection came back, I made a couple of mistakes while trying to finish sending it. I have figured out the reason for the multiple copies and hope that it will not happen again.

A short cut through the bush to our hospital here at Endulen brought me face to face with a very strange sight. Two adult baboons were in a pitch battle with a good size dog. I stood transfixed at the howling and barking. The dog was getting in some good hits, but the baboons were clearly in control and seemed to be even playing with the dog. After a few minutes, the dog saw that he was getting the worst of it and took off at a dead run passing a few feet from me. The baboons made no move to follow him and ambled off into the bush. Their troop was not immediately in evidence.

The Conservation authority of Ngorongoro has announced that plastic bags can no longer be sold or carried into the Conservation area. This is great news. We are being buried in plastic bags. Recent years has seen the proliferation of these things. They are used for everything and simply tossed when no longer needed. Here in the trading center of Endulen, one practically needs to wade through a sea of bags and other trash to pass from one shop to another. Hopefully, this new regulation will raise awareness that we are turning our beautiful country of Tanzania and Ngorongoro in particular into a trash bin.

Three of our Osotua program students have been accepted into university, one at Dar es Salaam University to study Political Science and two at Kampala International University in Uganda. One boy has been accepted into medical school and the other for a Bachelors program in Public Administration. These are boys that our Maasai Education program has educated since primary school. Two other boys that also have done very well in secondary school and junior college have as yet not gotten places anywhere.

Parkepu Nakuroi, one of our boys just accepted at the University in Kampala contributes the following:

Arriving by bus at Ngorongoro from Arusha I heard that Lomitu, one of my younger brothers was in police custody at Endulen. It seems that he had beaten his wife insensible and someone had reported it to the police. Nalari, his wife, had taken the calves to graze at the place called Olokeri, an area reserved for pasturing the calves from our village. She was not very attentive and some of the calves wandered off and were lost. On finding out that the calves were lost, my brother flew into a rage and beat Nalari badly. Realizing that she was in pretty bad shape, he slaughtered a goat so that she could drink the special medicinal soup mixed with the fat of the goat and herbs. This soup is given to the sick and weak and has almost magical restorative qualities. Anyway, someone reported the beating and he was hauled off to the lockup.

Earlier in the day that Lomitu was grabbed by the police, he had been cited by the Endulen village authorities for bathing in the Oldugum stream at the place reserved for drawing drinking water. This carries a heavy fine. Lomitu was fined heavily for both of his offenses because he was unrepentant and adamant that he had done no wrong. It was his right, he said, to beat his wife for losing the calves and furthermore from time immemorial the Maasai had bathed in the Oldugum without being bothered. This is the trouble a young warrior can get into when he is very proud and unwilling to admit his mistakes.

One day God, the beginner of the earth, told the first man Leeyo that if a child were to die he was to say the following when he threw away the body: “man die, and come back again; moon die and be lost forever”. A child died soon afterwards, but it was not one of the children of Leeyo. When he was told to throw it away, he picked up the body and said to himself: “This child is not mine so when I throw it away I shall say, “Man die and be never come back; moon die but come back again”. He threw away the body of the infant speaking these words and returned home. One of his own children died next, and when he threw it away, he said: “Man die and come back again; moon die and remain away”. God, the beginner of the earth, said to him: “It is of no use now, for you spoilt matters with the other child”. This is how it came about that when a man dies he returns no more, while when the moon is finished, it comes back again and is always visible to us. (Hollis, 1905)

November 2006

As some of you have noticed, there has been no diary for a couple of months. I have been away in Kenya doing a course in the Maasai language. The course took place near the Maasai Mara game reserve. I am regularly surprised at how little I understand when people talk to each other and even often, when they are talking to me. The course was great...very intense...started at 7:30 each morning and went through without a break except for lunch to 4:30 in the afternoon. There were two teachers, Hans Stoks, a Dutchman with a strong grasp of the grammar and an ability to explain it in a very clear way. The other teacher was Paul Morero, a Maasai, who helped us with the spoken language, idioms and ways of saying things. His patience with us was above and beyond the call of duty. The late afternoons and evenings were spent on homework and class preparation for the next day. I think I got a lot out of it and will be able to study more efficiently on my own. Already, I am understanding more and talking more easily.

The monkeys there were a real problem. All doors and windows had to be kept closed at all times. If they found a way in, they would trash the place. They were all over the place and sometimes jumping on the roof of the classroom. Another feature of the area was the large numbers of elephants. One day a herd of goats got in their way and elephants killed thirty goats in the space of just a few minutes, just a hundred meters from our front door. We were cautioned not to go out at night.

This is the time of year that I travel with my Maasai students to various places for entrance exams to secondary and technical schools. We just finished a trip to Legaruki secondary school run by the Lutheran church. It looks like a great school and very well run. Among the seven I took for the exam three were accepted, two girls and one boy. The same Legaruki project has a technical school with courses in auto mechanics, electricity, and other subjects. I hope to take other students next week to take the entrance exams for the technical programs.

Three of My Maasai girls graduated from Teacher Training college in late October. The Maasai course prevented me from attending the graduation ceremony. I hated to miss it. These girls have now been posted to their first teaching positions by the government. Two will teach in the area of the Northern Serengeti and the third will be posted at a school in central Maasai. We need local teachers very badly. Most teachers in Maasai country come from other peoples and usually far away. Being posted in Maasai country where there is little variety in the way of food and other things available at the local shops and no distractions like newspapers, television etc. presents a real hardship for these teachers. Most of what they would have as a matter of course living near the towns is do not existent in Maasai country. I want to help as many of our Maasai young people as I can to get a teachers certificate. If anything is important to preventing exploitation and strengthening the sense of identity and dignity among the Maasai people, it must be education. The Maasai must get a voice on the councils that make decisions about them. Education enables the Maasai to take their place as equals on the policy-making bodies. Critical areas are land use and especially land alienation, water development, human and animal health and not least local government that is sensitive to the needs of the people. Education is key to taking leadership positions in all of these areas. We need to do everything we can to educate Maasai young people for the teaching profession.

Kenya Maasai girl at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh…story at:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06330/741347-298.stm

December 2006

Christmas here was dramatic only because of the continuing heavy unseasonable rains resulting in mud, lots of it. I have gotten badly bogged down a couple of times with hours of digging to free the land cruiser from the ubiquitous black sticky muck.

The day after Christmas I was called to the aid of a young boy on the edge of the Serengeti some two hours drive from Endulen. He and his friends were herding their cattle and playing at lion hunting with their spears. The game ended with one of the boys speared in the chest. I brought him to the hospital here at Endulen and the next day the Flying Medical Service of Pat Patton air lifted him to the referral hospital for surgery. We have not heard how he is doing.

Kusiande EnOleNdango just graduated from Teacher Training College. She will take up her first teaching post in a couple of weeks. Kusiande writes:

I am a Maasai woman of Ngorongoro. Here are my thoughts as I go to begin teaching Maasai children at my first posting as a Maasai teacher.

Generally Maasai parents do not want their children to go to school. They believe that schooling has no value and that it interferes with learning the important things in life, like the whole range of knowledge necessary for the care and pasturing of cattle, goats and sheep. Parents say also that attendance at school often makes difficult or impossible a childs participation in the rhythm of celebrations, ceremonies, and rites of passage that are so important to becoming a knowledgeable Maasai adult. Parents agree somewhat more easily to their boys going to school because they have seen many young men get good paying jobs and are able to help their families in various ways. On the contrary, they see an educated girl as being of benefit only to her future husband and that she will be of little or no help to her father and mother. Moreover, the immediate help she might provide in the form of bride wealth is a compelling reason to seek every avenue to prevent her from attending more than a few years of primary school or better yet, seeing that she not go to school at all. Parents often prevent the children from attending classes. Kids are often kept home so that they can help with the work including, for the boys, taking the family herd to pasture, and for the girls, going for firewood and water, and caring for the younger children.

Teachers too are often obstacles to Maasai students profiting from their time in school. In Maasai country there is frequently little access to medical treatment and travel is difficult making food and other necessities hard to get. There is little incentive in Maasailand for teachers to work at being good teachers. About the only motivation teachers experience is the often haphazard efforts of the education department to check on them. Teachers frequently take the attitude that if the parents do not care about the education of their kids, why should we.

Many children themselves acquire a bad attitude toward school because they are told by their parents that it will be a very bad thing to pass grade seven and thus get a place in secondary school. Often they are even strongly forbidden by their parents to pass. Thus some children become frightened of school in fear of their parents.

As I begin my career as teacher and prepare to travel to my first posting as a Maasai teacher among my people, I want to focus on the following things.

Firstly, I want to build a good relationship with the parents of my students so that through conversations and meetings they will come to understand that entrance into secondary school for their child will not be a family disaster but help for the family and the Maasai community. To this end, it will be important for me to convince parents that the children must attend school each school day.

Secondly, I need to work with the children themselves, showing them how education can bring them a better life for themselves and their families. Already, we have many examples where this has happened. I myself am an example of a person who has already personally profited by my education. I have already been able to be of help to my mother and father, and will be even more so in the future.

Thirdly, I want to find help for deserving students for school fees and other expenses so they can take advantage of being chosen to continue their education in secondary school.

Lastly, we need more schools in Maasai country, especially primary schools. In numerous places children have no chance to go to school, because the schools we have are so far away. Having to walk miles and miles to school is often the reason children do not come to school every day.

In the New Year, I begin my career as a teacher. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

In 2006 our Osotua Maasai Education program supported 69 Maasai children in secondary and technical schools, 33 girls and 36 boys. In the New Year well be adding about 20 more. So far we have accepted 9 girls and 8 boys into the program.

January 2007

Father John Bowen, an Anglican priest and professor of missiology at Whcliffe College at Toronto, Ontario, Canada recently visited Endulen and other Maasai missions. On his return to Canada, he wrote the following report of his trip to his Anglican Church Office that had funded his visit to Maasai country. I have added to the report to make it more understandable to a wider audience.

Not many books these days can look forward to being read twenty-five years from now. Recently, however, The book CHRISTIANITY REDISCOVERED written by Vincent Donovan was reprinted in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition. What is this book and why does it continue to be popular?

The book is a first person account of a Roman Catholic missionary working among the Maasai of Northern Tanzania in the 1960s. Donovan applies the then popular notion of enculturation, the idea that missionaries should listen as much as speak, be aware of God already at work among those they wish to evangelize, and translate the Gospel into terms of the local culture. One of his influences was Anglican missiologist Roland Allen who, in the early twentieth century, had begun to write and teach this kind of non colonial, indigenized missionary work.

The strategy of Donovan was to visit Maasai villages and offer to teach them the Christian faith if they were interested. Then, after a year of instruction, he would invite them to baptized if they wished. Most villages asked for baptism, though at least one refused. After baptism, Donovan felt it was time for him to move on: he had given them the Gospel, but it was then their responsibility to work out what that would mean in terms of the structure, worship, and daily life of the new Christian communities. As a westerner, he could not do that for them.

I have used CHRISTIANITY REDISCOVERED in several evangelism courses, because in many ways Donovan offers a thought provoking, respectful model for evangelism in any culture, including our own. But from time to time the question has occurred to me: What happened next? The book ends with Donovan leaving Tanzania and flying back to the US, where he tries (with limited success) to apply the same lessons to ministry in the West. But what happened to those fledgling Maasai churches? Did they survive? And, if so, in what form? Did the Donovan vision of authentically indigenous Maasai Christian communities bear long-term fruit?

In the summer of 2006, in part thanks to a grant from Volunteers in Mission, I was able to go, with a student from Wycliffe College, and an African driver, to visit Catholic work in the part of Tanzania where Donovan had been stationed. What did we discover?

We were able to meet with three Catholic missionaries, Ned Marchessault and Joe Herstein, who worked with Donovan since the time he began his work in 1966. A third, Pat Patten came later in 1976. They have continued to implement his vision for the more than thirty years since Donovan left in 1969. They still refer to him as the visionary leader who inspired them to spend their lives doing what they have done. To my mind, while Donovan may be the catalytic leader and the best-selling author, these are the real heroes of this story.

Firstly, the missionaries have continued their work of what they call primary evangelization. One of the goals of the Spiritan Order, to which they all belong, is to share the Gospel with those who have never heard it. So they have continued to visit far flung Maasai villages to teach the Gospel wherever there is interest. These days, more of the work is done by Maasai catechists and evangelists, who have obvious advantages over white Americans.

Secondly, the Donovan dream of independent Maasai churches, untouched by western influence, except for the bringing of the Gospel, has not materialized in the way he envisioned. Fr. Ned explained it this way, saying in effect: The people said to us, we are grateful that you have taught us about the true God, but clearly it is important to worship Him in the right way. You have experience of doing this, so please teach us how it should be done. It is difficult for the Maasai Christians to take the initiative and look for ways to celebrate the gospel message in and through their own culture. Rather, the Maasai want to know how things should be done so that they are pleasing to God and that he bless them with children and cows. In their own ritual celebrations of every kind, from the naming of a child all the way to major age group rites of passage ceremonies, it is important and even crucial for the success of the event that it be done in every detail how their forefathers did the rites and ceremonies. The ways of the ancestors must be followed most carefully so that rites will have the desired result. Asking the Maasai to construct a service made up of their traditional signs and symbols to bring out the inner meaning of a ceremony is totally foreign and even repugnant to them. They want to know how a thing should be done so that it will work. The result has been that the Maasai churches practice traditional forms of Catholic worship, but informed by Maasai culture and customs.

We were able to attend a Mass in a distant village with Ned, and it was fascinating to share in it. Ned wore a simple black robe because for the Maasai black is the colour of blessing and the goodness of God. Black is the colour of the heaviest rain clouds). He also wore a sheep skin stole embroidered with lines of cowry shells, with which the women decorate their milk gourds, a sign of asking God for his rich blessings. Although the whole service was in Maasai, we were able to follow the familiar shape of the liturgy. However, when the sick and troubled people came forward to be blessed and prayed over, Ned sprinkled them with milk from a gourd decorated with cowry shells. The mouth of the gourd was stuffed with rich green grass, a symbol of reconciliation and healing. Again, for the Maasai, milk is a symbol of life.

Times are changing in Tanzania, however, and the present Catholic hierarchy is no longer interested in this kind of enculturation. There is a sense that enculturation is unacceptable and that we need to be Catholics in the proper way, that is, the way of Europe and of North America. If this trend continues, what will happen to the indigenous Maasai Catholic churches when the present generation of white missionaries retires or dies? Ned and others believe that the church will attempt to force these acculturated congregations to conform to the, one model fits all, way of the larger church and whatever enfleshing of gospel in Maasai signs and symbols will die out. There are few Maasai priests and few clergy of other tribes willing to come and serve in such remote places. Certainly there are Maasai catechists, who are passionate evangelists to their own people: but to what extent they can minister effectively without the infrastructure of the wider church is a real question.

Was this then a short-lived experiment in a form of mission based on a mistaken methodology? Some would argue so. But our experience of the Maasai Christians and the service we attended spoke of a depth of faith and commitment which, humanly speaking, would not exist were it not for the sacrificial efforts of Vince Donovan and the missionaries that followed him. The missionaries have loved these people, indeed laid down their lives for these people, in the name of Christ and his Gospel. And they are greatly loved in return. Maybe, in the eternal view of things, that is what really matters.

February 2007

The El Ninyo rains continue and it is now clear that we'll have no dry season between the short and long rains. There is lots of mud here and it is very difficult to get around. A few days ago, we had a tremendous rain. Two young Maasai herd boys were caught in a dry river bed by a wall of water coming down from the high country and headed for the plains. They were swept away and didn't survive. This kind of thing happens too often in Maasai country. Unless one is close to the situation, you never hear about it because the death of young people is never mentioned, and even in their own village, it is only referred to indirectly and by euphemisms.

During the tremendous rain storm, there was a lightening strike at a nearby Maasai village. It shook the earth, killed three cows and burned a house down. Fortunately no people were hurt. People have a very bad feeling after such an event, wondering why it happened. Unfortunately, often the most asked question is “what did those people do or what were their ancestors guilty of to bring this kind of calamity on themselves”? Simply physical laws of nature are hardly ever a sufficient explanation when bad things happen.

This month has seen some major problems with my long suffering Toyota jeep. It is over ten years old now and has seldom seen a tarmac road. Mostly it has been in the bush bouncing in and out of mud holes and generally being shaken to pieces. The welded places on the body have welds on top of welds and it has begun to protest constantly in the form of unidentifiable noises emanating from all over its aging body. This month I had to renew the disk brakes in front, the brake shoes in back, tie rod ball joints for the steering, wheel bearings on all of the four wheels, seven of the key parts in the rear differential and some major welding on the body. After a week in the shop and bills amounting to more than a thousand and a half dollars, it is back on the road and seems to have recovered some of its youthful bounce. Except that it has developed one very weird activity. The left rear break light unaccountably goes on and off at odd times. It’s just the left one and I never know when it’s going to light up. The other night banging on the front door woke me up at two in the morning. It was a teacher from the school who saw the tail light going on and off and thought someone was sneaking around trying to steal the car. Anyway the car seems to work fine, but it is clearly trying to signal me about something. I tried calling the car guys, click and clack, on my computer but couldn’t get through. I found out what the car was trying to tell me when the most disconcerting thing happened on a two hour trip yesterday to the edge of the Serengeti to pick up a teacher stricken with very serious malaria at Kakesio. On the way back while happily checking out the zebra and wildebeest that the rains have lured to our side of the Serengeti and reveling in the certainty that the car was in perfect shape and set to carry us around for another ten years, there came a horrendous scraping noise from the neither regions of the car. Thinking that I was finally to reap the harvest of ignoring my car’s distress signal in the form of the intermittent flashing left tail light, I jammed on the brakes and crawled underneath. The rear fuel tank was dragging along the ground. On close examination, the problem was only a lost cotter pin from one of straps that holds the tank in place. I jacked the tank back into place and used one of the small circlets of wire from my key ring in place of the cotter pin to fasten the strap back into position. Within an hour, I was back on the road vowing that I would never ignore a warning sign from my car again.

March 2007

During recent weeks we have had serious problems with Maasai cattle in the area. Although, at least for the time being, rift valley fever seems to have mostly past us by and the inoculation of cattle for this disease is almost completed here in the Conservation area of Ngorongoro, another sickness is causing major trouble. There is a kind of three leaf clover called Endapipi by the Maasai. The plant is growing in great abundance in all the open areas around Endulen and nearby areas. When cattle eat a lot of this plant they swell up and many die before anything can be done. The remedy that the Maasai use is to puncture the hugely bloated in the side releasing the trapped air with a great wooosh! This treatment takes care of the problem and the animal is no worse for having been punctured. Last week I met an Irishman with a farming background in his home country and told him about this. He responded that they Irish stockmen sometimes have exactly the same problem with their cattle in the spring of the year. And, much to my surprise, he said that their treatment was exactly the same as the Maasai practice. The Irish farmers puncture the sides of the cattle and let the air out. He assured me that the cause of the Irish problem is also a kind of large leaf clover.

There has been a third selection for secondary school by the government. A number of new secondary schools have been opened here in North Maasai country and they are in the process of filling up the places for very late entry into the first year. The normal school year began in January. We had fourteen students in our Osotua prep school here at Endulen and half of them are among those chosen to enter Form I in the various newly opened schools. These include the two Maasai girls in our program. This is great news for our Maasai young people and I am helping them as much as I can to assure that they will be able to take advantage of this opportunity. We are left with seven students and three teachers. Given this teacher student ratio our remaining students should be well prepared for entrance exams for secondary or technical schools at the end of the year. With the large numbers of Maasai student, both boys and girls, now being chosen by the government each year to enter secondary school, there is less and less reason for a prep school program here at Endulen. When I started the Osotua Prep School program over twenty years ago, few Maasai boys and no girls were being chosen to enter secondary school. Our program provided much need remedial English and Math study to enable Maasai young people to be accepted into secondary school. The situation has dramatically changed over the years. It is great to see that the education of Maasai and especially of Maasai women is becoming a genuine focus of the Ministry of Education.

April 2007

Here in the Ngorongoro Conservation area, the Maasai people are permitted small fields to grow their corn and beans. The size of the plots that people are allowed to cultivate are strictly regulated. There is an ongoing lobby by conservation groups dating back many years to deny the Maasai all cultivation. The Maasai hang on, and sometimes only by a thread, to their small gardens. The small harvests that these plots produce make a significant contribution to the Maasai food supply, since the coming of the dry season always involves hardship for the pastoralists. The very limited produce from their small “shambas” helps a lot. This year elephants are a major problem. Here in the Endulen and surroundings areas of the Conservation Authority many corn fields have been destroyed. This week elephants completely destroyed a number of the tiny fields adjacent to Maasai villages within sight of my house. These great mastodons brook no opposition to their search for the sweet ears of corn, stalks and leaves. No amount of noise deters them. Not a surprising development but one that makes an already precarious existence more difficult for the pastoralists.

Our secondary and technical school students are now returning to their schools after the Easter break. Our Maasai Education program supports seventy plus Maasai boys and girls in government and private secondary and technical schools throughout Northern Tanzania. Maasai girls constitute more than half of the students we assist. I strongly encourage our students to spend their vacation time at home helping their families. The boys take their turn tending the herds of their folks and the girls help their mothers with the chores of going for water and firewood.

Our twice monthly cattle market took place yesterday. As the cattle auction and marketplace of corn, beans, clothing and household goods wound down in the late afternoon, a Maasai elder started for home. His Maasai village was far and the sun was already beginning to sink toward the horizon. It was clear that he would only arrive home long after dark. When he didn’t show up at home by sunrise, warriors from his village set off to look for him. They found the old man by the side of the path some distance from his village. He had been gored by a buffalo and was dead. These days, with all the green grass in the Ngorongoro highlands due to the rains, buffalo are much in evidence. They, together with the elephants, are decimating the small plots of corn.

A band of warriors went off to hunt a lion in a place outside the Conservation area. They found a big male and chased him into a thicket deep in a wooded area in the direction of Ndutu. They surrounded the thicket and made a lot of noise so that the lion would break for his freedom. He did and sprang landing on one of the warriors directly in his path. The lion racked the boy across the head tearing a great swath of flesh from the side of his face and the top of his head. Having cleared the band of warriors out of his path and badly injuring one of them, the lion made off into the forest. Fortunately a car was passing on a nearby track and took the injured warrior to hospital. The young man is recovering slowly but will be left with some very serious scars.

I was in the states for a month two years ago to get a medical checkup. During my stay with my brother and his wife in St. Albans, Vermont, I visited a marine supply outlet and bought a small 12volt bailing pump. People attach these tiny pumps to their outboard motor batteries and drop them into the bottom of their boats to get rid of the water that collects there. I finally have gotten around to attaching one end of my bailing pump to my solar system and the end to a shower head. I heat up a bucket of water, drop in the bailer and presto, a hot shower. It works great!

May 2007

A few weeks ago on the Eastern side of the Serengeti, I had major trouble with the car due my carelessness. It happened on the way back from my furthest outstation near Kakesio, a drive of three hours from Endulen. After our meeting together, I checked the water in the radiator. Finding it down a bit, I topped it up and started out on the return trip to Endulen where I have a small house I use as my center. About an hour into the trip, I noticed that the temperature gauge on the dash was off the scale, way beyond the red danger mark, although I hadn’t noticed any steam coming out from under the hood. I stopped the car and opened the hood. The radiator was dry and the cap was missing. I hadn’t properly tightened when I had checked it earlier in the day. Also just a half hour before, we had made a fire by the side of the track to prepare tea and fry some flat bread and had used up what water we were carrying with us. With no water and no way to move the car without it, we faced a long walk to the nearest spring. This part of the Ngorongoro Conservation area is plains country and it is very dry. At one o’clock in the afternoon I started out with a Maasai warrior to look for water, leaving the women and children in the car with the admonition to carve a plug for the radiator out of the limb of a tree. We finally found a spring at about four thirty and got back to the car at seven in the evening. We filled the radiator and capped it with the wooden plug the women had carved in our absence, arriving back at my house at Endulen at about nine. Needless to say, the next day after a meeting at an outstation nearby, I slept most of the afternoon.

I always used to wonder why people here didn't open gifts you gave them in front of you like we do at home. I finally realized that perhaps all over Tanzania, but surely here in Maasai country gifts don't mean the same thing at all as they do in the West. In the West we give gifts to delight the one we are giving it to. Part of our joy in giving is watching that delight happen when the person opens the gift in front of us.

Here gift giving is relationship creating, obligation creating. I would much rather buy a goat than have one given to me, because that goat will follow me the rest of my life. The person who gave it didn't give it to me to delight me or to make me happy as would be the case at home. Rather he gave it to me to create a relationship of interdependence, or to deepen and strengthen one we already have. I've been given many cattle, sheep and goats over the years and all those people come to me in time of difficulty expecting to be helped.

If one doesn't want such a relationship, one must refuse the gift. This happens most often in marriage negotiations but it can also happen in very ordinary circumstances too. One finds some kind of an excuse to refuses. I've done that too. Some years ago there was a man who wanted me to send his son to secondary school. He didn't have the means to do it himself. He came many times to ask, but I always said I couldn't do it; I knew that his son couldn't make the studies. Finally the man brought a beautiful fat goat to me as a gift knowing that if I accepted it, I'd be caught. I'd have to send his son to school knowing that he would be sent back home within a year or two. I told him that I couldn't accept his gift because the missionary I was stationed with at the time was allergic to goat hair. This wasn't stretching the truth too much because it was true that Bill didn't like goat meat. He reluctantly accepting my refusal and went off. Needless to say his son is happily herding the goats at home.

Even the giving of a gift can create an unexpected and unwanted relationship. Yesterday I was at one of my places near Ngorongoro Crater. I met a man whose daughter had recently been very sick and was doctoring at the hospital in Endulen. During the time she was there, I met her many times while on my regular rounds of visiting people in the hospital. Yesterday the girl, her mother and her father came to say hello. I saw that all were dressed very poorly and were very gaunt. It was clear that all three of them were not getting very much to eat in this time of the dry season. Having been given a small bag of corn as a gift at a place I was earlier in the day, I gave it to the mother of the girl. Five minutes later, the father came and addressed me as a relative and asked me for a blanket.

You can see why I'm always very wary of receiving and giving gifts. At least among the Maasai people gifts mean relationship and obligation.

June 2007

I was brought up short recently during a meeting called by our Maasai elders to reconcile a marriage dispute. Some seventeen years ago I witnessed the marriage of Lekishon and Sitau here in the church at Endulen. Sitau had left her first husband because he beat her regularly and refused to support her and her infant son, using all his resources to support his drinking. She left the traditional marriage with the approval of the Maasai elders, of her family and of the area. Having married Lekishon with the approval of the elders and in church, Sitau gave birth to two daughters and everything went well enough for many years, then both began to drink heavily until finally they went their separate ways. Now the dispute is about cattle and a small plot of land with a small house on it which they built here at Endulen. Nothing was really resolved at the meeting, and after a number of acrimonious monologues from both sides, the meeting broke up with no firm decisions. The reason that the meeting was so significant for me was an intervention by an elder as the meeting was drawing to a close. OleSirme stood and said that to even talk of a marriage, a church marriage or any other kind was irrelevant. There simply is no marriage except the original one wherein a son was born. He went on to explain that no matter what kind of union Sitau might enter into, it will be of no lasting consequence. Her son, according to Maasai custom, will eventually grow up and bring her home, the home of his father and her true husband. The meeting gave me a lot to think about. I must be very careful in the future about agreeing to witness Maasai church marriages that have a traditional marriage in the background, especially one that has produced a son.

past three weeks has seen the hunting and killing of about forty dogs in the Endulen The area. There were packs of dogs roaming around looking for something to eat and finding almost nothing. This situation has been going on for a long time with the dogs getting thinner and thinner and ever more desperate in their search for food. The tipping point occurred when a chicken went missing and although never proved, the disappearance was attributed by many to the one or other of the dog packs intent on keeping body and soul together. Enter the Ngorongoro game department with a team of game scouts armed with a rifle, prowling the area in a land rover. Although many dogs were killed, these wily beasts quickly caught on to the deadly game and found daylight hiding places deep in the bush only emerging after dark to continue their quest for food. The hunt goes on with fewer and fewer canines bagged. The situation has been complicated by a few people who claim ownership of dogs about to be eliminated. Yesterday, I came upon such a situation that was fast developing into a fistfight or worse. I moved on and don’t know what happened after I left.

I ordered a small wind generator to augment the electricity produced by the solar panels on the roof. Many days during the rainy season are overcast and if the dark days become more that two or three, we’re reduced to using kerosene lamps with no internet or satellite TV, a situation that was the norm during my first 35 years of living in the bush. It is amazing how fast one gets used to luxuries like electricity. When there is no sun and therefore no electricity, it becomes a “hardship”, albeit a recently acquired hardship. My idea is that during dark days and at night, there is often some wind, enough to top up the batteries and keep our life style up to the standards to which we’ve become accustomed. I’ve put a 15 foot 3” pipe into a cement base and am just about ready to bolt the small wind generator spinner to the top.

A group from the UK has given us the gift of solar systems for our two dormitories and library. This will make a real difference for our Maasai young people. They will be able to study in the evening, something that they have done using kerosene wick lamps up to now. It will also give them the opportunity to see more clearly what they are eating in the evening…… although, some may not see this as a plus.

A further note on the wind generator…I think that we put it in the wrong place. The spinner doesn’t spin and the reason may be that the force of wind is broken by the house. I should have done my homework more carefully.

Last week I went to check on Naikunyinyika, a little girl of about five years with epilepsy. About a year ago her father brought her to me explaining that she was having seizures a number of times each day. She stayed with us here and with the help of proper medicine, her seizures stopped. Then about three months ago I took her home, thinking she was stabilized and people in her village could continue giving her the medicine each day. I found her in pretty bad shape. She wasn't getting her daily medication and the seizures have returned, averaging three a day and she is very thin. Her mother died years ago and nobody seems to be taking care of her. She is here at Endulen now and we've started the medication again…no more seizures so far.

July 2007

When our Maasai girls are chosen for secondary school at the end of primary school, their parents have no choice but to send them, although most would rather they stay home and get married. During the past year six of our Maasai girls have gotten pregnant during their vacation time at home between semesters. Frequently they have little control over the situation and most families are happy to see their daughters get pregnant and therefore not return to school. Now I want to hire a woman teacher and have the girls here at Osotua Prep during leave time. She would also provide them with tutoring in English. Our typing and computer teacher here at Osotua Prep would give them classes in typing and some basics in using a computer. This new program means that they will be out of their own culture even more than they already are due to their secondary education, but I don’t know what else to do. The pregnancy thing is really out of control.

Sitting here on the front porch of an afternoon and watching a couple of Maasai warriors drive a sick cow to the Endulen shops to be sold for slaughter, prompts me to wonder if I've mentioned the cattle disease "Olmilo" in my letters. A good milk cow can be perfectly healthy and producing milk on a particular day. That evening she is evidently in trouble, dizzy, disoriented, wandering aimlessly around with a high fever, and bumping into things. By the next morning, she is dying. It is a plague that has gotten into North Maasailand and destroys a significant number of cattle each year. At the time I came to Endulen 21 years, it was still a new thing; people weren't too concerned about it. They figured that there must be a medicine to cure it, and if the medicine were available in Arusha or Nairobi or wherever, it would become available. This complacency has long since dissolved. It turns out that it is a tick born disease and very destructive.

In recent years, “olmilo” is less of a problem, but people must buy the very expensive dip medicine to wipe down their cattle each week. They carefully dilute it to the prescribed ratio of water to medicine and then carefully, with a cloth, wipe it on to the parts of the animals most prone to tick infestation, the ears and under the tail. Fewer cattle die in the herds of those people who have the wherewithal to treat their cattle each week. But even their cattle continue to die, since it is the only sure way to get to all the ticks. Among the majority of herds, which have no access to the medicine, the situation is much more difficult.

Some time ago I was attack by bees while filling the Toyota Land Cruiser with diesel fuel. In a tin sheet house which serves as a store there were two "hives" of bees living in the walls between the outer tin sheeting and the inner fiber board walls. They had been a problem for quite a long time, stinging me and others when disturbed, but there was never any question of a full scale attack. It may have been their stage of honey-making or maybe the weather which was very muggy. Who knows what caused them to come after me in a swarm. The people say that strong unusual smells cause them to become excited and angry. I was near the bottom of my barrel of diesel and so was no longer able to siphon it with a plastic hose, and so poured from the drum into a bucket, and then was going to siphon from the bucket into the car. I never got the final stage of putting it into the car. Coming out of the store with a bucket of diesel, I heard an ominous buzzing; it must have been the large open surface of diesel in the bucket giving off a strong smell. After the first sting, I dropped the bucket, tried to cover my head with my shirt and ran for the house. It was a long thirty yards. By the time I got inside and slammed the door, I had been stung about fifteen times. And after a couple minutes of frantic activity, found about ten more bees dead or looking for me in my clothes. I don't know whether the bees here are any different from those at home, but I'm acquiring a lot of respect for ours.

A few years ago Mbarway Government Secondary school was built here in the Conservation area of Ngorongoro. It is located some three miles from Endulen. Two weeks ago two of the Indian students, one from Endulen and the other from Karatu, a town located about a half hour’s drive outside the Conservation Authority got in a fight over the ownership of a blanket. The boy from Karatu stabbed the boy from Endulen. The injured student was taken to the major hospital in Arusha for surgery. He is recovering slowly. I guess Ngorongoro has now joined the rising tide of school violence everywhere. Like everywhere where such things have happened, the people here are left saying things like “How could this have happened in such a peaceful and friendly place as Ngorongoro”. Our Osotua Maasai Education Program supports 24 students at Mbarway.

Some will remember that my new wind generator turned out to be an interesting but useless sculpture in the back yard. I had set it up where the house was blocking the wind. Now it is on the roof supported by a frame made by Indian metal workers in Arusha. It now works fine making a noise like a wind blowing through the trees and it generates electricity too. I’ve posted a photo on this diary entry on my web site http://osotua.org.

August, September, October, 2007

Primary school closed this month. Forty one Maasai girls, who have now completed their primary education, have come to me here at the mission. They are asking to stay here with us till the examination results are published early next year. The girls fear that staying at home may result in getting pregnant and/or being pressured into getting married. I have taken each one home to talk to her parents and all the parents, except two have agreed that their daughters stay here. We are teaching some English and Math to these girls, hoping that many or most will be chosen by the government to enter secondary school. This is a confusing time for these girls and they face an uncertain future. The one certainty in their lives is their desire for an education and their wish to help their families, especially their mothers and younger brothers and sisters.

One day a couple of weeks ago as I went about my regular round of teaching, I neared a Maasai encampment after about an hour’s walk from the Mission. I was a little disconcerted at not seeing elders sitting under the shade tree outside the village playing their board game. The one with the board having parallel lines of scooped out holes filled with small round stones representing cattle to be won and lost by the two opposing players as the game progresses. As I walked through the gate my disquiet increased when there were no groups of women sitting by the houses gossiping and sewing beads on their skin skirts. The usually busy Maasai village seemed deserted. The sudden cry of a child, evidently in pain, drew my attention to the other end of the village. There partially hidden from view by the corner of a house, was a small crowd of people. I walked over to what all the excitement was about. In the center of a circle of men women and children, there sat on a three legged traditional stool a middle aged women. In her hand was a short knife sharpened on both sides and at the moment dripping with blood. Between her legs and on the ground sat a girl of about eleven, the source, I realized, of the sharp cry which had drawn me over. As I watched, the girl opened her mouth and, what I now realized to be a surgical operation already in progress, continued. The woman proceeded to carefully dissect out a very large tooth. She cut with painstaking care deeply all around the tooth. Then she proceeded to dig and pry till after just a minute or two, the tooth came free, its' three roots perfectly intact, each half and inch long, curved and pointed, glistening with droplets of blood. During the operation, except for two what must have been especially painful moments, the little girl was very quiet. The people too were dead silent too during the whole procedure. One woman, the mother of the little girl, did speak a word of encouragement to her daughter from time to time. Hers' was the only voice to be heard, and it was not often that she spoke. I was amazed at the whole event and even more so when I was told that no painkiller or anesthetic of any kind was used. After just a short time the patient was sitting quietly with the other children, not taking an active part in their games, but not looking very much the worse for wear either, after what must have been quite an ordeal for her.

Today near the marketplace here in Endulen an old man of about 70 was herding mama Ngayeni’s herd of goats. Without warning two young men appeared, speared the old man, who died on the spot, and made off with a large ram. As the days have gone by, the reports concerned this murder are more and more conflicted. As far as I can figure, it was somehow a family matter that erupted into violence. No one seems to have the full story.

November 2007

Last time I reported that many Maasai girls have come here to the mission following the finish of their last year of primary school. In January the results of their final exams will be published and they will learn if they have been chosen for secondary school. Their number has now grown to sixty and our resources are being stretched to the limit. We’ve gotten together a program of English, Math and typing to keep them occupied during their time with us. They are also busy with daily trips to the spring for water and frequent trips to the forest for firewood.

The Laibon is a very important man here in Maasailand. Many times the title is translated witch doctor, but since the Maasai don’t have witches among them, it doesn’t really fit. The basic idea though, of being a doctor to help when the occult or unexplainable threatens, does fit. It is important to keep in mind that the first question asked by Maasai when things go wrong and in time of trouble is “WHY?”…Why is this happening? Who cursed me? What did I do to bring this calamity down on myself? Why am I, my child, or my wife sick; more specifically, who cursed me, him or her? The seemingly more obvious question: “WHAT?”…What is the physical cause of the problem is of secondary importance to him. The Maasai is certain that if he can deal with the root cause of the trouble, which is of course some spiritual dislocation like a curse or a spell, there will be little difficulty in dealing with the physical reason for the trouble. The job of the “Laibon” therefore is primarily to explain why bad things happen to people, why a person is sick, why a woman can’t get pregnant or whatever. He goes about the task of discovering “why”; it may be that the person has been cursed, is under the influence of an evil eye, or maybe some sin of the an ancestor or the person in difficulty himself may be to blame. He makes his diagnosis by means of about forty little round stones of different colors which he pours out from a gourd onto a skin spread out on the ground. By looking carefully at these stones, how they have fallen, what colors are together and which colors are separated from each other, he is able to discover why the person who has come to him is in difficulty, and furthermore what might be done about it. He may decide that it is something simple like not have received a very important bracelet from one’s mother at the time of her death, or something very complicated to deal with like the solemn curse of someone now long dead. Whatever the “Laibon” discovers it to be, he will prescribe a remedy. Perhaps he will tell the person to go to the source of the Oldagum, our local stream, and wash in the water after mixing in some particular roots. Again he may direct that a sheep be slaughtered and skin necklaces be made from the hide to be worn in a certain way for some specified length of time. If the sickness of the person begins to fade, the “Laibon” will be brought gifts in thanksgiving, and his reputation will increase. If the person doesn’t get better, pregnant or the problem is not solved, sometimes another “Laibon” will be sought and consulted. Very often the intervention of the “Laibon” can be helpful, but not always. Among the villages in which I teach there are three “Laibons”. Very often I come upon them doing their thing with the stones. They are used to me being around and have no objection to me sitting and watching. This morning I taught at the village of Olendetiai. As I arrived, I found the very old almost totally blind “Laibon” sitting under a tree with some people who had traveled from a place called Piaiya to consult him, two days travel by foot. It seems the son of the elder sitting under the tree with Olendetial had been sick for years with a very serious skin decease. As I sat down at the outer edge of the small group, at whose center Lendetiai was carefully consulted his little piles of colored stones. He had poured them out some minutes before from a beautifully prepared cow horn. He was saying, “Your son is cursed.”. The old man asked, “But by who?” The old “Laibon” answered that it was the elders’ oldest wife, who had cursed the boy out of jealousy. It seems that she herself had no son, the sick boy being the son of her co-wife. But what must I do so that my son will get better asked the old man. The Laibon gave his remedy. She must be driven from your village with out cattle or even gourds of water and never allowed to come back. I was horrified. It seemed to me that for all practical purposes the “Laibon” had just imposed the death sentence, in a totally arbitrary manner, on some poor woman who perhaps was as grieved over the sickness of her co-wife’s son as anybody else.

December 2007

It was Christmas week sixteen years ago and time for the usual twice a month trip to Olbalbal on the edge of the Serengeti. The trip is twenty minutes by air on the Flying Medical Service’s airplane. Dr. Pako, recently arrived from Spain, and one of the sisters were going to do the “mother and child” clinic. I went to have a meeting with Maasai elders of the area. I had asked them to come together to talk about allowing their daughters to attend secondary and technical school, a mostly fruitless exercise in those days. I attended meeting after meeting in the Ngorongoro area for years with no agreement from the elders to send their girl children to school beyond the first years of primary school. It is a little better these days but not much.

The day started out normally enough with a mixed Maasai and Swahili Mass for sisters, Swahili workers and Maasai patients at the hospital in Endulen. After breakfast with the sisters there came the jolting ten minute ride in the hospital pickup to our dirt air strip. Our missionary pilot Don Fox, a Spiritan Associate, got us all organized in his six seater Cessna and off we went. The clinic went well enough, although attendance was sparse. The day before an elephant had dug up and broken the pipe that brings water from the spring in the hills nearby. This meant the women of the area had to go for water with the five gallon kerosene tins. Donkeys carry these in cow skin bags fixed to their backs. The trip for water takes most of the day, so both clinic and church gathering had fewer people than usual.

Dr. Pako was packing up his baby scale, hypodermic needles, portable table etc.. I had just come back from my ineffectual meeting with a few of the local elders held under a shade tree some hundreds of yards away and Dr. Pako holds his clinic in a corrugated tin shack. On other days it is a classroom. Dr. Pako, the sister and Don, who also helped with the clinic, were picking up their things to leave. At the doorway of the hut, they were met by a distraught Maasai woman pushing aside the gunny sack door of the clinic and holding out a small child for treatment. Pako saw at once the child was in the advanced stages of pneumonia with lungs clogged with fluids. The little girl not more than two years old, needed to get to Endulen and the hospital quickly. Don Fox went into high gear getting people and equipment back to the plane. After a quick check to be sure no one had tampered with the plane in our absence, and a look at the strip to see if there were any wildebeast, zebra or Maasai cattle in our way, off we went.

It was a bad trip from the beginning. Don was using every trick he had learned in his more than thirty years of flying to get more speed out of the little plane. Pako sat in the right hand seat next to Don. Sister and I were in the middle two seats, and the mother was in the back. Shortly after take off, the baby stopped breathing; we passed her forward to the doctor. He held it on his lap and got its lungs going again but its breathing was very shallow. The mother behind me constantly demanded to know whether her child was still alive. I kept her informed as best I could of the continued efforts of Dr. Pako.
As Don lined up on the Endulen air strip, Pako was giving the little girl mouth to mouth help to breathe. As we landed it was over, the baby was dead and the mother in hysterics. As we stood next to the airplane looking at the dead child and its shattered mother, Don Fox spoke for us all as he commented, we must find a way to do better next time.

The Class Seven results are beginning to come out now and many Maasai girls of Ngorongoro have been chosen for secondary school. Their parents, read mostly fathers and brothers, can not stop them from going. There is now a law. They can’t refuse their daughters, who get chosen by the government, to go to school, but there is no way that they will agree to pay the tuition and other expenses. Therefore, most of the chosen girls are little better off than before. Anyway, forty six girls have applied to me for help and we’ll try to choose the neediest and help them as much as we can.

January 2008

Sitting around the with a Maasai family during a recent evening Sipei, a child of seven or eight, was being reprimanded. He and Toreet, another boy his own age had been sent to a nearby village to return a newborn goat that had been separated from it’s mother and ended up in their herd of goats. During their return, Toreet had turned aside to answer a call of nature. Sipei, their home village now in sight, hurried right on. As he entered the village by his fathers’ gate, he met the concerned mother of Toreet. "Where’s Toreet?” she demanded. Oh he just went to squat; he’ll be along in a minute. This turned out to be the truth, but it was clear no one was happy with the way he had left Toreet and arrived at the village by himself. Sipei couldn’t figure out why.

That evening while gathering with his family around the fire Sipei found out what he had done wrong, and I had the good fortune to be there. OleSulel, Sipei’s father told one of the numerous parables parents use in the education of their children. Sensing a story, children quickly gathered from the surrounding houses until there were close to twenty youngsters waiting with expectant faces in the light of the flickering fire for the story to begin.

Long ago, began the old man, there were two warriors traveling to a far part of Maasai country. One afternoon as they were passing through a forested area, Merero said to Parmes, his companion: “Just a moment, I have to go and sit down”, and he went into the bushes bordering the path. Parmes waited a little and then became impatient. Thinking to himself, “Our destination is only an hour or two further on; Merero will catch up with me”, and off he went. Merero unfortunately squatted near a thicket where a bad tempered lone buffalo bull lay resting in the shade. Startled by the noise Merero was making, he charged catching Merero in the thigh with the point of his horn and severing and artery. Merero staggered back to the path hoping to find help from his friend Parmes. Parmes was not to be seen, and Merero passed out and soon was dead from the loss of blood. That night hyenas found the body of Merero and by morning bones were all that was left of Merero. In the morning people found the bones of the warrior whose arrival had been expected the night before, and Parmes was accused of killing his age mate and leaving him for the hyenas. The accusation was widely believed because of a bitter argument that Merero and Parmes had had just the week before over the affections of a girl. Parmes strongly denied killing his fellow warrior.

Elders came from far and wide to participate in the meeting called to decide the innocence or guilt of Parmes. The deliberations extended over a number of days and the verdict was “Oloikop” murder. The sentence was dictated by ancient Maasai tradition, forty nine cows to be paid by the family of the convicted murderer to the family of the dead person. Despite the continued protests of innocence by Parmes, the forty nine cattle were chosen and gathered to be driven to the village of Merero’s family. As the forty nine cattle were driven away from the village of Parmes, they had to pass through a narrow gorge. Entering the cramped path, the cattle smelled a pride of lions not far away and refused to go forward. The warriors tried everything they knew to force the cattle to go on. Nothing worked; the cattle wouldn’t budge.

Medicine men, Diviners, and the wisest elders from far and wide were called together. They spent many hours sitting together puzzling over the interpretation of the cattle refusing to continue their journey. Finally they came to the unanimous conclusion that Parmes must have been innocent after all, and the cattle were driven back to his village.

Now do you know why it was wrong for you to leave Toreet and come home alone, asked the old man of Sipei had understood the parable. Because Sipei said, if anything had happened to Toreet, I could have been blamed. This is how it goes, the very informal but highly effective education of Maasai children.

February 2008

“Oldoiyo Le’nKai… Stop raining soot on us!!!!”
This month the women of Endulen and the surrounding countryside had an “elamal”, a pilgrimage to offer their prayers to God that “the almighty one” halt the sacred mountain of Oldoinyo Lengai spewing forth the dense clouds of smoke and ash that is blanketing the countryside and making the grass bitter and unfit for the cattle to eat. It was a very moving sight. Hundreds of women from every direction came in large groups to gather at the oreteti tree. They all wore dark blue or black skirts and cloaks and each had a gourd of milk with fresh green grass stuffed in the mouths of the gourds. Under the vast spreading branches of the sacred Oreteti tree, the women ritually slaughtered a black sheep without blemish, then sang and prayed for hours. They sprinkled milk from their gourds on each other, on the sacrificial sheep and around the Oreteti tree, a sign of their dependence on God for all good things, among them, milk and food of every kind for their families. The ceremonies were so moving that I stood mesmerized by the ceremonies forgetting to turn my tape machine on to record the beautiful songs.

The shade of the Oreteti, a wild fig tree, is a place where the Maasai traditionally gather for prayer. Also individual Maasai, when passing by the tree will often stop to place some green grass or a trinket on the trunk and prayer for family and village.

Recently many of us gathered high on Mount Kilimanjaro. Our hostesses were the Capuchin sisters. They call their place of retreat “Maua”, a Swahili word meaning “Flowers”. The name is apt. The grounds are a riot of color; every hue of the rainbow is represented. I recognized roses, dalias, snapdragons, lilies, and there must be hundreds of others. Mawenzi and Kibo, the twin peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro, seem very close. In the crystal clear air of the early morning, it feels as if one could reach out and touch them. The houses for sleeping, meeting and eating perch atop a small hill overlooking a dense gravillia and Eukaliptus forest. A rushing mountain stream fed by melting snow from the mountain curves around the base of the hill. Wherever one goes on the Maua grounds one hears the sound of water making its hurried way down the mountain to be drunk by the cattle of the Maasai out on the plains far below.

Paul Flamm, a Spiritan missionary working with refugees from Burundi in Western Tanzania gave us a lot to think about. One of his discussions aimed at allowing oneself to listen as God speaks to us through creation. We couldn’t have been in a better place for it. During one of the afternoons, I made my way down the hill to the stream and following it some way up into the mountain. As it went higher it became narrower and the trees and brush more and more dense. At one point, I came upon a beautiful small meadow filled with wild flowers bordering on the by now quite narrow rock strewn stream. I lay down in the grass and only a half hour later did I realize that I’d been asleep for some time. What a terrific place. The only sounds to be heard were the calling of the birds and the rush of water. It was a good week.

After a day of shopping back in Arusha and one on the road traveling, it feels good to be back here in Endulen. I arrived to find it still raining. It looks like there will be no break between them short and long rains. Endulen is still wall to wall mud and has been this way since the early part of November. It is great for the Maasai who have had milk from their cattle for some time now, but doesn’t provide much electricity from my solar system that I depend on for lights and internet access.

Last week two goats being overseen by some not so attentive Maasai herd boys got into our outhouse and fell into the pit. A few young warriors were quickly mobilized and they went to work saving one very frightened stinking goat. The other has become a permanent addition to the out house, or rather the hole underneath it.

March 2008

A pack of about fifty wild dogs has been roaming our area of Endulen for the past few weeks. They are doing their best to deplete our impala and wild pig populations. This is the first time in many years that these animals have been seen around Endulen. Although I guess it is unlikely that they would attack people, everyone is a little apprehensive and watchful when walking. During my time in South Maasai during the early seventies, I would see them regularly when out traveling by motorcycle. They were absolutely fearless. I would rev the bike up and pass through the middle of them. They would just sit there and stare at me, very scary.

The following creed was composed by Fr. Vince Donovan in about 1967. I was reminded of it during the last couple of days by a good friend and classmate, Carl Scheider and his wife, Judy. Carl heard it quoted and discussed on National Public Radio. I now remember that Vince showed the creed to me when we were stationed together at Loliondo in 1967 and 1968, and then promptly forgot all about it. Now am translating it into Maasai and will show to the Maasai people to get their reactions. I think it is great and that we should begin to use it in our gatherings. Perhaps some among you would like to take a look at it.

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in the darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the Bible, that he would save the world and all nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He was buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from that grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.
We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love, and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

A warrior was attacked by a buffalo down on the plains at Olbalbal. He has terrible wounds. His whole leg was laid open from calf to waist. When the doctors were sewing him up without any kind of an anesthetic, he did not make a sound. They must have used between fifty and a hundred stitches. His only reaction came at the very end of the ordeal when tears began to roll down his face, but he still did not cry out.

Te imiet eilanyae
It is at five that man overtakes, succeeds,
The Maasai consider five things necessary for success in life, a wife, a cow, a sheep, a goat, and a donkey.

April 2008

The key to leadership is education. But the door to higher education is slammed shut in the faces of the Maasai. Primary education in Maasai country is in a poor state. Many teachers dont want to be here. Many are just waiting for their exile to be over so they can get back to places where food is plentiful and life is more pleasant. Often little teaching goes on, and there is no sustained effort to overcome the traditional resistance of the Maasai to formal education. Our Maasai young people find it very hard to compete with STD VII graduates of other tribes for places in schools of higher education. Our Osotua Maasai Education Program supports them in secondary school because their parents do not understand the value of education and will not pay school fees or other school costs. We now support 70 Maasai girls and boys in various secondary schools and secondary level technical schools. Also we have Maasai young people doing Teacher Training and medical programs.

Nina was unique among her school mates. She enjoyed school from her earliest years. While other girls from her village often hid in the tall grass to avoid school, Nina never played truant. Nina loved to read and always borrowed books of Swahili stories from her teachers. Maasai children are not encouraged to go to school by their parents. The government officials are required to fill the school register and in turn threaten the elders with fines if the quotes from the villages are not filled each year to fill the classrooms. Once the school year begins though and the required numbers and nominally met, no one worries too much about attendance.

On completion of Standard Seven, the final year of grade school in the Tanzanian system, Nina was able to read Swahili and even struggle through a small childs book in English. Not much to show for seven years in primary school, you might say, but quite and accomplishment in Tanzania where many graduates of seventh grade are not able to write their names nor understand a simple Swahili sentence let alone read and write the language.

Nina came to me during her first months in grade seven. I want to go to high school, she said. Can you help me? Given her family situation, typical among the nomadic Maasai, this was going to be a tall order. I knew that her father had already promised her in marriage to a friend and age mate in his village some years older than himself. The celebrations were to take place immediately after her graduation from seventh grade. Lemalali was not a wealthy man and was looking foreword to the expansion of his small herd of cattle that the marriage of Nina would bring. Ninas mother further complicated the situation. Very old and almost blind, she was looking foreword to the return of Nina to the village. Nina as a young wife would not only be responsible for building a house and caring for her aging husband but would have to find time each day to bring water from the river for her mother and cut for firewood for her. This is quite a program for a thirteen year old girl, but not an unusual one for an African girl and especially not for one among the very traditional Maasai people.
I talked with her father and mother many times over the following months, arguing that, in the long run, it would be to their advantage to have an educated daughter. They would have to forego the cattle that an early marriage would bring, but having Nina in high school would be like having money in the bank. On completion of her education, Nina would get a job and be able to help them regularly, much more than two or three cattle would help right now. In the end they reluctantly agreed and Nina went off to high school in Arusha.
Fortunately I found her a place to stay with a family on Mount Meru, the mountain towering above the town of Arusha. Tumpet is a member of the Arusha tribe, a people similar in customs and language to the Maasai and has three children. Nina has become especially close to Simaloi, The oldest daughter of Tumpet who is the same age as Nina. Tumpet treats Nina as one of her own and Nina has come to feel very much at home there.

Each morning Nina walks seven miles to school and seven miles back up the mountain each evening. It is a long way for her to walk each day, but I was not able to find a place nearer to school that I felt good about. It is especially difficult during the rains when the mud is often ankle deep and there are many rushing streams to cross.
Now three years later, Nina is a junior in high school and is talking of entering the Medical Assistant program. A medical assistant in our terms would be somewhere between a nurse practitioner and a doctor. They can be in charge of small hospitals and even do minor operations. It is a three year program following graduation from high school. Maasai medical people are badly needed in Maasai country. Most outsiders have little sympathy for the Maasai and generally try to profit from their gullibility and lack of sophistication. It would be wonderful for Nina to get into this kind of work. She would be an asset both to her own family, especially her ailing mother and to the Maasai people.

I wrote last month that the local people here are afraid of wild dogs and that they the animals killed off some impala and wild pigs here in the Endulen area. Although this is true, it was perceived by some as speaking badly of wild dogs. I apologize for that. Also I got my numbers from the local people. They may or may not have exaggerated. The following is the email that I received:

I dont know whether you realize but the kind of fear that you express with regards to the wild dogs in your latest diary entry is part of the reason that their numbers are so low, along with your assertion that they are depleting wild animal and livestock populations.
This is a story that should be celebrated as these much maligned and completely harmless animals (towards humans at least) struggle to reestablish themselves across much of their original home ranges.
Did you know that they are extinct in the Serengeti? Please Ned, publish a retraction of sorts playing down the negative spin of your entry below. I know people from all over the world who would be very excited to hear about a pack of 50 wild dogs! Cheers, DOM

May 2008

May 15... As everywhere food is skyrocketing in cost. Corn represents the bulk of the diet of Maasai people. Last December, the cost of five gallon container of corn was about $4 US. Now the same amount costs $7. Here at Ngorongoro, we are paying almost $9 a gallon for diesel fuel.

May 30... A small museum was opened today at Laitole where a line of hominid fossil footprints, discovered in 1978 by Mary Leakey, Richard Hay, Tim White and their team, is preserved in powdery volcanic ash from an eruption of the 20 km distant Sadiman Volcano. Soft rain cemented the ash-layer without destroying the prints. In time, they were covered by other ash deposits. The hominid prints were produced by three individuals, one walking in the footprints of the other, making the original tracks difficult to discover. As the tracks lead in the same direction, they might have been produced by a group—but there is nothing else to support the common reconstruction of a nuclear family visiting the waterhole together. The footprints demonstrate that the hominids walked upright habitually, as there are no knuckle-impressions. The feet do not have the mobile big toe of apes; instead, they have an arch (the bending of the sole of the foot) typical of modern humans. The hominids seem to have moved in a leisurely stroll.

Since Laitole is just a few miles from Endulen, the development of the site for tourism will make some major changes for the small Maasai trading center of Endulen. Tourist cars will be passing through regularly. I am wondering what all that will mean for the local Maasai people.

May 31... In recent weeks a number of people have written to me asking for more information about Maasai medicine men. I found this in the book by Hollis. It may be of interest especially because the stealing of the inheritance of Mbatian by the younger son so closely parallels the bible story. We may wonder whether the Hebrew Scriptures got the story from the ancestors of the Maasai or was Maasai history influenced by Hebrew and Semetic traditions.

Medicine men have four methods of divining future events. The first is by means of a buffalo or ox horn. A handful of stones are thrown in, and they know what is going to happen by the number which falls out when the horn is shaken. The second is by examining the entrails of a goat which they slaughter. From what they see there they are able to predict that certain things will come to pass, such as epidemics, etc. The third method is when they drink honey-wine and get drunk. They are then able to prophesy what will take place. The fourth method is by dreams. They tell people what they saw in their dreams, and it is believed to be a prophecy. Should the dream not come true after an interval of some years, people cannot say it is not correct. They must wait until the medicine-man tells them that the event is about to happen.

If the medicine man is going to prophesy by means of the buffalo or ox horn, and there are people on the road, he tells those present that he will wait till the travelers pass by, as their feet will spoil his prophecy. They always know when people are coming, even if they are afar off. When a medicine man makes medicine, he gets drunk before he prophesies. He sings in parables, and the people reply. For instance, when the medicine-man named Baba Ngupe made medicine for the warriors of Kilepo before they went on a raiding expedition, he sang:

The bulls that cannot move because they are so fat,
They will be beaten by Kilepo.
The bulls that cannot move because they are so fat,
Half of them have been captured.

The warriors of Kilepo went on their projected raid against the people of Kahe, and captured half of their cattle. They said: Thus prophesied the medicine man.

All medicine men belong to the Kidongi family of the Laiser clan, and they are the descendants of Ol-oimooja of ESigiriaishi, the sons of OlleMweiya. Of all the medicine-men Lenana is the greatest. All Maasai acknowledge him as their Lord and pay tribute to him. It is said that Lenana is the son of Mbatian, who was the son of Supeet, who was the son of Sitonik, who was the son of Kipepete, who was the son of Parinyombe, who was the son of Kidongoi, who was the son of ESigiriaishi, the son of OlleMweiya.

The story of the origin of the medicine-men is said to be as follows: OlleMweiya came down from heaven and was found by the Laiser clan sitting on the top of their mountain. He was such a small person that he was first of all believed to be a child. He was taken by the Laiser clan to their kraal, where it was discovered that he was a medicine-man. He married and had issue. When he was dying he said to his children: Do not move from this spot. On account of this the Laiser clan does not go far from their mountain. Now of all the medicine-men who lived in olden days Mbatian was the greatest. It is said that formerly, before Europeans ever came to these countries, he prophesied that white people would arrive. Again, before he died he told the people to move their grazing grounds, for he said, all the cattle will die. You will first of all see flies which make hives like bees, then the wild beasts will die, and afterwards the cattle. Both of these prophesies have come true: The Europeans have arrived, and the cattle died. Mbatian himself died while the cattle plague was raging about 1890.

When on the point of death, he called the elders of Matapato, the sub-district in which he lived, and said to them: Do not move from your country for I am about to die, and I will send you cattle from heaven. If you move, you will die of smallpox, your cattle will all perish, you will have to fight with a powerful enemy and you will be beaten. I wish my successor to be the son whom I give the insignia of the medicine man. Obey him. The elders said: Very well, and left. When they had gone, Mbatian called his eldest son Sendeyo, and said to him: Come tomorrow morning for I wish to give you the insignia of the medicine man. Sendeyo replied: Very well, and went to lie down.
While this was taking place, Lenana, who had hidden himself in the calf-shed, overheard the conversation. He arose early in the morning and went to the hut of his father. On his arrival, he said: Father I have come. Now Mbatian was very aged and he had only one eye. He therefore did not see which of his sons was before him and gave to Lenana the insignia of the medicine-man, the iron club, the medicine horn, the gourd, the stones, and the bag, at the same time saying: Thou shalt be the great amongst thy brothers and amongst all the people. Lenana took the insignia of the medicine-man and went away.
Sendeyo then went to his father, but was told that his brother had already been there and been given the insignia. When he heard this, he was very angry and said: I will not be subject to my brother; I will fight with him till I kill him. Mbatian died and was buried near Donyo Erok. When he was dead, some of the people proclaimed Lenana principal medicine-man, for they said, Mbatian told us that he would give the insignia of his office to whichever of his sons he wished should succeed him. They therefore remained with Lenena,
But others said: We will not acknowledge this man for he is a cheat, and they grew in their lot with Sendeyo. Now disease broke out amongst the people of Sendeyo, many of whom died, their cattle all perished, and they were defeated by the Germans; whilst those people who remained with Lenana did not fall Ill, and they obtained cattle, as Mbatian had predicted.

The two rivals waged war for many years, and eventually Sendeyo was beaten. He came in 1902 to beg his brother to allow him to live with him and peace was concluded between the two parties. Before Lenena dies he will select whichever of his sons in acquainted with the work of Medicine men to succeed him.

The principal badge of the office of medicine-man is the iron club. If the medicine man sends a messenger to tell his people anything, he also sends his club so that it may be known that the message comes from him.

Should a medicine man strike anybody with the iron club, that person sickens and dies. It is said that Mbtian often struck people with his club, and waited until they were about to died, when he gave them medicine and cured them. Lenana, however, is a gentleman and does not kill people in this manner.
Till next month,
Ned

June 2008

Cape Buffalo claim two victims...
During the past couple of weeks two people have been gored and killed by buffalo. One was an elder walking through a wooded patch just north of the Endulen shops. A woman was also killed by a buffalo as she cut firewood in some thick bush just South of Endulen village at Esirua.

As the dry season deepens these days, many animals are gravitating to higher and more wooded country. Here at Endulen, on the edge of the Ngorongoro highlands, there is still some green grass and long dry grass in abundance. In the short ten minute trip from the mission to the hospital this morning, there were two sizable herds of zebra and a few Cape buffalo, in addition to many of the animals that are always here. This morning these included impala, wild pig, and a few pairs of the tiny antelope call Dikdik. As the weeks go by and the land below bordering on the Serengeti becomes fully clothed in the dull dusty brown mantle of the dry season, elephants too are attracted to our abundant stands of acacia trees.

Last Saturday, Narropil Siroiyan graduated a Clinical Officer. This Tanzanian designation is somewhere between a Nurse Practitioner and a Medical Doctor. Her study program was three years following Form Five and Six (the first two college years in American terms). Underwriting her studies at Machame Lutheran Hospital on Mount Kilimanjaro was the Lutheran Church and Doctor Mark Jacobson of Salien Lutheran Hospital in Arusha. Narropil has been here at Endulen mission since her earliest years in primary school. Her father has constantly been trying to marry her off since she was quite small hoping to reap the benefits of a significant bride price in cattle. When she was much younger, OleSiroiyan took her away from school any number of times. Fortunately, I was always able to get her back using one ruse or another. Now we have in Narropil, a Maasai woman doctor, who will take her place in Maasai country with intimate knowledge of the language, situation, and problems of the people. She has worked hard at her school work all these years. I am very proud of her. Her father is now suddenly proud of her accomplishments and new status, knowing that he will be getting plenty of help from her.

If the Maasai make peace with other people, whether enemies or other Maasai with whom they have fought, the warriors seize two important elders, and take a cow which has a calf and a woman who has a baby; the enemy does the same. They then meet together at a certain spot, everybody present holding grass in his right hand, and exchange the cattle. The child of the enemy is suckled at the breast of the Maasai woman, and the baby of the Maasai at the breast of the woman belonging to the enemy.

After this they return to their kraals, knowing that a solemn peace has been entered into. Thus was peace restored between the sections of the Maasai in the first year of the sun at the place called the Ford of Sangaruna. Formerly when the Maasai did not wish to make a solemn peace with people of other tribes, they entered into blood brotherhood with them. A Maasai elder would sit down with one of the elders of the enemies; each of them would then cut his left arm, and after dipping in blood some meat of a bullock which was killed on the spot, would eat it. When they finish, the Maasai and their protagonists part, but as often as not do not keep the peace. (Hollis pg. 321)

July 2008

My name is Naisiay Theresia Gabriel Kasiaro, a Maasai from the district of Ngorongoro and the village of Endulen. I want to tell the story of how I came about and how I grew up. After I was born my mother soon left me and my four brothers and sisters, returning home to her father and mother near Narok in Kenya. The younger wife of my father took us in and care for us. We lived with her for some time until my father began to realize all was not well and we were not being looked after as well as the rest of the children of the younger co-wife of my mother. At that point, my father split us up, two of us going to our grandmother and the other two, including me, staying with the younger wife of my father. I continued to live with her and to have a lot of trouble, but my father took pains to look after me as well as he could and gave me heart to go on because of his special care for me. One day I ran away to the village of my grandmother and stayed with her because she loved us and didnt treat us differently than the other children. She continued to love and care for all of us in the same way.

One day father Ned was visiting our village. We all liked him because he tried to help everybody and treated everyone equally. He became a friend of all of us in the village starting with the elders even to the smallest child. That was the year, 1986, that I finished grade seven and Father Ned talked to me and my father about my continuing my schooling. I was very happy about this possibility and readily agreed. My father had no objection to my going on with school. This was something very unusual at the time. Most fathers wanted to marry their daughters off quickly to get as many cattle as possible. I went to study at Ngarenarok technical school for a year in 1987 and then went on to study at Simanjiro Animal Husbandry school at Emboreet in central Maasai. That was in 1988. During my years at Emboreet, my father became ill and was not showing signs of much improvement. He died in 1991. Fr. Ned continued to take care of me and I was able to complete my studies at Simanjiro and my secondary education also. I reached the age of marriage and was married and became pregnant. It was a difficult time and I was often sick. Fr. Ned took care of me and often took me to the hospital. Finally, I successfully gave birth at Endulen and then returned to the village of my husband. I was raised by Fr. Ned more than my own parents and he cared for me as well as they could have. I then lived for seven relatively peaceful years with my husband. Then things began to go bad between us and we often fought about things. Things got so bad as time went on that I began to wish that I never had gotten married. My love for my little girl and my determination to take good care of her is what kept me going during that very difficult time.

I returned with my little girl, Andi, to Endulen and Fr. Ned. We stayed at the mission and Andi began primary school. Now just in the past two weeks, Fr. Ned has been able to find a place for me at Arusha Teacher Training College. I have now begun my preparation to become a teacher.

I am thankful for this opportunity to tell my story. I would like to give Maasai girls like myself encouragement. They should not give up their aspirations to get an education. Even when their parents object and refused to help with their education, there may always be a way through. As a teacher in Maasai country, I want to help Maasai girls in every way that I can. I want to give them the idea that there can be more to life that gathering firewood, taking the donkeys for water and having babies. They can have goals to help their village and our Maasai people by going to school and becoming teachers, nurses, and village leaders.

December 2008

I hope that you have had good holidays. During this two week period I am getting around to many of my Maasai outstations. On my way to Kaitekiteng this week I had no problems. This place is an hour and a half from Endulen and is located on the top of Makorot mountain. At Kaitekiteng one looks down on the Serengeti plains to the West and Ngorongoro crater to the East. It rained heavily in the mountains during the hours spent with the Maasai community there. On the return trip the steep mountain track cutting through deep forest was very slippery. On one very steep grade, the tires refused to dig in. Every time I tried to climb the narrow track with deep drop offs on my left, the wheels spun till they smoked. After two hours of laying brush along the track and ten unsuccessful tries at making the top, I went for broke. At the bottom of the hill there was a flat space. Giving myself as much room to get up speed as possible, I put the land cruiser in four wheel drive low ratio. In second gear, I gunned the engine and was doing almost thirty when I got to the bottom of the grade. The car careened up the slope, at times coming alarmingly near the edge. The car somehow kept moving though, stalling just a few yards from the top. At that point, there was enough traction to make it the rest of the way in first gear. When I got out of the car at the level space on the top of the hill, I was shaking.

In the beginning the sun married the moon. They traveled together for a long time, the sun leading and the moon following. As they traveled, the moon would get tired and the sun would carry her for three days every month. This is why it is said that donkeys are able to see the moon on the fourth day. People can only see the moon on the fifth day.

One day the moon made a mistake and she was beaten by the sun just the same way women are beaten by their husbands. But it happened that the moon was one of those short tempered women who fight their husbands. When she was beaten, she fought back and wounded the sun’s forehead. The sun also beat the moon and scratched her face and plucked out one of her eyes. When the sun realized that he was wounded, he was very embarrassed and said to himself, “I am going to shine so hard that people will not be able to look at me.” And so he shone so hard that people could not look at him without squinting. That is why the sun shines so brightly. As for the moon, she did not feel any embarrassment and so she did not have to shine any brighter. And even now, if you look closely at the moon, you will see the wounds that the sun inflicted on her during their fight. The wounds given to the sun by his wife the moon are visible also, but harder to see.

January 2009

We had baptisms over Christmas in a number of places. It may be of interest to some how we have done some mild enculturation of the ceremonies.

The ceremony begins with each family, together with me, going into their homes and pouring milk and honey beer on the stones of the fire. This traditional Maasai ritual asks the ancestors and deceased members of the family to join us and bless us as the family and village begins a new life as followers of Jesus.

After calling upon our ancestors to join us, the elders of the village gather in the center of the cattle enclosure for prayer and the blessing of the cattle and other domestic animals. We make a procession with the elders around the inside of the cattle enclosure sprinkling the cattle with milk and honey beer, and then with all the people of he village, around the outside of the whole village blessing the houses and gates.

Now we give sign of the cross to the people who are to be baptized. As cattle are branded with the sign of their owner, similarly we are signed for all to see that now we belong to Jesus. The cross is traced on the foreheads of the people with a kind of chalk found most places in Maasai country. This is done in the traditional ceremonial way. In some traditional ceremonies the medicine man marks the body of a person with this chalky stuff to ward off curses, spells and every kind of evil. It seems fitting to adapt this ceremony for the giving of the powerful sign of the cross of Jesus who protects us from every evil.

We wear black, the sacred color for the Maasai, the color of the rain clouds by which God brings us all good things. In fact the word for God and the word for rain are the same, EnkAi. My black vestments are sewn with cowry shells, the decoration for sacred objects and things of special blessing like milk gourds.

The blessed water for baptism is poured over the head of the person to be baptized from a gourd stuffed at the neck with rich green grass. If the person wants to take a European name we only mildly discourage it. We do insist that everyone also take a Maasai name at baptism, usually the one that he or she was given as an infant with ceremony and prayer by parents and relatives. These names are meaningful and beautiful. Examples would be Lemayan, the one who blesses, Nasha, She of the rain, Naserian, the peaceful one, Nadupa, the successful one, Narikunkera, the one who brings children, Noolparakuo, The one who is rich in cattle and children, Nooretet, The one of the sacred Oreteti tree, Nooseuri, the exceptional one, Naishngai, The gift of God.

The elders and I bless the new fire following the traditional ceremony that takes place when a new village is built by the Maasai people. We heap green branches on the burning fire praying as smoke rises and, as in all our Christian prayers, use traditional Maasai ways of praying. We bless the fire with milk and honey beer from a gourds sewn with cowry shells and grass stuffed into the mouths of the gourds. Tufts of Green grass are carried in traditional religions ceremonies, especially by the women. Green grass is one of the most important signs of the blessing of God. To tie green grass to ones’ clothing or to carry a tuft of green grass is to publicly invoke the blessing of God. Tufts of green grass are especially carried by people asking forgiveness of an individual or of the community. Gourds of blessing have green grass stuffed in the neck. The new fire will be taken by the people to their homes and used to kindle fire that was extinguished the night before. The new fire lit in all of the houses of a village signs graphically both the community becoming new and Christian and also the light of Jesus entering each family.

Finally an unblemished ox is slaughtered and eaten with much singing and dancing.

Pat Patton of the Flying Medical Service sent me an email that summarizes well the plight facing parents who want to send their children to secondary school. I quote Pat:

This month, new students start high school. On paper, and by Tanzanian law, the school fees for a year are about 15 dollars. Even the poorest of the poor can afford that. But the reality is that no kid goes to high school here for less than 250 dollars a year because of all the add-ons which absolutely must be paid or the student is refused: uniform, shoes, sports clothes, desk fee, teacher over-time, night watchman salary, school feeding program, note books, ruler, math set, dictionary, bucket, broom, machete, grass slasher, electricity fee, school car fee, development fee. It goes on and on. And there are many mid-term fees as well. School principals simply say that they cannot run a school for 15 dollars per student. And they can’t.

February 2009

Thinking of road rage, a California freeway shooting comes to mind, or maybe a New York cab driver screaming at someone who cut him off. One does not think of that kind of thing happening in the East African bush where two or three cars passing during the course of a single day is gridlock.

A couple of weeks ago a truck left the trading center of Endulen traveling on the bush track to Esere some eight miles to the West. A couple of miles from Endulen near the small stream call Oldagum, the lorry, carrying a number of Maasai in the truck bed, came upon a herd of cattle milling about on the road. The driver became angry when the cattle didn’t move off the road in response to his horn and shouts. He drove off the road at some speed through the undergrowth and dense bush passing around the herd of cattle. The truck did not turn over. It did experience brutally violent rocking and vicious wrenching as it bounced through gullies and over rocks brushing the thick branches of trees. Regaining the road, the driver stopped. In the back, three people were found dead and four others critically injured. The driver tells us that his brakes failed.

This month Naisharua OlDumu and I traveled to Machame Clinical Officer School on Mount Kilimanjaro. Early last year Naisharua completed her A Levels (junior college). Since her earliest years she has dreamed of becoming a doctor and working among her people in Maasai country. I think that the clinical officer here in Tanzania is equivalent to a Physicians Assistant or a Nurse Practitioner in the West. After a few years working as a clinical officer, Naisharua would be able to go on to medical school. We had applied to Machame by letter a number of times without success. Her Form IV and Form VI results were not the problem; Naisharua more than fulfilled the academic requirements. The difficulty has been the huge number of applicants, many of whom have done as well or better than Naisharua in their studies. This is a growing problem. There just are not enough schools to accommodate the growing number of secondary (high school) and Form VI (junior college) graduates. We had a good meeting with the headmaster and he was well satisfied with Naisharua and her academic record. Now we must wait till the end of May to hear if she will be accepted.

In recent days returning from the hospital having dropped off a sick person for treatment, a very large wild pig ran out of the bush passing just in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes and just missed him. If we had collided, I am not sure which of us would have gotten the worst of it.

March 2009

One day in 1994, I literally stumbled over a three year old Maasai child, in a Maasai nomadic encampment. When the little girl was two, her mother went for firewood leaving her in the care of her older sister. The children were playing in the cow dung plastered house on the raised skin bed next to the fire. Ngoona fell off the bed into the fire. The women were all off in the forest cutting firewood so no one heard her screams. Terrified, her big sister ran out of the house to look for her mother, leaving Ngoona to painfully crawl out of the ashes. It took her over a year to heal. The scars were terrible especially around her knees and quickly the scarred skin tightened up drawing her legs back on themselves. Ngoona never got to walk; she could only painfully draw herself along through the dust on her stomach using her arms. And that is the way, a year later, I stumbling over Ngoona as I went from one house to another to greet the people of her village.

One day in the course of my teaching, Ngoona’s mother remarked bitterly “How can you tell us that God is “Our Father”. We Maasai know that God helps us, He brings the rain and gives us children, but he hates us sometimes too. Look what he did to Ngoona. He made her into an animal crawling around on her belly like a snake”. In response to my question: Why have not you taken her to the hospital, the mother of Ngoona’s said that nothing could be done; God has cursed us.

We talked a lot that day and in the weeks following. It is we who, by our own choices, have ruined things. By our own hatred and uncaring attitudes, we have brought on ourselves most of the troubles that we have. On the other hand we are not programmed like a computer. We are not locked into our lives. We are not cursed. We can take our lives into our hands and make them better. Slowly the family came to believe that to get help for the little girl would not be tempting God but rather working with him. We took her to our mission hospital and from there to a referral hospital for plastic surgery. Years later, after three plastic surgery operations, Ngoona walked upright, went to school, got married and had three children of her own.

Just this week, Ngoona brought her son Telele to me. Her has a spinal problem and cannot walk the distance to school from her village. Telele will stay here at the mission and attend first grade at the local government primary school. He will be one of the handicapped kids that we care for here, enabling them to get medical treatment and an education.

April 2009

Our formal prep school is now closed. Now that many Maasai girls and boys are being chosen for government run secondary schools and private school fees have become prohibitively expensive, it is more reasonable to help those chosen but who cannot come up with their school fees. This year of 2009 we're helping over fifty Maasai girls and boys in Secondary schools, Teacher Training programs and other programs.

The following is an exclusive interview with Namunyak EnolDarapoi of Ngorongoro. Namunyak is now in her fourth month of pregnancy.

During pregnancy a woman is often overcome with desire for a certain cut of meat. She may say, “Get me the kidney of a goat.” Whatever she says she wants must be looked for and brought to her by her husband. If the thing she wants is very fattening, her husband must try to substitute something similar but less harmful. The woman herself doesn’t have a choice as she is prompted by powerful inner forces in what she asks for.

When an animal is slaughtered anywhere in the neighborhood, her husband may go and stand near. He says, “Give me the meat of the pregnant one.” He cannot be refused. Boneless meat is roast over the fire so that most of the fat parts are burned off. Then the chunks of meat are skewered on a stick and given to him.

What about food Maasai get from the farming peoples on the edges of Maasai country?

In contrast to the food of animals, a pregnant woman is allowed almost anything grown in gardens. She must be careful only of porridge made from millet, because it is such a rich grain. She shouldn’t mix milk with this porridge, because the milk would make it even richer. She especially must not mix the solid heavy fat of animals with such food. This is very fattening and thus very bad for her during pregnancy.

After giving birth, a woman is carefully cared for. Animals are slaughtered for her, and the best foods are given her. This is so her strength may return following the long ordeal of pregnancy.

May and June 2009

The important news these days is the yet to be resolve issue of cultivation here at Ngorongoro. Our member of parliament held a meeting some time ago to announce that pressure from the UN and conservationists was moving the debate in the direction of forbidding all cultivation in the Conservation area. In fact, there are indications that the United Nations may remove Ngorongoro from the list of heritage sites because of the cultivation and other issues…heavy ammunition.

The Maasai are deeply troubled about the pending decision of Conservation to forbid the Maasai even their very small plots of corn and beans. The plots are small, under an acre, but provide food some way into the dry season. If the decision goes against people and all cultivation is outlawed, it will be very hard on the local Maasai people. They are collecting funds to hire a lawyer and send a delegation for protest to parliament in Dar es Salaam.

Our Christians from many of our Maasai Christian communities gathered and made a traditional pilgrimage to the cattle camp of Ashumu, a Maasai prophet. Ashumu is also one of our Christians. They camped there overnight (close to a thousand strong), praying and singing till dawn, asking the help of God in turning aside the threatened calamity of no more maize and bean plots.

Chris, a graduate student from Canada doing medical research at Endulen Hospital contributes the following,

In June of 2009, Maasai men and women assembled in at Endulen to share their concerns on the apparent will of the Tanzanian government to suppress the activity of small farming subsistence. The issue regarding small farms in Ngorongoro is a political one, and it stands to cause grave harm to the Maasai way of life. The problem, as stated at the assembly, was simple: the government believes that small farms are threatening the environmental integrity of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and hence, this practice should end.

The perception of environmental threat arose from the conclusion of a survey conducted by the government. It had been reported to the community, that a team by government sanction, had gone to Nainokanoka and conducted an assessment of human and livestock populations, and concluded a corresponding increase in the number of small farms throughout the Ngorongoro region. Because the government is dedicated to upholding the environmental integrity of this land, and because they viewed the expansion of farms, livestock, and people to pose a threat to environmental integrity, a plan had ostensibly been devised to end this subsistence practice and to subsequently encourage the Maasai people to leave Ngorongoro.

Some of the salient points discussed at the assembly included: where is the evidence that underpins the case of the government; who among the community shall represent the interests of the Maasai and present these to President Kikwete; strategies by which a legal case can be assembled and argued; and the moral duty of the government to respect and protect the human right for Maasai to practice their culture and to direct the fate of their own cultural identity.

The collective response of the community to the position of the government was: small farming is not expanding, livestock are not expanding, and food insecurity is a profound threat to the lives of all those who currently reside in Ngorongoro; the survey is flawed and its conclusions are entirely incorrect. Furthermore, doubts loomed as to whether the survey had ever occurred. Upon requests to study the data for themselves, actual survey data seemed to continuously elude such requests by the community, thereby warranting a challenge to its veracity.

As mentioned, food insecurity looms constant for the Maasai, and hence the paradox was articulated that the proliferation of small farms ought to correlate with a reduction in food insecurity. Clearly, this correlation is absent from Ngorongoro, and so, how is it possible to have an increase in both farming activity and food insecurity? In attempting to resolve this paradox, one suggestion was to consider that the survey never actually occurred. And, that this issue stems, not from President Kikwete, but rather from those within the community who seek to undermine the current political station of certain Maasai leaders. The suggestion went, that if people were forced to cease farming activities, thus exacerbating hunger, current political leaders would be faced with the intractable situation of breaking laws in order to feed the people they were elected to protect. Dissatisfied with the outcome, people may elect others into political leadership in hopes that food insecurity would be overcome through some alternative political plan. The suggestion then concluded by issuing a clarion call to those who would put the lives and welfare of their own people in harms way, only to effect some malicious political agenda; that they should, Go to Hell! Accordingly, one of the primary tasks at hand is to reveal the credibility of this rumor by simply asking President Kikwete if the survey was done, and hearing the answer from his own lips.

The need to organize a contingent to speak on behalf of the community was discussed. There was emphasis on including Maasai who have attained advanced education because this is fundamentally a legal matter requiring commanding knowledge of current and historical legislation. The legal aspect of this crisis was first articulated in 1959, when Maasai were pushed from the Serengeti to Ngorongoro with a promise of settlement and no further disruption to their community. Maasai would relocate to the highland, and to encourage their compliance, the government initiated efforts to locate and harness water supplies. By including educated people among the contingent to meet with President Kikwete, it was thought that these laws, promising Maasai the right to maintain their cultural identity as indigenous peoples, could be adduced.

Furthermore, if recent laws were invoked that should prevail those of 1959, then intense legal discussions should ensue and come to embody a spirit of the law that observes and respects the cannons of ethics. In so, the shape of new legislation would be dictated by the moral spirit it enshrines and be thus more in compliance with the laws of God. For it is only divine law that is immutable, and therefore, laws of man are subject to reflect the rights of the people and not the will of political agents who, afar from the land they seek to expropriate, are likely to never know the injury they may exact.

As for the alarming drop in indigenous species in Ngorongoro, iIaiguenak weighed in on this matter with great affect. Animals have been apart of the Maasai world since the beginnings of both animals and Maasai. It has always been that where Maasai have lived, so too have indigenous animals. It was observed that true declines in animal populations occur in places where the Maasai are not. Historically, the community, their livestock, and indigenous species have cohabitated without issue; but on the eve of increasing government interference, animals began to disappear. Therefore, it was asserted that it is the federal sphere of politics, bent on tightening its grip on land and people that has squeezed indigenous species from Ngorongoro. It was stated that a terrible irony has been cast, which reveals that intensified conservation, enacted by people and policies far removed from this area, has brought decimation to the local wildlife. Perhaps also, to the very people who have lived and thrived in harmony with this land and all its creatures.

Another important point was made with respect to building alliances between the Maasai and nation states that would bolster the efforts of Maasai to defend their cultural legacy. That this monumental crisis be brought to the global stage would be done so in recognition of the universality of Human Rights, and in recognition of those who would advocate for the Maasai cause.

Finally, the role of women in this assembly cannot be overstated. It was evident from the words and tone of delivery that Maasai woman have grown tremendously impatient with what many see as a lack of temerity on behalf of their political leadership. Perhaps by raising her voice, and speaking candidly on this matter, the collective voice of all Maasai will become resonant. The plea was simple: we gave birth to presidents, to lawyers, to leaders, and teachers. What more do you want from us? Because you are from us, we know that you are leaders that we can stand proudly behind. We want desperately to support you, so give us great cause to support you greatly. A closing note on the role played by women on this day and for this assembly is that women from throughout the conservation area were instrumental in contributing to the gathering of people for this meeting. Without the efforts of these women in raising community awareness about these concerns, as well as encouraging people to gather and attend this assembly, it very likely would not have gathered such momentum.
In the end, the attendees decided to elect a contingent to represent their interests with the government, and it would be comprised of traditional leaders, both men and women, and educated Maasai. Together, they would travel to Dar es Salaam and put forth their case to the President.

July 2009

When will Maasai women get a fair shake????
Melubo OleKoronjo of the area of Nosiporiong’ near Endulen married a very young daughter of OleTipai called Ngais. The older wife of Melubo was jealous of the attention and gifts showered on the young girl by her older husband. She found reasons to prevail upon Melubo to beat his new wife unmercifully. The father and mother of Ngais are dead so Ngais ran away to OleSitawi, a male relative for help. OleSitawi received her and called a meeting of the local elders together to hear the case. Maelubo absolutely refused to attend the meeting. The elders, unable to make a determination without the presence of Melubo have taken the case to the Endulen village council. The issue is yet unresolved. This kind of thing happens so often that it is almost a cliché. Women seem to be at the mercy of just about everybody with little effective redress.

Late at night, a pregnant cow broke out of the enclosure of Lapanu at Losilale near Endulen. She went into the small maize plot next to the homestead and began feasting on the ripening corn. Soon a large herd of cape buffalo with similar culinary tastes joined her. Finding a diner already at the table, the cape buffalo became aroused with anger and gored the placid milk cow with a vengeance. She died with her stomach contents spread over the ground including an unborn calf. Hearing the commotion, warriors rushed to the scene and initially decided to follow the buffalo and take retribution. On further consideration, due to the very strict rules about killing wild animals with in the Conservation area of Ngorongoro, they decided to let go. Instead of seeking revenge on the buffalo, they butchered the dead cow and had a feast.

People are still holding meetings here to choose delegates and collect money for the trip to Dar es Salaam. The aim of the trip is to lobby for continuance of minimal cultivation within the Conservation Authority of Ngorongoro.

Naishorua OlDumu will begin her medical studies on August 15 at Machame Hospital on Mount Kilimanjaro. It is a three year program and is rough equivalent to a nurse practitioner in the US and Europe. We’re all very excited. Another one of our Maasai girls, Narropil Siroiyan, who finished her studies at Machame a year ago and has been working at Salien Hospital will join university for a three year counseling degree. It is wonderful to see our Maasai young women taking these advanced degrees and returning to Maasai county to assist the pastoral Maasai. For too long, Maasai and especially Maasai women have not had the opportunity for advanced degrees of any kind.

August 2009

This edition of Endulen Diary and other issues of the Diary with pictures are on the web at: http://osotua.org

Florian Schneider, a medical student and close colaborator of the Spiritans both in Ethiopia and Tanzania shares his thoughts with us.

After I have been writing about revisiting Nengai’s family last year - Nengai, the girl suffering from upper cleft pallet – I’m going to tell you this year some stories of my work with the traditional birth attendants.

Being a male medical student from Germany won’t make it easy - I thought before returning to Endulen Hospital this year again for nearly five weeks. During my stay last year I was interviewing many hospital workers, many people living around the hospital and many elders in the villages, what they think of Endulen Hospital and what they think shall be improved. One of the first things everybody mentioned was the protection of pregnant mothers and newborn children, since all of them had the feeling there is hardly anything done for them. So our small non-profit organization in Germany set the aim to support them in the future as best as we can. Dr. Yadira, a Dutch doctor, who is working at the hospital since nearly two years now, started a small working group called “Safe Motherhood”, which started already a small progress to set more attention to pregnant mothers and newborn children. In my last four weeks here at Endulen Hospital we were working closely together to really push that project. We are renovating the second labour room, in case that there are two emergency deliveries. We are buying new furniture for a maternity room, which is only for pregnant mothers and newborn children. We establish plans and look for sponsors to start building a new maternity ward next year. And we interview a lot of Traditional Birth Attendants to get a slight idea, which traditional practices they use at home and what they think a new maternity ward should look like.

It is seen as a great problem in the Maasai community that pregnant mothers are not coming for regular check-up examinations or even for delivery to the hospital. As they deliver in an unsterile environment without medical support, complications can easily occur during delivery. As staying without medicine, which could help the mother or the babies, early intervention of some of the great diseases fails. They usually do deliver their babies at home in their familiar environment with the help of local midwives, the Traditional Birth Attendants. At least one of them is living in each Boma to support the pregnant mothers during pregnancy and during the delivery. They have a great responsibility since the future of their tribe lies in their hands.

This week I was very excited to go with a translator/social worker of the hospital by motorbike for two days to three different villages to interview some of the Traditional Birth Attendants in their homes. After asking the elders for permission, we sat down under a tree on the soil and started talking about anything concerning birth. I can prove anyone wrong, who might think, that there are issues they would never dare to talk about. I asked about the situation of the women in their societies nowadays, about the state of pregnancy, about the delivery and about the years after the delivery – and of course about sex and family planning, since there are so many rumours about it. It has been an amazing experience, just to be received as a complete stranger and to be able to ask question about such intimate details about them and about their culture.

On Thursday Dr. Yadira and I invited them to come to the hospital for a knowledge-sharing workshop. I wasn’t sure at all, if anybody would follow that invitation. You can imagine how surprised I was, when around 45 Traditional Birth Attendants came to talk about their life and their job in the Bomas. It started of with some Maasai prayers and songs. Maasai patients waiting outside the conference hall and workers of Endulen Hospital were startled to hear such tunes here, since it’s not common. Looking at their faces, listening to their voices, hearing the prayers and seeing the number of traditional birth attendants really moved me.

We talked about their rituals during delivery to get a slight impression: One TBA is usually standing behind the pregnant woman during delivery in order to hold her tight. Another TBA is lying on the feet of the pregnant woman to catch the baby. If the delivery was successful the TBA holds the baby in her hand and returns it to the mother. The mother pretends to cut the umbilical cord three times with a knife while saying “Go with your heart, leave me mine!” before returning the baby to the TBA. After the TBA separates the connection between the mother and the baby with a small thread, she cuts it with a razor blade with a cow skin as underlay. The TBA puts some saliva and ashes on a piece of cloth and covers the umbilical cord. The baby is hit four times with a leather belt and is lift around the main pole four times. The placenta is kept during daytime under the delivery bed and buried at night in the cow enclosure. After that ashes and water are put into black clothes held in the right hand of the mother she spits this mixture in four directions while pushing the roof of her house with her back and calling all the women. After that the baby is breastfed by the mother. Both of them are washed and creamed with fat. Sometimes they make a necklace for the baby, putting sugar, salt and ashes in separate compartments of a black cloth. The following day there will be a big feast honoring the occasion. The traditional birth attendant receives the fat of a sheep and the tail of a sheep as a present.

We were agreeing on working together in the hospital and to include the traditional birth attendants in the hospital delivery procedure. Since the meeting was so open, we are additionally quite optimistic to include some of their traditional rituals in the deliveries to be able to have safe deliveries at the hospital, to be able to have healthy mothers and babies and to be able to fulfill our part for the future of the Maasai.

September 2009

Maria Meing’oru, one of my Maasai girls, has after completing two years of junior college, has will now begin her training as a teacher. Maria has always been interested in teaching and regularly helps other Maasai children who fall behind in their studies. She will now prepare for life as a primary school teacher. Places in these programs are more and more competitive and it has been a long year of writing applications and interviews. Success at last…Maria left this week to begin her studies. We need Maasai teachers in our schools. Having grown up in Maasai country, they will understand and be sympathetic to the particular problems experienced by Maasai young people.

There is a safari lodge not far from Endulen on the edge of the Serengeti. An old elephant, mostly harmless can usually be found hanging around offering great photo ops to the tourists. A week ago, at a nearby Maasai village, the women were sitting together outside the village enjoying a brief respite from their daily treks for water and firewood. While they gossiped, laughed together and sewed their beadwork, the small children were inside the boma playing and looking after the tiny goats. Suddenly the old elephant was seen lumbering toward the village at a great rate. The women called the children to them, but one child of about eight years was frozen to the spot in the center of the village in fright and shock. The women and other children watched in horror as the elephant entered the village, reached the child and toss him aside with his trunk; then continue out a gate on the other side of the village. The child died on the spot. His head was smashed.

Graduations at secondary schools and even at primary school have become a source of division and bad feelings rather than a day of happiness and celebration. These days some parents bring many garlands to put around their children’s necks and elaborately prepared food and gifts. Some even bring cakes to graduation. At the same time many children without wealthy parents are left with nothing. Some parents do not even show up for graduation because they feel shame at not having the wherewithal to bring food and gifts. They are humiliated and stay away from the graduation. One can imagine how miserable their children feel. Many Maasai feel that food and gifts should wait till the child arrives home. At home a celebration of whatever magnitude given the resources of the parents would be appropriate. At the school graduation, on the other hand, all the children should be treated equally.

For the past few weeks, numbers of Maasai women have been going around all the villages collecting contributions to send a delegation the president. They wanted to discuss the ban on cultivation and the implications it will have for their families. It seems that the men remained pretty much on the sidelines during these efforts. Finally, the women took the funds that they had gathered to Birikaa, the Maasai ritual expert based at Esirua near Endulen. Since the women went to Birika for council nothing further has been heard. It is unclear what will happen now.

Allegedly there has been a lot of corruption and vote rigging during our village elections. The gentlemen that has held the top post for five years does not want to step down. Many people here are dismayed at the stuff going on. The contenders are all Maasai and in fact of the same age group. Any kind of age group unity has fallen by the wayside during the struggles to be elected or reelected. The various communities like that of the hospital and the church have broken into factions that threaten to breed long term animosity. It is alleged that the normal help give by the village now is being distributed on the basis of loyalty at the poles. I guess these kinds of things are pretty normal in politics the world over, but difficult to accept when they divide even families in your own community.

Representatives of Ngorongoro Conservation have begun to travel around to the Maasai villages. They are measuring the cultivation that has taken place in the past and take a clear message to the people. Cultivation is no longer an option within the conservation area of Ngorongoro.

The local Maasai say that every ninth year brings an especially difficult time when there is hunger and often cattle disease. Elephants, buffalo and every kind of antelope suffer also. This is born out in the behavior of the elephants. Everywhere trees that in normal times escape the notice of the great iloonkaik, the ones of the arms (trunks) are smashed and plundered of their moisture and bark. The ribs of Maasai cattle are more and more prominent and the herds are being driven further and further to find forage. The Maasai of this area are saying that the cattle have reached the point of emancipation that they can no longer be sold.

It is true that traditional leaders are people with great influence. They are people that the Maasai depend on to take leadership in resolving quarrels and disputes among age group members and when fighting takes place between age groups. These traditional leaders are the first ones that the educated Maasai turn to when looking for heavy hitters to back up their claims in disputes that come before local tribunals. In times past, these spokesmen of the Maasai would look for the truth in a situation and try to resolve it in a just way for all involved. Now more often than not, they are ready to take the side of the one who is able to give them the best incentive in the way of a gift. These days, possession of the black rungu of the laigwanani is less a sign of justice and peace and more just another tool of the wealthy to get their way.

October 2009

People are more and more left to sink or swim on their own.
On a recent morning Lemalali together with his small son Mpising drove their cattle to the Oldugum stream to drink. On the way, one of the cows fell into a small ravine and due to the soft dirt on the banks, could not climb out. Lemalai, walking some distance ahead of the cattle and talking with a friend that he had met on the way, did not notice. Mpising he was focused on throwing stones at a troop of baboons, so he also did not notice that the cow was missing. Another Maasai man coming along the same path came upon the cow in trouble got behind it and pushed. Out came the cow without a hitch. The stranger followed along with the freed cow and met Lemelali and his son at the stream. On meeting Lemalali, who had just realized he was missing one of his milk cows, he explained what he had done and strongly suggested that he was entitled to some gourds of local beer for his trouble. The Maasai say: Teneishir inkishu, naa ilewa eishiru. When the cattle are hurting, the Maasai people hurt along with them. From time immemorial anyone coming upon a cow having fallen into a gully or water hole would pull the animal out. He wouldn’t think of asking for anything in return for his help. Nowadays it is different. When one helps, the ordinary thing is to ask for food or local beer in return. More and more, it seems that cooperation and mutual help is out and it is everyone for himself or herself.

A certain husband beats his wife regularly because he accuses her of adultery whenever she is seen talking to a man. This is being talked about everywhere around Endulen. Even when she goes for firewood, he says that she is meeting her lovers. When she goes to the shops, to draw water, or to cut firewood, he says that she is looking for her lovers. Each day her husband returns home early with the cows and goats so that he can question her about where she has been and accuse her of having been with her lovers. She has become afraid of leaving the village to go anywhere or to do anything normal because of being accused as soon as she is out of the sight of her husband. What will she do? She has no recourse and the people don’t know how she can be helped because she is under the authority of her husband and doesn’t have a way out.

Last week, a certain man left his village at night and went to his friend. After visiting his friend, he got up and said that he was going back home. Maybe I will meet my wife with her lover, he told his friend. When he was nearing home, he met a lion. The lion chased him and he climbed a tree. The lion stayed at the base of the tree till morning preventing him from coming down from the tree. At dawn he was able to leave the tree and continued on home.

This month cultivation and people were forbidden to have gardens of any kind anywhere within the Conservation Authority of Ngorongoro. It is reported that in the Nainokanoka area where Maasai have gardens of potatoes and tobacco, there were clashes with the police and a number of people needed hospital treatment.

November 2009

In 1994 my older brother Lingiria and I found places in a land rover bound for Arusha town. I had never been out of Endulen and Lingiria was taking me to begin my studies as a carpenter at technical school. On arriving in Arusha we were dropped at the local bus stand and climbed on a small bus taking in the direction of Tengeru where my school is located. Climbing down from the bus, Lingiria decided to take a short cut to the school. We ended up hopelessly lost. Walking along the lonely path, we were joined by two robbers with macheties who forced us to go along with them. Presently, we noticed a black bag on the side of the road . My brother told the robber that we could share the money and he agreed. The thieves forced us onto and other small bus that took us to a place totally strange to us. Nearby there was a half built house in the bush. Many people came with swords and macheties. They were the friends of the theives. They did not hurt us but took all our school fees and everything else that we had. After they took everything they went away leaving us.

In October Osinoni school celebrated graduation day. The day included lots of songs and dances by the students, endless speeches by local government notables, teachers and others. Finally there was the eagerly anticipated food and drink. People began to disperse and without warning the women began to cry out and throw themselves on the ground in sorrow and despair. Naishiro Karistian, a young mother, still a child herself had given birth and was losing a great deal of blood. There was no car to be had anywhere nearby to take her to the hospital and the young girl bled to death. Graduation day ended in great sorrow. Naishiro was known and liked by everyone.

In the area of Mbarway some five kilometers from the mission here at Endulen, there is rich green grass and plenty of water. Three young boys, Siwandet, Konina and Oldikaiyai regularly pasture the cattle of their families there, although along with the grass is a lot of heavy bush hiding numerous wild animals. One day OleKereto, a game leged Maasai medicine man was walking there to check on his cattle herded by the three boys. He came upon an elephant who without warning changed him. With his bad leg, he could not run fast and spread eagled on the ground clutching tufts of grass for what small security they could provide. All the while yelling for help. People came running and chased the elephant away. OleKereto came through without a scratch.

Last week the lorry of Manu was taking people to the cattle market of Osinoni. There were ten Maasai, three mangati and one total stranger in the bed of the lorry, each paying a couple of dollars for the ride to the market. One mang’ati woman was riding in a car for the first time and she was very afraid. One Maasai woman,taking sheep oil and corn to sell at Osinoni told ther to sit on a container of rendered liquid sheep fat and hold on tight to the side of the lorry. The container broke and the oil was lost but for a couple of liters. The Maasai lady demanded that the husband of the Mangati lady pay for the oil. After some heated argument the man agreed to pay for the lost oil.

When Kalai was going around to the villages teaching at Osinoni, he met with the family of Olekatika. One of their cows had just died. They cut up the dead cow and were sharing out the meat with their neighbors. They began to eat and then they began to get sick one after another and also their neighbors began to all get sick. Everyone was saying let us call a car to get help before we all die. The hospital car came and took many people to the hospital. Many were very sick but got help in time and all recovered. It is still unclear to me what sickness caused the people to get sick.

We were herding our cattle on the rift wall near Olpiro. The cries of wamang’ati were heard in the valley. Many Wamang’ti came running. They screamed that the Maasai had stolen their cattle. And the warriors of the mang’ati took off to follow their stolen cattle. They follow the tracks a long way in the mountains. The tracks took them near the village of a medicine man, OleMangi. The police were called and came to ask Mangi if he had seen the cattle. He said no. The Mang’ati came as far as the stream of Mbarway. The warriors had weapons of every kind to make war on the Maasai. The police separated the two war parties but hatred grew between the two groups. There came a big meeting between the Maasai and Mang’ati. Endulen people were accused of taking part in the theft of the cattle. But it was discovered that a raiding party from Kenya had done the deed.

Ndiyene tells the story that when they were warriors many years ago, they often hunted lions in the bush. At that time the Conservation authority was not following up on this stuff as they do now. He says that they met a lion on the plain of Osinoni. They hunted and fought with the lion for nine hours. Finally they killed the lion and sang and danced to their villages with their trophies. The warriors were met at by the girls who sang songs of praise and found milk for the triumphant warriors. After this the Ndiamama who was injured by the lion was cared for and recovered.

This month during the time we were going around to the villages teaching we came to Narok Soito and met with people who had not heard of the gospel. These were of the village OleSitea. We went to teach at night. I met the elders outside the village where one was preparing a spear for taking his cattle to pasture. We began to eat the news. He asked me who I was the son of and I told him. He asked what I wanted and I told him that I had come to teach the gospel at his village. The elders said that they were not ready to listen to our teaching. So we went away. One man in the village wanted to listen to us, so we went to talk with him and his family.

At Osinoni there are four machines to grind corn. But there is just one machine that the women like. This one machine produces good flour and more than the others but it was very slow to grind and so had good points and bad points. The owners of the other machines were angry and envious that the one machine got all the business. They thought the owners of the popular machine were using witchcraft to bring people to their machine. It turns out that the good machine was using a finer screen and produced better tasting maize flour.

December 2009

Iringa is one of the regions in Southern Tanzania. It is a rocky southern highland area. Our university is located at Iringa municipal council. Indigenous people living in Iringa region include the Wahehe, Wabena and Wakinga. Economic activities undertaken in this region include agricultural crop production (especially maize production), small business activities and plank tree projects for production of trees for construction activities. This region is quite different from Arusha region where I used to live. Iringa town is relatively smaller compared to Arusha town, it is an older town established during the colonial era. You can still find very old type buildings constructed by the Germans while they were ruling in Tanzania a century years ago. This is a very hot season for Iringa, it is said that during May and June it will be very cold. A lot of terrifying thunderstorms usually happen when it rains; I am very much afraid of thunderstorms, I used to hide in my room when it rains. There are a lot of mosquitoes especially during the night. I have a mosquito net which helps me to get rid of the stubborn mosquitoes when I sleep. But when I get out of the net for making my study revision I have to wear the tracksuits and long socks to protect myself from mosquito bites.

Tumaini University Is owned by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania. Tumaini University, Iringa University College is blessed to have a very large number of students, thousands of them having different behaviors and cultures. English and Swahili languages are the tools of our communications; otherwise every individual has her or his own vernacular language. Many girls wear very short and tight clothes which are not common in village life or in our culture. I find their wearing styles awkward but I am learning cross cultural styles and therefore I have to enjoy the cultural differences, we are taught in one of our studies that no culture is superior to the other.

Lecturers (Teachers) at Tumaini University, Iringa University College, teach nicely and they are really helping in developing our academic excellence. They give us a lot of assignments and library tasks. This is very different from what I used to observe at Machame Clinical Officers training College where we used to study only subjects related to health issues of a human being. We are being taught so many subjects here at Tumani University Iringa Campus which includes Communication Skills, Developmental Psychology, Introduction to Psychology, Interpersonal Skills, Conflict Management, Counseling Skills and Information Computer Technology. At first, I had to learn how to look for materials in a multidisciplinary library such as our University library which is having a lot of books for different courses. I have learned how to use the library by learning the international classification of books so us to be able to locate books relevant to my studies. I have also learned how to use internet at the library for searching online academic materials. However, the internet is not very good since it is not fast for searching, sometimes the Universal Resource Locator (URL) is not available and as a result it becomes difficult to get online materials.

After studying introduction to the counseling courses, I have realized that it is a very good course for me. It will help me to understand better about myself (my weakness and strength) and how to improve my capabilities. It also helps me to understand the behavior of different individuals (Psychology) and how to help people in different life situations. Counseling is there to direct me on how to live with people in the community and the way of helping them when there is a need. It is therefore true that counseling has opened a new page in my life. I will study hard so as to pass well my studies and become a professional counselor so as to be able to help people in the community since human beings have a lot of needs which requires psychotherapy assistance, they don’t only need hospital drugs. Sometimes individuals become sick due to conflicts within themselves for example some interpersonal or intra personal conflicts can cause someone to poison herself or himself by taking poisonous chemicals, these persons can only be assisted through psychotherapy by helping them to know how to solve their problems and not escape them by killing themselves through poisons.

Apart from class works I also attend other extracurricular activities. I am the member of the church choir for which I used to meet with my fellows at least twice per week. I have also been selected to be a leader of Tumaini University Catholic Women Association. I attend morning prayers during the days of the week from Monday to Friday and the Holly Mass on Sunday which takes place at 7:00 am and ends at 9:00am. After the church service we used to visit our friends and sometimes the sick. We also go to the market to purchase some materials for use at home.

I live in a small room in a hostel. I have a bed, a table for studying, book shelf, dressing table, cupboard, two chairs and a gas cooker. Within a room there is a toilet and bathroom constructed together. I used to cook for myself at evening and during the afternoon I eat food at the cafeteria on the University campus since the classes proceed so frequently to the extent that no time to step out for food at home.

September 2010

Medical issues have occupied me for most of this year. In June I went to the states for medical checkups and extensive dental work. That stuff went on for most of my time at Hemet California, our retirement place in the states and where I spent my three-month leave. The medical stuff finally ended after the final procedure that was carotid artery surgery. Hemet is desert country with stark rocky mountains to the East. I am told that during the winter months there is snow on the upper slopes of the mountains and swimming weather in Hemet down below. It is a beautiful place and the Spiritans there were very welcoming.

After the time in Hemet there were two weeks with my family in Northern Vermont on Lake Champlain. Members of my family live or have summer camps at Hathaway Point on St. Albans Bay. We had some great days sailing on the lake. The wind during the week following Hurricane Earl was strong and made for some exciting moments.

Last week I traveled here to Tanzania and arrived home in Endulen on Thursday. The dry season has come to the Ngorongoro highlands with a vengeance. It is dry as bone now and if one had not been here for the wet season, it would be hard to believe Endulen could have been green just a few months ago. The Maasai have little milk during the dry season and many people have none. Everyone depends on corn to get them through this very difficult time. The price of corn has risen astronomically since the last harvest that was meager in most areas. Now we are paying six dollars for a five-gallon tin of corn and almost another dollar to get it ground into flour. This is presenting a tremendous hardship for people who must sell something to get cash money. There is no milk to sell and to come up with a goat for market is very difficult for most people. The inevitable solution is to share. One family might have a little flour today and share it with a neighbor that has none. Tomorrow the situation could be reversed, but at best, it is a pretty precarious way to live for a family and especially one with small children. So many things have been tried over the years, for example jewelry making groups of the women. The problem with jewelry making is marketing. Where is the stuff to be sold and if a market can be found, how to get it there on a regular basis. Another undertaking that has been tried is to create a corn grinding cooperative of the women. Experience has shown that maintenance is a big issue because spare parts and expertise at repair are both in short supply.

Nairorie died during my home leave. He was one of my former students and a very bright young man. It seems that chronic malaria with some chest complications had him in and out of the hospital for some weeks and he gradually weakened and some kind of fever pushed his already damaged constitution over the edge and he died at the age of 22. It is a real loss for our village.

An old man, Kengwele, just came to say hello and we had a cup of tea on the front porch. He tells me that his village is feeling the pressure of the dry season and they have moved their cattle up into the lands just short of the Ngorongoro forest. His son, Kimani, whom I sponsored at our Spiritan Secondary graduated late last year and has been unable to find a job. Kengwele brought me a letter from Kimani to say that he has found work at Oldupai Gorge with Ngorongoro Conservation. He doesn’t say what he is doing, but jobs with Conservation are great. They generally pay well and once hired the positions can last for many years with regular promotions and pay increases. So many of secondary school graduates these days find it impossible to get hired. There are just too few jobs and many secondary school leavers looking for them.

Kristofa, an electricion at our local mission hospital has his home some seven hours walk from Endulen at the base of the rift wall on the shores of Eyasi. His wife’s mother, a elderly grandmother, has her home on her family farm there. The lands around the lake are irrigated by the springs high up on the rift wall and produce abundant harvest of some of the best onions in all of Tanzania. During harvest lorries take this very lucrative crop to all parts of Northern Tanzania. The farms are handed down from generation to generation and seldom does land in that rich area come up for sale. Kristofa’s grandmother inherited her farm from her husband and she divided it in half, giving one part to her son and the other half she divided among her daughters. The new laws in Tanzania allow female children the same inheritance rights as their male siblings. The fact of not inheriting the entire farm has rankled the son. He has had the conviction that the whole of the “shamba” should be his and has made no secret of his deep resentment and anger towards his mother and sisters. His deep-seated animosity boiled over the day before yesterday when he set fire to the house of his mother during the night, burning to death his mother and six children that were sleeping with her in the house. Endulen is still in shock. How could this have happened? The young man is now in police custody.

On my arrival here in Endulen twenty-five years ago, there were two vehicles, the Toyota land cruiser of the hospital and my land rover. At this writing, there are more than twenty five vehicles belonging to various people here at Endulen village. This week we had a traffic accident. The double cab pick up of the hospital crashed into the land rover of a local Maasai trader. No one was hurt but the cars were badly crunched. Maybe the time has come for a traffic light in our village. If so, it would be only the second one in all of Northern Tanzania.

October 2010

During the summer while on home leave I got myself an electric razor
so that I could keep shaving during recovery from carotid artery
surgery. It was so easy to use and did such a good job that I have
continued to use it even after the time that I needed to be free of
razor blades. Returning to Endulen and using the electric razor each
morning I find that the particular frequency of the razor sound
resonates positively with our resident bee population. Every year the
house here becomes the home to a couple of hives of bees. They
build in the walls and happily make their honey and do whatever else
bees do without disturbing us. On the first day back using the razor, I noticed bees exiting the wall of my room and taking a markedly
unwelcoming interest in my morning routine. Turning off the razor
prompted my visitors to return to their home within the walls. Now I go to the furthest part of the house from our resident bees to shave. If anyone knows a way to change the sound frequency of an electric
razor, please let me know.

Lememakwa Olekotonakaya graduated the University of Dar es
Salaam on the twenty third of October with a degree in Economics.
He will be taking up job at Ngorongoro Conservation. Lememakwa
has been part of our Osotua Maasai Education Program for many
years, having been with us since the early years of primary school.
His wife Narropil, whom he married just two months ago, is also one
of my students and now a Clinical Officer (Physicians Assistant.)
Narropil is now doing a degree in counseling at Tumaini University at
Iringa in Southern Tanzania. She hopes to use her psychological
counseling skills to help the AIDS victims that later on will be part of her medical practice.

The cattle market took place this week. We have them twice a month
and these days bring together the Maasai people from their far-flung
cattle camps to meet, "eat the news", and maybe share a roasted leg
of goat and a bottle of beer. It is a very special day for people whose lives are much the same from day to day, interrupted only now and then by a lion attack on their herds or the need to put out a brush fire.

The cattle market is also a place to buy needed foodstuffs like corn,
salt, sugar and tea leaves. Often people meet who have not seen one
another for months or even years. Marriage arrangements too are
often carried forward at the cattle markets, where people can meet
their in-laws.

I don?t know how to analyze this. A group of young men, warrior age
group, from our various church outstations, are having religious
gatherings in various places to ?bless the land?. They are saying that
there is an underlying reason for the ever increasing poverty among
the Maasai and the perceived threat of losing their grazing lands here
at Ngorongoro. They are saying that the blood spilled by the Maasai
long ago, when the Maasai people virtually ruled East Africa has
brought a kind of curse on the Maasai. These young people are
preaching this and holding gatherings to bless the land and remove
the curse. It seems to me that this is one more indication that the
Maasai are in crisis, pressured by hunger and the threat of being
moved out of their traditional pastoral lands of Ngorongoro.

November 2010

A number of the girls have come to stay with us here at Endulen. They are in danger of being forcibly married off during leave time. Also there is the danger of getting pregnant since young girls often end up sleeping with the warriors and there is little they can do about it. Peer pressure is as much a factor here as it is in Europe and America.

Good discussions took place when Tanzanian and expatriate Spiritans met in Endulen. It was a meeting of the twice-yearly gathering of Spiritan Maasai missionaries. There were good debates as to the best ways of welcoming the Maasai people into church life. Things like using Maasai language, music and prayer forms received a mostly unanimous thumb up. Other things like blessing with milk during church celebrations were more controversial. During the gathering, we celebrated the mass in the Maasai style that we use here in the Conservation Area of Ngorongoro. The reaction seemed to be mixed. We are working toward a meeting of the minds so that eventually we can have common ways of doing things. There were shared meals and an evening of good talk. I think that all of us are looking forward to our next meeting.

Just this week the water committee of the village has looked into the deteriorating state of our water point at the village spring. A couple of years ago, with the help of Ngorongoro Conservation, a water point was constructed with water taps gravity fed from the Oldagum spring below the village of Endulen. This has worked out pretty well. All the people of the village go to the water point with their buckets to draw water and wash their cloths close by. We have a trailer and twenty plastic containers of six gallons each that I load on our trailer behind the land cruiser and fill up at the spring three times a week. The faucets get a lot of hard wear and usually last only a few months. Our water group has determined that the faucets now need replacement and have decreed that each of us in the village pay 2,000/= shillings to underwrite the repairs and new faucets. Since the levy represents only about $1.75, it is no hardship for most people. This is not the case for a significant group of single women and widows with children, whose only income is from the firewood they cut each day in the forests, carry a number of miles and sell in the village for less than a dollar. Paying the water contribution represents two days wage. This is very hard for them, since food already takes most of the little that they earn.

When Maasai yawn, they are said to be about to doze off and in the case of small children, they are held lest they fall into the fire. If a small child yawns, his mother grasps his mouth between her fingers to prevent it stretching and become permanently big. Big wide mouths are not prized among the Maasai.

If a person has hiccoughs, it is believed he will have the good fortune of soon eating some succulent meat. When person sneezes, he might say to himself, ÒSomebody is calling me. Someone might is likely to say, ÒMay God make your head hard. When a person falls sick, it is said to be GodÕs sickness.

The rains have come with some very heavy downpours weakening the foundations of our outhouse. Our mission here sits on some very porous volcanic soil. Whenever it rains our roads in and out are reduced to a quagmire and nothing moves. The wood floor of the outhouse has shifted in the mud and the hole has widened. An unlucky goat found his way into the outhouse and fell down the hole. He has been extracted no worse for the experience except for a clinging smell that doesn't seem to want to go away. Even other goats are avoiding the unfortunate one. We have now renewed the outhouse floor with logs that we have cut in the forest on the mountain above Endulen.

December 2010

Naishorua OlDumu is with us for the Christmas holidays. She has now finished a year and a half of her Physician?s Assistant medical training at Machame Hospital on Mount Kilimanjaro. She returns in January for the last year and a half of her training. Naishorua hopes to go on to medical school for her MD following a year or two of work in a local hospital or clinic here in Maasai country.

Two broken legs, one broken arm and numerous deep lacerations were the result of a recent lion attack on a Maasai neighbor here in the Endulen area. Three young warriors followed the tracks of three lost cows and came upon a lion eating a buffalo. They thought that they could chase away the lion and take the buffalo meat back to their village. It turned out to be a bad decision. The lion attacked and Lenana didn?t have a chance. The lion sprang, bore him to the ground biting a good size chunk out of his shoulder and doing all kinds of other damage. The warrior survived and is being treated for his numerous wounds at KCMC referral hospital in Moshi. The lost cows were eventually found unharmed and returned to the village.

Last night, with a bucket of DDT laced water, Fr. Joachim Karagwe attacked our resident bees and successfully killed most and chased away the colony. The bees have been a big problem for many months, stinging us and visitors on a daily basis. Fr. Joachim, who works with me here at Endulen, was stung twice by alert bee sentries as he poured the lethal mixture into the holes in our walls that serve as entrances and exits to the hive.

Some of the girls on leave from secondary school have very poor final marks from the past school year. We have arranged that one of the older boys, also one of our secondary school students, work with them on their English and Math. It is working out well. They have classes with Lankangu every day and seem to be making some headway. English is a big problem for our Maasai students. They never speak except in the class so it is a very difficult subject for them. At the same time, they will need English for any kind of work they will be looking for after graduation.

Mepukori a secondary school student and cycle cell anemia sufferer went off to visit his folks on the Northern Serengeti for Christmas break. Two days into his trek home I received an unexpected message. Mepukore wrote that he was well and that he was expecting to reach his home village within a day. The startling thing about this message was that Mepukori was sending his message using his facebook account from a very inexpensive Nokia cell phone with a one and a half inch square screen in the middle of the Serengeti plains.

In light drizzle and intermittent fog Loishiye, the son of Mishilyeki, was herding his goats in heavy bush last week in the area of Endulen called Ndarpoi. In the shelter of low hanging tree branches sheltered a cape buffalo with her small calf. When Loishiye was not far she stood and waited, protecting her calf. Unaware of the buffalo, the young warrior wandered close and the buffalo charged. She hit him with her head and fortunately missing him with her sharp thorns. He was battered in the back and legs and collapsed leaving the buffalo to wander off with her calf. His shepherding warrior companion soon found him, got him up and after staggering for a few steps Loishiye collapsed again. Leaving him, his friend ran to their village called people to help. A number of men soon arrived and carried the boy back to the village. His father, Mishilyeki ran to the mission to call me. I went with our Toyota Land Cruiser to retrieve Loishiye from the village and take him to our mission hospital here at Endulen where he is slowing recovering from his ordeal.

January 2011

I am happy to report that because of the generosity of the readers of this newsletter, I have been able to assist with full payment of tuition and other school fees twelve Maasai girls and eight Maasai boys for the first half of 2011. Also partial help in the form of fifty dollars each has gone to nine other Maasai girls and two boys. The total dispersed among these students to pay for first semester expenses is $6,400 dollars. Included among these is a Maasai girl being supported by the Conservation Authority of Ngorongoro in school to become a Clinical Medial Officer? I have given her $100 dollars for expenses during the first half of the year. On behalf of these Maasai young people of Ngorongoro, may I offer a heartfelt thanks to all of you that have helped.

Thoughts from Florian Schneider, a medical student, who has undertaken the daunting project of raising money for a maternity wing for our hospital here in Endulen:

At the age of 19 I stayed for one year with the Holy Ghost Fathers among the nomadic Borana in southern Ethiopia. I was used to people moving from one place to the other and that certain type of carefree character and proud attitude, which seems to come along. But was the only reason of seeking new places to find fresh grazing grounds for their cattle or did the idea become already so fixed in the minds of people that they cannot live without it anyway? I never found a solution at that time.

Since I came to Endulen in Tanzania I have seen so many Europeans fascinated by the nomadic way of living of the Maasai.ÿ Is it because the nomadic lifestyle is the complete opposite of our European way of living with one family in one house at one place? I just knew that I had to face the same kind of characters and attitudes again, which I was not thrilled with at the beginning. I always had the impression that eyes were following me. Not the eyes of small children in the town looking for entertainment or some small sweets. They seemed to watch my actions and movements quite closely. Greetings were only exchanged, when I started and then only in Maa, the Maasai language. Since most of the staff in the hospital are not Maasai and since the other Tanzanian tribes have a lot of prejudices against the Maasai, I was soon filled with negative images.

It took me quite a while to get some Maasai friends, who introduced me slowly to the Maasai culture and the behavior towards the different age groups. I could ask them all the questions, which were in my head for such a long time. Since then I had the impression that I was more open, which reflected towards the openness of the Maasai. I was invited to come into their Bomas and even to big celebrations and rituals, which I always took as a big honor.

Patience and positive intentions were my keys to the big miracles of the Maasai culture, which I am still trying to understand. So far we could learn a lot about their deliveries and the role of traditional birth attendants at home to be able to build a new maternity ward at Endulen Hospital. The plans were designed together with mothers and their traditional midwives.

February 2011

During a Maasai service at the outstation of Mokilal, nestled in the hill country just West of Ngorongoro crater, I was distracted. Years ago, in the middle seventies, when the first Maasai priests began to be ordained, they got together and decided on a common policy. Their decision was that once baptized no Maasai might continue to go to the Laibon, the Maasai doctor for the bewitched. This has been a very difficult rule to follow since many problems just do not respond to the ministrations of the modern hospital or traditional Maasai healers. One example would be infertility and another might be a run of bad luck that goes on and on and on. The problem is that People are left hanging out there with no place to go for help. Healers and hospitals are ineffectual and their faith in Jesus is not yet strong enough to replace the Laibon.

In response to this situation, we started having a blessing of the sick and of troubled people at each of our services. The blessing takes the form of the laying on of hands, anointing with oil and blessing with water mixed with milk from a traditional gourd of blessing stoppered with green grass. This practice has gone some way to fill the space left by the admonition not to go to the Laibon.

Now I come to the reason for my distraction last week. Among those coming for the special blessing at Mokilal were a number of older women. When anointing their foreheads and palms with oil, I began to notice their hands. More deformed and calloused hands would be hard to find. Fingernails broken and missing, fingers swollen and arthritic; those hands were something. I began to think of all children cared for by those hands, the firewood those hands had cut and gathered, all the heavy kerosene tins of water those hands had brought home from springs and streams, the countless meals prepared, the many houses of sticks and cow dung built, cows milked, calves and goats care for, loads of corn meal carried miles to home from the shops, and all kinds of other stuff that I have not thought of. The hands of an African woman and the hands of the Maasai African women of Mokilal speak of the kind of dedication to family and village that is truly astounding. How do they do it and keep doing it year after year?

In recent weeks large numbers of local Maasai women have been going from village to village and to the shopkeepers at the Endulen trading center to collect money. They were preparing themselves to make the three-day trip to the Sonjo valley. The Sonjo people live in a single long valley North of us near the Kenya border. One fascinating aspect of the Sonjo religious experience is the unseen but very vocal spirit oracle that answers questions and solves problems. The Sonjo themselves and many outsiders like the Maasai travel great distances to consult this the oracle spirit that resides in a sacred house and makes a great noise and answers the questions of suppliants especially about the future. The Maasai are under threat from every side these days. In many places their dry season grazing land has been appropriated for huge agricultural projects. Many of their springs have been taken by the agriculturalists to the extent that in some places the Maasai are no longer permitted to water their herds, and disease has wiped out many Maasai herds. It is true that there are some rich Maasai but also true that large numbers of people have few or no cattle at all and live on the edge, experiencing hunger for significant periods each year. These and other issues, the Maasai took to oracle of Sonjo during this past week. It is unlikely, of course, that they will get any clear answers to their problems, but desperate situations call for unusual and desperate measures.

The president came to visit and prompted a major overhaul of the road from Ngorongoro crater to Endulen. For many months now it has been deeply rutted with lots of spring popping holes. The president came to open the new facilities for tourists at Laitole. Ancient footprints of ancestors and various ancient animals were found there years ago and because the artifacts were of a delicate nature, they were covered with a layer of cement to preserve them. Those things last many thousands of years, maybe millions of years when the local animal and human population was tramping back and forth in the area gathering honey and herding cows. The same area, now at the mercy of tourists will not last any time at all. Anyway the President presided over the uncovering of the footprints and the establishment of a safe environment for them. And, most importantly, at least to us, we have there is a new red clay, but super road out of Endulen.

Olbalbal Diary Vol. 1, #1

The Maasai live on the open plains of East Africa. It is believed that the Maasai People originally came from northeastern Africa more than four hundred years ago. Perhaps due to famine or drought, they moved southward, and eventually settled on the grasslands of Kenya and Tanzania.

The Maasai speak a language called Maa. They worship the one God, EnKai, whom they believe gave them cattle as a gift to be treasured. Historically, the Maasai did not cultivate crops, hunt, or gather wild food. They are a semi nomadic people who live mostly off the milk and the corn bought from the nearby farming peoples. The have meat less often and usually only on special occasions like weddings.

My own connection with the Maasai began in March of 1966, when Joe Herzstein, Vince Stegman, and I arrived in Tanzania. I was just out of the seminary and anxious to join Gene Hillman, Vince Donovan, Ed Kelly and other Spiritans in our mission among the Maasai, which was begun in 1952 by Gene Hillman. The years have fled by and a year ago I completed 25 years at my most recent assignment at Endulen Maasai mission in the area of Ngorongoro.

I wrote to Father Fogerty and his council requesting a sabbatical and since June have been in the states visiting family, spending time with family, and learning a little Spanish.

Two Tanzanian Spiritans, Gaspar Mushi and Joachim Karabwe, have taken over the work at Endulen. Our bishop, Joseph Lebulu and the Spiritans have now assigned me to begin a new mission, Olbalbal, where our work of evangelization has scarcely begun and where the young Maasai have had little encouragement and opportunity for education.

In the course of my 25 years at Endulen, Maasai catechists and I established eight active Maasai Christian communities. The work grew and when I left Endulen last June, twelve full time catechists were helping me care for these communities and doing further evangelization.

In addition to evangelization upon my arrival at Endulen in 1985, I was faced with the near lack of education among the Maasai. There were few Maasai attending primary school and very few boys going on for secondary education. In those days no girls at all had the opportunity for secondary education. I addressed this situation by establishing a prep school of one year to help Maasai girls with remedial schooling in English and Arithmetic so that they would be capable of passing secondary school entrance examinations. Over the years, with the help of Spiritans abroad and others, I was able to underwrite the education of almost three hundred Maasai girls and boys. Some of the fruits of this program are five nurses, four clinical medical officers, five lawyers, many teachers, and many others now working in various fields among their people in Maasai country.

In a few days time, on December 10th, I will return to Ngorongoro to open the new Maasai mission of Olbalbal. The work will be much the same as it was in Endulen, primary evangelization among the far flung cattle camps of the Maasai and facilitating the education of Maasai young people. As in Endulen, I will focus on Maasai girls who, because of the pressure to be married early and thus provide their families with some short-term benefits, have little opportunity for education.

My new mission is at a place called Olbalbal. Olbalbal is about two hours from Endulen. Whereas Endulen lies on in the highlands of Ngorongoro at six thousand feet, Olbalbal is on the plains below Ngorongoro crater near Oldupai Gorge and the Serengeti plains. There are numerous Maasai encampments that have not yet had the opportunity to hear the gospel and great numbers of young Maasai without opportunity for education.

Packing up

In five days I'll board an Ethiopian Airlines flight that will take me back to Tanzania. I'm wondering if they will be serving "Injera b'wat", that wonderful large flat bread with meat and vegetable sauces and cream cheese. Anyway, I'll soon be back at Ngorongoro Crater to open the new mission at Olbalbal. I hear that it has been raining so the neighboring Serengeti will be green and dotted with herds of wildebeest, Thomson Gazelle and zebra. The Maasai cattle will be out on the plains enjoying the rich green grass and rain ponds. It will be good to go home.

Crazy California

Today Pierre Deglaire, a Spiritan pastoring a nearby Spanish parish took me out to lunch to mark my return to Maasai country this week. Here on the desert floor in Hemet California, the sun is warm and it is 70 degrees. On the top of the nearby mountain at Idyllwild, where we went for lunch, the ground was covered with snow; there were snow flurries and the temperature was below freezing. California is crazy. At the restaurant, we had "Chili relleno", sweet peppers stuffed with meat, cheese and mexican condiment. It was "muy sabroso".

Fold up Solar

I've just been given a 60 watt fold up solar panel and some led lights. Looks like I won't need to read by kerosene lamp. Another thing I now have is a hand held GPS. This means that when I visit a village out on the plains I can mark it's location and find my way back another day. This thing will be great for areas like mine that have no roads.

Gaglione Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich

Joe Gaglione, my classmate brought me here to San Diego today where I'll catch my flight to Tanzania tomorrow evening. We just had lunch at the sandwich shop of his three nephews. Joey treated us to what the menu designates as "The Father Joe", a gargantuan cheesesteak on a huge hot dog bun. I'm all set for the trip...won't be looking to eat another thing till I'm back in Maasai country.

Future Maasai Doctor

Lenkangu completed his junior year (Form 3) at Arusha Modern Secondary School just a week ago. He is now home in Endulen visiting his family. In January, he will begin his senior year. Lankangu has done well in science subjects and hope to study medicine and eventually work as doctor in Maasai country. Doctors that are genuinely sympathetic to the local people are few in Maasailand. Most doctors prefer to work in towns where life is easier.

Al McNight's Talk Radio Show

I had my last dinner with the retired guys here at Hemet this evening. Al McNight told us that he starts doing a weekly half hour Talk radio show next week. It will be on religious topics of interest to black Catholics. Al will respond to questions called in by his listeners. The station is a new one of only a few months, KIEE 88.3 FM in Saint Martinville, LA. Al will do the program on the telephone from his room here in Hemet. Al, now retired, was a leader for many years in the Cooperative Movement in the Southern United States.

Back Home

It's good to be back home in Maasai country. It has been raining and everywhere the fields and hills are covered with rich green grass. The cattle are giving milk and people are no longer frequently hungry as they were during the recently ended dry season. Today I've bought a battery and wire to use with the fold up solar panel that I brought from the states. My shopping also included a two burner gas powered hot plate, packages of dry soup, packages of pasta, coffee beans and cans of tuna. Tomorrow I'm off to Ngorongoro and Olbalbal.

A Pig on the Doorstep

I opened the front door this morning to find a giant forest hog on the doorstep. They are very large wild pigs, black in color and standing three feet tall at the shoulder. He (or she) stood looking at the apparition in the doorway, snorted a couple of times and ambled off.

Since returning to Maasai country a week ago, three Maasai girls have asked me for help with secondary school expenses. Nasinyari, Sinyati and the daughter of Neyeyo each need about a thousand dollars for the school year starting in January. I responded that we would try to help depending on what is donated through the website.

Commuting to Olbalbal

I'm here at Ngorongoro mission with Fr. Joe Herzstein. At the new mission, we are putting up a small building with three rooms, one living and sleeping, a store room and an inside bathroom. In the meantime, I am staying at Ngorongoro mission and doing the work at Olbalbal from here. Fr. Joe’s mission is on the lip of the crater and about an hour and a half by car from Olbalbal.

The new place is some six thousand feet lower and out on the plains. I'm expecting to begin living at Olbalbal in a month’s time. This past Sunday was my first Sunday with the Christian community at Meshili, Olbalbal. After the service, there was roasted goat and a little time to get acquainted. Today, Tuesday, I'm off to another Maasai village at Olbalbal, Ngoile. There will be a service and time with the people there.

Caught with a Potato

On the way to Olbalbal on Tuesday I met a woman returning from the police station. The Ngorongoro police arrested her husband for growing some potatoes at his “boma” at Olmunyi in the hills above Olbalbal. Some time ago all cultivation was forbidden here in the Conservation Area of Ngorongoro.

Tearfully, the women, an infant on her back, talked of her meeting with the authorities at the police station. They demanded the equivalent of $150 to free her husband, a sum she does not have and has no hope of getting. If she doesn’t come up with the money in a few days, the man will be taken to the central police station at Loliondo a five-hour land rover trip to the North. There the cost of his release will jump to $300 or he will do some serious jail time.

It is claimed that the small plots of the Maasai interfere with the wild animals. Few remember that but for the presence the Maasai, who do not hunt or eat wild meat, the animals in Ngorongoro and the adjacent Serengeti would have gone extinct long ago.

Christmas at Ngoile

Today, Christmas eve celebration at Ngoile, another small community in the Olbalbal area, was special. The gathering place at Ngoile is a thorn bush fenced circular chest high area. The people have constructed their “church” from Acacia tree branches. Within the sanctuary are two circular rows of flat top stones serving as stools for the thirty some Christians that make up the community. Central is the altar that is woven of stout branches and reeds. A black cloth (joyful rain cloud color) sewn with sacred cowry shells covers the altar on which stands a cross. The people sang a lot during the service, frequently singing two or three songs where the “book” only calls for one. They also insert extra ones a seemingly random places during the liturgy, making the service was very lively and happy. Our church songs are a mixture of Maasai traditional sacred songs and others having more recently composed words set to Maasai traditional melodies. An elder, the leader of the community opened and closed the service with long traditional antiphonal prayers. Others, both men and women and sometimes children also get their chance to lead their own petition prayers after the Gospel reading and homily. The traditional antiphonal praying of the Maasai provides the pattern for all the prayers of the mass. After the very enthusiastic liturgy, there was plenty of time to meet and begin to become acquainted with the people. I was welcomed into the main village of Ngoile community with curdled milked that tasted wonderful after being away from Maasai country for half a year. I wrote down a lot of names since my memory went south many years ago. As time goes on, I’ll try to associate names with faces.

Life Giving Salt

Traveling down Ngorongoro Mountain to Olbalbal, I came upon Olendoiye waiting by the side of the road for a lift. He, his wife Nasha, Seina his daughter of ten years and four year old son Lekosan were returning from their “boma” in the highlands of Ngorongoro near the crater rim to their temporary cattle camp in the Olbalbal area. Olendoiye told me that large numbers of Maasai, while leaving a skeleton crew, mostly old people, at the main village in the high country, trek their herds out onto the plains for three or four months during the rainy season. He explained that in the Ngorongoro highlands salt is scarce, and without salt the cattle will become sick, no matter how good the grass is. In the high country, the cattle must be driven into Ngorongoro crater to lick the dried salt on the shores of the salt lake and then driven back out the same day. This is a difficult trip of many miles for cattle and herdsman since Conservation does not allow the cattle to stay overnight on the crater floor. Down at Olbalbal and at other places out on the savanna, salt licks are plentiful and constitute a major reason that many Maasai, who normally live in the highlands, choose to spend the wet season out on the plains. Olendoiye told me that also, tick born diseases are much less of a problem in the low country. This elder had first driven his cattle down to Olbalbal, built a thorn bush “boma” and then left the herd in the hands of a younger brother. He had then returned to Olairobi in the high country and was now returning with his two young children and their mother to join the cattle herd below where there would be plenty salt for the cattle and milk for the children.

Individual /or/ Community

Preparing for my work of evangelization at Olbalbal, I’ve been looking back at the work done by our “founding fathers” here in Maasai country. One of these, Fr. Vincent Donovan, gave us one of the key premises on which to build our work of establishing the church in Maasai country. In his letter of April 1969 published in Missionary Letters of Vincent Donovan edited by J. Bowen, Vince writes:

“… I do not think it is fair to a person to approach him or her on behalf of Christianity outside of and apart from his or her community. If you should succeed in “converting” an individual apart from his community, what you have succeeded in doing is separating him from his community, making him forever an outcast, an outsider to the structure of the tribal community. And this thing that made him an outsider --- Christianity --- will be abhorrent to the community. You have probably cut off forever the possibility of bringing Christianity to that community. As for him, poor man (or imagine if he is a child), he has two bleak choices: either to struggle and fight against the structure of the tribal community as an outcast, or to give up the Christianity in which he might well even believe. Historically, he has most often chosen the latter course”.

This is one of the insights that Vince offered his fellow Spiritan Missionaries over forty years ago. Since that time in Maasai country, we have done our best to implement his approach and I will do so in my work at Olbalbal.

Afterbirth Trouble

Making my way along the foot of Ngorongoro Mountain and some few miles out on the plains, I came across a line of six or seven foot high poles set about fifty feet from each other. Each pole had shred of old gunnysack or cloth tied to the top. These are to deflect the wildebeest herds so that the migratory herds of gnus don’t move into the grazing of the Maasai herds.

Every year, at the beginning of the long rains, wildebeest in their thousands migrate from the Western Serengeti to the East to Ngorongoro. Early on, in the wet, they drop many hundreds of calves and of course leave the “afterbirths” lying on the ground. Maasai cattle just love those tasty morsels and swallow them down whenever they come across one.

Herein lies the problem and the reason for the line of flapping cloth. Maasai say that the afterbirths of the wildebeest make their cattle sick and can even cause death. The hope is that the waving fluttering strips will turn those birthing gnus back out onto the plains. Most years and in most places, the Maasai simply move out of the path of the wildebeest during calving season.

Murder

Maasai market days are great fun. People get together with relatives and friends not seen for weeks, necessities like beads for making jewelry, cloth for wearing, and basic foodstuffs are bought and sold. The cattle market is where people find corn, their staple diet, since there is never enough milk to satisfy hungry stomachs. Tea, sugar, cooking oil, salt and other necessities are also available, and oh yes, and cattle, goats and sheep are bought and sold too.

But the cattle market at Esere some eight miles to the West of Endulen was anything but ordinary and fun on that day just a week ago. Two Irak “julusi” stock traders had trekked their herd of four cows and twenty goats from Mang’loa below the rift wall up onto the highlands near Endulen to sell them to Maasai at the Esere cattle market. It was a sunny beautiful day when a small group of Maasai “julusi” after some offers and counter offers agreed to buy the cattle for a good price. The Maasai not surprisingly suggested that they move off to a nearby dry river bottom for the exchange of cash. This is common practice and regularly done to avoid paying the government tax on livestock sales.

Off they went to the agreed place by the riverbed for to hand over the payment. The Irak never returned to the market and the Maasai haven’t been seen since. The two Irak “julusi” were found with their throats slit from ear to ear and various other deep slashes on their bodies. Within hours a large number of Irak warriors appeared prepared to do battle with the Maasai. This made possible by the recent cell phone explosion. And, Maasai warriors in their hundreds had gathered also. Fortunately, the police also have cell phones and they too arrived in force. It ended up a standoff with the police promising an investigation. The killers had disappeared and the cattle and goats with them. In the past, the incident would have resulted in all out war between the Irak and Maasai, now there would be an investigation. As of yesterday, the 6th of January, Nothing more has been heard of murderers or of the promised investigation.

Maasai in Custody

There have been suspect arrests in the Cattle Market Slaying of last Friday. Two Maasai warriors were captured just short of the Kenyan border. The police tracked them North across the Serengeti Plains. The culprits had been just about to cross into Kenya and disappear with the goats and cattle somewhere into Kenya Maasai country. Yesterday, prior to the daring daylight capture by the police, a great crowd of Irak warriors had gathered for revenge. They vowed to kill the first four Maasai that they found, slitting their throats, as had been done to their friends. The arrests seem to have scotched that plan and the Irak warriors have dispersed.

The Maasai traditionally pass back and forth across the border without difficulty. There are no checkpoints in the bush and the people of Maa (Maasai) extend out from both sides of the border for hundreds of miles.

Lender Car

Looks like I’ll be getting the use of a car beginning sometime next week. It will be far from new, about 17 years old I am told and recently in a fairly serious accident. The Spiritans, my missionary organization, have agreed to lend me the Toyota Land Cruiser till my own vehicle is granted and arrives from Japan. I will have to find the funds for the repairs. My own vehicle, after it is granted by the funding agency in Germany, will probably take till the end of the year to arrive. Having the “lender” car will make the difference between getting out and doing the work and waiting around day-to-day to use a car normally needed at Ngorongoro mission.
Note: The thumbnail shows the kind of car not the actual car I'm getting.

Week on Kilimanjaro

This week Tanzanian Spiritans are here at Maua, the Capachin Sisters House, high on Mount Kilimanjaro. It is a time to take stock both personally as Spiritan family. Tony Gittins, who teaches mission studies and Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, is giving us two talks a day and the rest of the time is for good food, good talk and hopefully some fruitful reflection. For many years now, the snow grows less on the peak of Kilimanjaro. Years ago it hid the rocky summit and now is reduced to some anemic fingers of the white stuff. Some experts tell us that it will be totally gone by 2020.

What some will do to Please a Cow

This morning, traveling down Mount Kilimanjaro heading back to Maasai country, we passed numerous women making the ten or fifteen-mile trek down the mountain. On asking where they were all going, I was told that they were on their way to cut grass for their family cows.

I discover that there is no more grazing land left on Mount Kilimanjaro, not an inch. Over the last fifty years the Chagga people have become so numerous and the land divided and re-divided among their children and children’s children, that there is no land for further farming, not even a square foot for cattle to graze. A unique solution has been found and one that is very hard on the women of Kilimanjaro. A household may have a cow or two cows, but these are kept in a shed next to the Chagga’s home. Each morning, someone, the lady of the house or an older daughter, never a man, must go down to the grass land many miles distant to cut fodder for the family cow. Sometimes, if finances allow, she will buy a bundle of grass. Some people make their living cutting and selling bundles of grass to women from the mountainside. Then, unusually in the late afternoon, the women will climb the ten or fifteen miles back to the homestead of her family on the mountain. She carries the thirty or forty pound bundle of grass on her head.

Wow! It blows my mind! As someone from the savanna, where grass is usually in plenty, it is hard to take in what these women go through to obtain two or three day’s fodder for a cow.

First Day and Scared

Fabi Meing'oru started school this weekend. Since I was on retreat on Kilimanjaro, I arranged for her aunt to accompany her from her village at Endulen at Ngorongoro to St. Joseph Secondary School here in Arusha. Today, I went to see how she is doing. I guess it is to be expected that she is a little frightened. For the first time in her life, she is far from the cattle camp of her family and hundreds of miles from home. She knows no one in the school. There are two or three other Maasai girls, but from other parts of Maasai country.

Right now I am feeling badly for her as she struggles with loneliness and the strangeness of a new place and being plopped down in the midst of many hundreds of strange girls from all over Tanzania. In time, she’ll get used to the place, make friends and eventually feel totally at home, but the first weeks will be difficult. She speaks Swahili well of course, having just finished seven years of primary school. But, it is a second language and not the familiar Maasai that she is used to speaking every day with her family and friends.

To stay home at Endulen would mean little hope of good secondary education. St. Joseph’s is run by sisters and has a great reputation and track record. I feel very lucky to have gotten her an opportunity to take the entrance exam. And she did very well on the various written tests.

Two boys, One Pair of Shoes

Kangai and Lemayani came to me at Endulen Mission in 1998. They were unique in that each had only one leg, Kangai, the right one and Lemayani, the left leg. They came to me at about the age of six or seven right from Endulen Hospital, where they had their legs amputated. A cow had fallen on Kangai, broken his leg and caused a gaping wound that was not treated. The family was very poor and not having the resources to pay hospital expenses, hoped that it would heal itself and by applying the traditional remedy of plastering cow dung on the open sore. It didn’t heal and gangrene set in. Finally, when he was running a high fever and in danger of dying, they took him to the hospital. The doctor saved Kangai’s life but not his leg.

Lemayani fell from a tree and got poked in the leg by a sharp stick. The wound festered and as in the case of Kangai, the family did not have the money for hospital care. They left it hoping the wound would heal. As in the case of Kangai, it did not heal and when the leg turned black they took him to the hospital where the doctor cut off the leg.

The families of the two boys requested that Kangai and Lemayani stay at the mission and attend the local primary school. The Maasai bomas of Kangai and Lemayani are within the Conservation area of Ngorongoro and about fifty miles apart and a considerable distance into the bush. They are no relation to each other. Over the years I’ve saved a considerable amount of money on socks and shoes. Since the boys take the same size, one pair of socks and a single pair of shoes does for both.

Kangai is the athlete of the two. As you see in the Education Video
on the side bar and in the pictures, he plays football using his stick as a second leg. In fact, having only one leg did not slow him down at all. He was one of our best footballers and much sought after when players were chosen for teams. Lamayani is the intellectual one and has done very well at his studies. They have both graduated secondary school now and are looking to continue their education.

Wonderful News

Just a few hours ago I received a letter from the Kindermissionswerk foundation in Aachen Germany. They write: "We are pleased to inform you that our grant allocation commission sanctioned the funds for the purchase of a veicle for Olbalbal Mission, Archdiocese of Arusha, Tanzania."

The car will be a long wheel base Toyota Land cruiser hardtop, the model especially built for bush conditions. One interesting aspect of this particular model is that Toyota has retained the pre-computerized version of mostly everything. This means the car can be maintained and repaired by the ordinary mechanic here in East Africa. Different from cars in the states and Europe, it does not have to be hooked up to a computer to diagnose problems. The car will now be ordered from Toyota in Japan and I should have it by the end of the year.

Heart Breaking

These days, many Maasai girls are coming to ask for help with school fees for secondary school. They come most often with their mothers. It is heart breaking to see the happiness in the eyes of the mothers at their daughters being “chosen” by the government to go on with their studies in high school. The parents come with high hopes that education will enable their child to find a good job later on and help the family to have a better life. In most cases it is a forlorn hope. The schools are hopelessly poor. There are few books and few teachers. The teachers that are stationed in the schools are often reluctant to live and teach in the bush. Unless the child is exceptionally bright and takes advantage of every tidbit of available resource, he or she will leave after four years of secondary school with nothing. I do help each family that comes to me, at least a little. But, I do so for the sake of showing some solidarity with the parents, knowing that, in most cases, it is a useless gesture. I prefer to look for one or two primary school graduates each year that are clever and have done really well in grade school. I send the one or two to a good school that has books, good teachers and other resources. This is what I have done in the case of Fabi Meing’oru, whom I wrote about a few days ago. In this way, I am hoping that the funds people entrust to me for the education of Maasai girls will have some positive impact, both for the individual student and for the Maasai.

Moved In!!

Just moved into my place at Olbalbal. Twenty seven Maasai elders, warriors and women welcomed me with tea, helped me move my stuff in, scrubbed the two rooms, and sat with me most of the afternoon. They also found a mosquito net for me and helped me put it up. We are in the midst of the rains here and there is plenty of water around so mosquitoes. They also cleared lots of rocks from around the house so that I can park close to the door. They are so friendly and welcoming that it is embarrassing. I am determined to live up to the warmth of their greeting.

Small Boy Lost and Alone

At dawn this morning the cries of the women could be heard lamenting the loss of a herds boy six year old. During the night a small child was taken and eaten by a leopard.

At various times during the year warriors take the bulk of the cattle to places where there is better grazing. Here at Olbalbal, while there is still plenty of standing water, the rains have slackened and the grass is short. Nearby villages have joined together in sending cattle off with a band of warriors. They drove the cattle some twenty miles distant to take advantage of some good grazing. As is normal, the young men took some small children with them to herd the calves near their temporary makeshift “boma.”

Yesterday evening, on the return of the calves to the encampment, one small boy was missing. The warriors lost no time back tracking the herd of calves and then followed the meandering tracks of the lost boy. They found what was left of him in the branches of an Acacia tree, clearly the work of a leopard. The boy had somehow become separated from his companions and the calves. Lost and alone, he was easy prey for the leopard. At dawn this morning news reached the home villages at Olbalbal.

Solar, Kilimanjaro Coffee and a Hot Shower

My electricity system here is severely limited. The small (10 inch screen) ACER computer that I use has a 12 volt adapter, thereby bypassing the need for an inverter. My iPhone that is also a "hotspot" using the app "MyWi" also uses at 12 volt adapter as does my LED light that I use to cook and to read at night. That is my complete electricity system. I'll use it in this way for a while to see if the 60watt fold up panel is maintaining a good charge on the 100AH battery. If things continue to go well, I'll add a couple more LED lights. Each of the five lights that I brought back with me from the states has 30 LED bulbs. They are great lights. Another part of my life here is a hot shower every morning. With water heated on the small kerosene stove, I fill a bucket with an attached shower head and hang it from the ceiling. Also, with a hand coffee grinder and the best beans from Kilimanjaro, I use my French press to have great cup of coffee every morning. Life is good at Olbalbal.

Oloicura’s dilemma

Oloicura has signed on with me here at Olbalbal to watch the place when I am out in the villages and when I go overnight to the main mission on the crater rim. Yesterday, he came with a big problem. He needs to get his wife and three children back. Years ago, Oloicura went to the village of a local elder and undertook to herd his cattle for years, about ten. The elder on his side agreed to give Oloicura his daughter in marriage. This is a common way for a Maasai man to marry, if he doesn’t have cattle to give his prospective father-in-law.
Oloicura shepherded the old man’s herd for some years and then was given one of the family’s daughters for his wife. Oloicura continued to live with his father in law and to herd his cattle. The old man also gave Olocura sufficient cattle for the house of his daughter. Three children came along and everything was going well. Then things went very bad very fast. Oloicura got into an argument with his mother-in-law. The disagreement escalated to name calling and some very serious accusations and nasty language. The mother-in-law, in a fit of rage went to her husband and demanded that he take his daughter back together with the children and chase Oloicura away. To maintain peace in the family he agreed to do as his wife wanted. This is where the situation stands and now oloicura wants me to act in the name of his father who is very old and lives far away. He wants me to go with him to ask forgiveness and get his family back. He figures that my position as the padre here in Olbalbal might prompt his mother-in-law to accept his apologies. Another bazaar factor in the mix is that both he and his mother-in-law are members the small group of fifteen that lead the singing in our Christian community here. I’ve asked around and a couple of the leading elders of the area tell me that there is no way that Oloicura’s mother in law is going to relent. Her feelings run too deep.

Visit to Family of Lost Boy

Some days ago I spoke of a young boy that became lost while herding the young animals and was found to have been attacked and eaten by a leopard. Yesterday, I went with two elders and five women to visit the family at their village some five miles from the mission. Since the mother of the lost child is a Christian, we started our visit with some traditional Maasai prayers that I also took my turn in leading. Then with “engare pus”, water mixed with a little milk, we blessed the parent’s house, all the houses in the boma and the cattle enclosure. After the prayers and blessings, I read the account of the raising of Lazarus from John’s gospel.

Then, everyone gathered under a shade tree for gourds of fresh milk, heavily sweetened tea, and corn porridge. Now was the time when each visitor would have the opportunity to say a word or two to the parents of the dead child. The words of people untouched by Christianity were in stark contrast to the Christians. The ones working out of pure tradition said that we need to get by what happened. We need to forget this terrible thing and take care of the living children. If we get bogged down in grief, it will be harmful to our families and villages. The Christians were very tentative in talking about life after death. They said things like: The bible tells us that Jesus raised Lazarus after a number of days in the grave. Jesus promised life without end to those who follow him. They were very cautious and were not making any definitive statements about life after death. I was encouraged by their words, feeling that they were a reflection of their young Christianity.

The beliefs of the Maasai are based on their long experience of the world around them. What they understand of death and so many other things comes from their experience of these things over many hundreds of years. I think that we should present them with a faith that sometimes contradicts their long held traditions with great care and deep respect. After all, their understanding of the world and the ways they’ve worked out for surviving in it have worked well up to now.

Electric Drill Makes Great Coffee

Arthritis is a pain in the butt and many other places too. For years I’ve had trouble using a can opener to open my cans of tuna. Tuna is one of the staples of my culinary prowess. Another major “pain” has been using my hand coffee grinder. I hate instant coffee, even the Tanzanian variety that most other people seem to like. For years I’ve ground my own every morning and had a sore right wrist every morning for all of those years. When I bombarded a recent visitor with my complaints about a sore wrist from grinding coffee every morning, he commented: “Why don’t you use that thing? He had noticed my rechargeable electric drill sitting on my desk. I have a small hundred and fifty watt inverter (12VDC to 120VAC) that I use to charge rechargeable stuff whose chargers need to be plugged into the wall. My electric drill is rechargeable as is my flashlight. We removed the hand crank from the coffee grinder and plugged it into the drill. Amazing, it ground my coffee to perfection. I’ve been using the coffee grinder and the drill for years but never thought to put the two together. Best of all, I haven’t had a sore right wrist in a week.

No Goats In Class

Naisimoi separated from her husband years ago and moved from Melenda on the other side of Ngorongoro Crater settling at Olbalbal. She brought a small herd of goats and a few cows with her That have now grown into a substantial herd. She attached herself to a man here and his sons did the herding for them both. Now Naisimoi had three sons, all of whom are attending the local primary school and two daughters, now married. She and her partner had a falling out a couple of years ago and suddenly there was no one to pasture her goats and cows. For some reason, she chose not to look for others to herd her collection of animals. Naisimoi decided to let the animals go free during the day and to gather them back into the cattle crawl every evening. Since Olbalbal village and primary school are nearby, her unorthodox approach to animal husbandry has raised the ire of the school teachers who object to her goats making the school grounds and classrooms their daytime home. This week the situation has reached crisis proportions. The school authorities have threatened to do serious damage to her animals next time they invade the halls of learning. What will happen next is uncertain.

Horrific Leopard Attack

OleKiridi and his son Saitoti were taken to the hospital yesterday. They were herding their village’s goats in a sparsely wooded area at Engruman in the hills above the mission. A leopard tried to make off with a goat. OleKiridi and boy gave chase, hoping to drive the leopard off. The cat dropped the goat and sprang at the boy sinking his teeth in the back of the boy’s neck. His father struck the leopard a number of times with his herding staff and got his cheek torn off with a swipe of the beast’s claws. Both have horrendous but not life threatening wounds and are recovering in hospital. The leopard then killed twelve of the goats and made off with one.

Family Reunited

Oloicura’s mother-in-law has agreed. We had a meeting a few days ago, a couple of elders, some older women of Olbalbal, Nalepo, the mother-in-law, and me. It lasted four hours and Nalepo had a chance to totally lay out her reasons for taking the drastic step of prevailing upon her husband to take their daughter and her children away from Oloicura. This was a meeting where everyone got as much time as they wanted to have their say... It was long. Much of the rapid back and forth Maasai went over my head, but I was able to keep track of where they were going. I made one small intervention. I commented that it seemed to me that Nalepo may have over reacted but she was right to be so angry. Oloicura said some truly awful things to her and called her some horrendous names. We are in a society that values respect for parents and in-laws as a sacred duty. After it was over, I asked the people if they thought any headway had been made. All gave an emphatic, “No Way”. Nalepo was not ready to give an inch. At the end of the discussions, she said that she would go and think it over, but no one believed she was serious.
Then yesterday evening a big surprise, Oloicura came to me and said his mother-in-law had just brought his Lele, his wife and their three children, Parmes, Nanta and Metoi, to him agreeing that the family be reunited. Then, she took them back to her village to await the formal agreement of her husband, which I am told will not be a problem. I wasn’t there when she arrived with the so and so and the kids. I wish I had been. I can’t figure out how things were so against Oloicura a few days ago and then the situation reversed so quickly.

Wind threatens Panel

The wind here at Olbalbal is powerful. The fold up solar panel that I use for electricity and put on the roof of the car during the day was in danger of blowing away. I solved that by using very thin twine to crisscross the panel numerous times and tying the twine to points on the car. The wind can no longer get under the light weight flexible panel and I'm back in business. I took some pictures of the fold up panel on top of the car and have figured out how to load them into my post.

Sad Story

Noorkishon grew up in a very poor and troubled family. Her father, Simel, was a heavy drinker. By the time Noorkishon was old enough to be married, had drank his way through the small herd of cattle inherited from his own father. Noorkishon’s mother, on the other hand, worked hard to feed and cloth her three children. Sitalu gathered firewood to sell at the Olbalbal trading center shops. Somehow Sitau and her children survived and Noorkishon grew into a very beautiful young woman. Sitau was happy when Lepilal, the oldest son of a Maasai elder with many cattle showed interest in marrying her daughter. As is customary, the marriage process took a number of years, but all the preliminaries were finally accomplished and Noorkishon was taken to the “boma” of her husband. For some years, things went well. Noorkishon was given cattle to care for her house and future children. She was well liked by her husband. Soon, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. Things couldn’t have been going better. Then things began to go down hill fast.

Many of Lepilal’s cattle died of “Oltikana”, a cattle disease widespread in this part of Maasai land. At the same time, her husband took a second young wife. When Lepilal’s new very young wife came to the “boma”, there were not enough cattle left for the new wife to comfortably take care of her house. The husband then took more than half of Noorkishon’s cattle and gave them to his young “siangiki.” On top of that, it soon became evident that the new wife was barren and would never have a child. Still Lepilal favored her over Noorkishon, who now did not have enough cattle to feed herself and her son.

Finally, the new wife’s resentment and jealousy grew to the point that she prevailed upon Lepilal to chase Noorkishon away from his village. He sent her away back to her father and, in line with Maasai custom, kept Norkishon’s son to be raised by his second wife. Noorkishon, now destitute and alone, returned to the boma of her alcoholic father. That is where she is today. Women have little claim on justice in Maasai country. Noorkishon, with no one to take up her cause and speak for her, lives with her mother and together they cut and gather firewood to sell to the shopkeepers at Olbalbal.

Catching Up

Last Saturday Endulen, the mission I left to begin work at Olbalblal, welcomed me for a “farewell” celebration. OleMaporo, Olondooki, Sinyati and Noonkera, two elders and two women from here at Olbalbal accompanied me. It was a great celebration where I got a chance to meet a lot of old friends. Among other things, a whole goat was roasted. The day brought home the realization that living with a community of people for over 25 years brought so much more to me than I was able to give.

Sikona appeared before the community elders of Olbalbal and asked to explain why her goats were regularly breaking up math classes, a subject that is so important to our Maasai kids. She couldn’t and was fined $8 dollars and made to promise to keep her four footed friends away from the classroom.

The two victims of the leopard attack are out of the hospital and recovering from their ordeal at home. One remarked that the next time a leopard wants my goat; he or she is welcome to it.

We are getting plenty of heavy clouds here and even a brief sprinkle from time to time. The big rains couldn’t be too far off. The winds are wild here, threating to carry off everything that isn’t nailed down. My fold up solar panel almost became a victim.

Olkitok, an elder living in the boma next door to me, got a phone call from Kenya that his son was poisoned and died. The caller was anonymous and no location where it happened in Kenya was given in the phone message. The family is in mourning for the young elder who left two wives and a number of children. He was Olkitok’s only son and the mainstay of the family that has few cattle. Olkitok is old and the family is now in danger of breaking up. Family and clan elders from the area have been meeting with Olkitok every day of this past week to figure out the future. I’ve gone twice with groups to sit with the family.

Some time ago I mentioned that the Maasai have constructed a barrier, like a line of scarecrows to stop the wildebeest from grazing near their villages. When the rains begin the wildebeests will give birth and the cows love to eat the afterbirths that make them sick. I include a picture here of the barrier.

Questionable Custom

Noorkishon came to me yesterday asking for a help. She needs $20. The Maasai have a custom that is hard to understand. On the day of marriage, a wife becomes her husband’s perfect bank, the place that he can keep his money in absolute safety. His bank, read wife, is safe because she is responsible for whatever money he gives her. If the house burns down and her husband’s money burns, she must find the equivalent amount to return to him. The same is true if the money is stolen or lost. She can’t refuse to keep his stash and if something happens to it, she must scrounge around every which way to replace it. If she can’t come up with the cash, he beats her.
Noorkishon put the $20 dollars into her small wooden box, locked it with a pad lock and put it under her bed. She closed the makeshift door of her Maasai igloo shaped cow dung covered dwelling and went off driving donkeys carrying plastic jugs to draw water. Returning, she found the door wide open, her box broken into and her husband’s $20 dollars gone. For the last couple days she has been going around to friends tearfully asking for contributions. She is very afraid of being seriously beaten.

Impatient Kid

One of my Maasai friends on Facebook, Lazaro Ngijuka, shared this picture. Some will do anything for a drink. Click "continue reading" for the picture.

Honey and Help

Five little Maasai girls came to draw water, Nalosoto, Jennet, Encamburui, Sombe and Nalanda. I was washing my lunch dishes under a tree in the back yard and they offered to help. They ended up also helping me wash the cement floor of my room getting rid of a week’s accumulation of dust. A Maasai lady, Noonkera EnolAilo had given me the gift of a large cup of newly harvested wild honey this morning. I gave it to the girls when our chores were done.

New Beginnings

These days I am presenting the message of Jesus in a couple of new areas, Golola and Ndene. I go together with a small group of Christians from here at Meshili, the place I live at Olbalbal. In one of our first meetings we talk of the Maasai narrative to explain how death came into the world.

One day Naitera-kop (God, the creator of the world) told Leeyo (The first Man) that if a child were to die, he was to say: “Man, die, and come back again; moon die, and never come back.” A child died soon afterwards, but it was not one of Leeyo’s, and when he was told to throw it away, he picked it up and said to himself: This child is not mine; when I throw it away I shall say, “Man, die, and remain away; moon, die and return.” He threw it away and, out of jealousy and selfishness, spoke those awful words, after which he returned home.

One of his own children died next, and when he threw it away, he said: “Man, die, and return; moon, die, and remain away.” Naiteru-kop said to him; “It is of no use now for, out of your hatred and jealousy, you spoilt matters with the other child.”

This is how it came about that when a man dies he does not return, whilst when the moon is finished, it comes back again and is always visible to us.

Jesus came to sweep away the bitterness, and vengefulness of Leeyo. Jesus came to reverse those terrible words: “Man, die, and remain away,” that brought suffering and death onto the plains and into the cattle camps of the Maasai. Naiteru-kop sent his oinoti (first born son) to proclaim to his people: “Man, die, and return”

New Car

The new car for Olbalbal has been order from Japan and should be here in a few months. It is a Toyota Land Cruiser Hard Top and is the very strong vehicle needed for getting to villages out on the plains to pick up school kids and have meetings with the people. The rains have begun and they are torrential. Extremes seem to be the norm in this desert area. It occurred to me that if I find the new vehicle glowing at night, I’d know that it came from the wrong part of Japan.

Pump quest

During my three days away in the shopping town of Arusha, I bought a foot pump for the tires on the car. Last week, I had a tire that was going down and tried to find a pump in the village of Olbalbal. The only pump around is one owned by the police station (one policeman). He uses it to pump up the tires on his bicycle. When I attached the rubber hose to my tire, it became evident that the hose was split. I feel sure that the criminal element of Olbalbal is safe from pursuit. Anyway, with my new pump, new tire irons and patches, I feel more confident about going to the Maasai villages out on the plains.

Flash Flood takes School Kids

Eight school children were taken by a flash flood at Piaya this week. Flash floods along dry river beds are part of desert and semi-desert living. Every year there are people who figure that the water isn’t that deep yet and that they can still cross. Frequently it is a miscalculation and they drown, especially children. At Piaya the kids were taking their regular route through the dry river bed to school. They were caught by the rushing water on the wide river bed, a sandy water course that is usually dry as a bone. I have heard of cars and even trucks taken by the sudden surging waters. Years ago, one of our missionaries, Ed Hearn, on his brand new Yamaha motorcycle was on the way to the secondary school of Oldoinyo Sambu. The flash flood on a dry river bed took the bike as Ed jumped free. The bike was found far downstream a total wreck. Did I dream that Ed?

No “1st World” Care at Olbalbal

At the boma of Olekiteyek, a young woman tried to give birth to twins for a couple of days. She was being helped by Maasai midwives. Finally on day three, due to their expertise, she did give birth, but both infants were dead and she had lost much blood. Then a car was found to take her to the hospital in Karatu where she died shortly after arriving there.

It is frustrating to experience the results of being so far from competent medical care. Here at Olbalbal we are an hour and forty five minutes from Ngorongoro on the top of the mountain where there is a bedded dispensary with nurses and a doctor’s assistant. The nearest hospitals would be at Endulen and Karatu, each an hour further. So, to reach a hospital from Olbalbal, a sick person is bounced over very bad roads for two hours and forty five minutes. It is no wonder that not all make it to a hospital for treatment.

Bad Day

It was a bad day on the steep decent road from the rim of Ngorongoro Crater to Olbalbal and the Serengeti. One of the leaders of the Ngorongoro area was traveling in his small lorry down the mountain. Stopping to check what felt like a puncture, a helper climbed down to place a stone in front of a wheel so the truck wouldn’t roll. Most of our local lorries are old and have poor or no emergency brakes, this one included. There was no puncture after all and the young man went to remove the stone. Somehow the lorry immediately began to move and caught his clothing pinning him to the ground and rolling over his chest, killing him instantly.

You Asked For It, At Least Some Did

Some have asked what I eat at Olbalbal so prepare to be seriously bored by this post. I cook for myself. This is a very pretentious statement, like I’m turning out delectable dishes using my vast cooking experience and my dog-eared Betty Crocker cook book. Not so, my cooking is at the pre cooking school level. Growing anything here in the Conservation Authority of Ngorongoro is strictly forbidden. One literally cannot plant even a flower seed. So, no vegetables, no fruit, no nothing that is not dried or canned. My pantry includes canned tuna, popcorn, dried peanuts, rice, pasta, potatoes bought by the sack, and Knorr dry soup packages. That is pretty much it. Oh, I am well stocked with wonderful Kilimanjaro coffee beans that I grind using my rechargeable electric drill. A typical week might look like this:

There you have it. If you’ve managed to keep awake reading this far, you see that I like tomato soup curdle Maasai milk. Popcorn and peanuts supply variety.

I’m sticking with black

Green is the color of St. Patrick’s Day. The Maasai traditionally don’t wear green clothing or jewelry using green beads. Things are changing these days and there is an occasional green cloth to be seen and even jewelry with touches of green. I met a lady yesterday wearing the immensely popular and durable plastic shoes. I asked her why she was wearing green ones. She told me: “It is true. We didn’t used to wear any green stuff, but now people wear what they like. I like my green shoes.”

Black, on the other hand, is a very significant color for the Maasai. It is the color of the rain clouds and hence symbolizes God’s loving care for the Maasai, his people. For example, people wear black when they go on pilgrimage to pray at places like Oldoinyo Le’nKai, the mountain of God. When leading church services, I wear black for the same reason. It is our “praying color.”

I’ve hear that in the orient, white is worn a funerals, whereas in the West the tradition was to wear black when mourning a loved one. These days in the West, we mostly wear white at funerals signing our belief that death is a transition to new life. Here at Olbalbal I’m sticking with black, even on St. Patrick’s Day.

Time for Eating the News

One of the great things about living here at Olbalbal is the location of my house. The front yard is the place people from the neighborhood draw water and the front porch is twenty five feet from the water tap. Sitting on the porch, one is always assured of someone with whom to “eat the news”, since the Maasai of the area come to draw water here. The water is turned on, when available, from about ten in the morning till about one in the afternoon. People often come early to be first in line when the water to be turned on, so there are always plenty of people to talk to. I am trying to learn names but it is an uphill battle. I keep a small notebook with me for writing down names but once written down, I mostly don’t remember what faces the names belong to. I’m working on it.

As you see from the stacked up water containers in the pictures, sometimes the wait for water can be long. Often enough the water doesn’t come at all. High up in the hills, the spring is at the mercy of elephants and all kinds of other stuff looking for a drink. Frequently the pipes get kicked around or broken. This can mean no water for some days till the Ngorongoro conservation people get time to come and fix things.

Scary Night

A roaring lion kept us awake all night. Last night there was a very noisy lion in the ravine next to the mission. If he was looking for dinner in the form of a cow from a neighboring boma, he wasn’t going to be successful after alerting the whole neighborhood with his booming voice. Why do lions roar all night? I sure would appreciate an answer to that question. A couple of years ago, My cousin Art and I were sleeping in a tent at Terengire lodge. About one in the morning, a lion began to roar close by and kept it up for about half an hour then went silent. On that occasion, I guess the lion found what he was looking for. Happily, it wasn’t Art and I.

Students Visit

Naishorua OlDumu and Lazaro OlDumu are brother and sister. They have been with me since their first years of primary school. since their family was not able to help them with school fees. Naishoru has the added handicap of diabetes, needing injections twice a day and a special diet. She finished her junior college studies with the Christian Brothers three years ago. In September, after three years of study, she will graduate a clinical officer from Machame Hospital on Mount Kilimanjaro. Clinical Officer is the step below a medical doctor and they do pretty much what an MD does, except brain surgery, heart transplanting and a few other things. We badly need Maasai doctors in Maasai country, people who understand the people and are sympathetic to their particular needs and problems. In the course of our conversations this week, Naishorua talked of her long held hope, after gaining clinical experience, of becoming a full-fledged medical doctor.

Lazaro is a seminarian in Form VI at our Spiritan seminary at Usa River. He also had many setbacks during his early years at school, needing, at times, to suspend his education to help at home. He will graduate this year from junior college and enter our Spiritan Philosophy program. Lazaro first studied for our diocese during his secondary school years and then decided to become a Spiritan. I am hoping to attend both graduations.

Moved Away

I went to one of the two places that I have begun to share the gospel. The boma of Olomoton in the area of Ndemwa is on the plains between Olbalbal and Oldupai Gorge. There is no road or even a track leading to the place. This hasn’t proved an obstacle to getting there since, on my first visit, I marked it on my hand held GPS. The hour and a half drive across the dust blown savanna only becomes difficult when the wind is at your back as it was today. At times the way ahead was totally obscured by the whirling dust clouds made worse by the passing of my car’s tires.

On reaching the cattle camp, I was met by a boy about 13 years old, a girl a couple of years younger and another boy of about 6 years. They told me that the adults with the cattle had moved a few days ago, leaving only themselves and a warrior to care for the sheep and goats. It has become so dry that the cattle were now at risk, and the older people had driven the cattle herd many hours into the hills to find forage and build a new boma. I am regularly amazed to see Maasai young people shouldering immense responsibilities in precarious situations. Here they are, by themselves for weeks on the plains many hours walk from grownups and any kind of help. They care for their village’s herd of sheep and goats, having no idea that they are doing something very unique and special.

Hyena Raid

A hyena got into the boma next door to me. In the goat enclosure it killed one goat and broke the back of another with its’ powerful jaws. People woke up to the loud crying of the goats and looing of the cows. By the time people realized what was going on the hyena had fled. The two goats belonged to Yohana Wandai, my teacher who is away taking a course in catechetics at the Capuchin sister’s school at Sanya Juu on Mount Kilimanjaro. This is a tragedy for Yohana since his herd is so small.

It is not unusual for hyenas to find their way into villages at night and kill goats and sheep. Years ago, in the area of Loliondo to the North of us, hyenas were getting into house not carefully protected by a wicker door tied shut with leather straps. Their bone crushing jaws found exposed feet, legs and even heads. A number of people didn’t survive their wounds. This happened numerous times over the space of a few years and then stopped.

Green Grass and Death at Easter

Holy Week here at Olbalbal has taken us by storm, quite literally. On Monday the rains began, pouring down for twenty four hours without a break. Since Monday it has rained for a number of hours each afternoon. This sudden and very welcome change of seasons has been received with enthusiasm by the pastoral Maasai. People had begun to move in large numbers for lack of life giving grass and the entire area of Olbalbal with its’ wide plains had turned to dust. In some areas, very hard hit by the drought, weaker cattle had begun to die. The Maasai have no store houses of grain to tide them over bad times. The only thing they have to fall back on is their cattle, and the dry months had taken a heavy toll on the health of their animals. Most of the cattle had become very thin.

Yesterday afternoon I met an old man who had trekked two day across the plains from the North near the border of Kenya and Tanzania. Sharing a pot of tea, he described his very difficult journey across the plains with only a small gourd of milk to sustain him. The elder, OleKaruna, was on a sad journey, bringing very bad news to relatives at Olbalbal. Three days before his two small grandsons were pasturing their flock of goats on the plain and were caught out in the open when the deluge of rain hit. They sheltered, with their small herd of goats, under the one small tree out there on the savanna. Lightning struck, splitting the tree, killing both boys and five of the goats.

Oldupai Gorge, a few hours walk across the plains, is the place where the Leakey family has found many fossils of early man. There is a small building there housing some reproductions of their most significant discoveries and even many of their original finds. All these artifacts were found in a deep gorge running for some miles out onto the plains. This gorge, usually bone dry, no pun intended, was the place of another sad event last Monday. Many Maasai village populate the area to take advantage of the permanent water well at Oldupai. The rains came filling the gorge from wall to wall and three unlucky children, three small girls, were carried away as they dug in the sandy river bottom for water.

Easter Morning

The Easter vigil services began at about 10:00PM and our small open chapel was packed with standing room only. Many people came from distances and stayed overnight here at the mission. There was cooking and much conversation till the early hours. This morning people were up early lighting the cooking fires and slaughtering the goats and sheep for our Easter celebration. We will have w

ell over a hundred baptisms at our Easter celebration and we’re expecting large numbers of people for the feast afterwards. Here are a few of the pictures I took a little while ago as the preparations began.

A Party to Remember

Easter Sunday was a party to remember at Olbalbal. Four big goats and a sheep were slaughtered, a hundred pound bag of rice cooked, fifty pounds of potatoes prepared and a big container of cooking oil used. The hundreds of people ate till not a grain of rice was left. There was an enthusiastic church service lasting three hours. I was especially pleased that only a couple people out of over a hundred baptized took non-Maasai names. These days, in many places, even Maasai, are choosing to be baptized with traditional European saints names. Maasai names are very special. They are carefully chosen and ceremonially blessed by their parents and boma elders with milk and honey beer shortly after birth.

Death Rites

OloCuru went off early this morning with his sister, nephew and niece. His father died some three weeks ago and now the family is gathering from all over to “drink water”, the final death rights performed for a Maasai. OloCuru and his small band of family are traveling ten hours by foot North to Oldoinyo’gol to the boma of his dead father. A black sheep without blemish will be slaughtered and shared by the family. They will drink a bitter soup made from the meat and fat of the sheep and with harsh herbs. Then, the various bits and pieces the dead elder wore, wire bracelets and beaded ornaments will be shared out among the family, each person receiving something touched by the old man. Finally, all members of the family, male and female from the oldest to the smallest infant will have their head shaved. The ceremonies completed, the family will disperse and all will return to wherever they came from. OloCuru will return with the children here to Olbalbal where the two young girls and a boy are attending the local primary school.

The "olbalbal" fills

With the coming of the rains, the Olbalbal depression is fast filling with rain water. It is a small lake in the desert where the Maasai herds will drink for months to come. A meaning of the Maasai word “Olbalbal” is “a temporary lake”. In drought years the “Olbalbal” does not fill and people must move into the hill country to find water for their herds of cattle and goats. In those times, Olbalbal area becomes pretty much deserted, except for a few shop keepers and others who for one reason or another cannot move.

The seasons and the ever changing condition of the land dictate much in Maasai life. They are a pastoral people, so the two powerful lynchpins of their survival, water and grass, dictate most of the important decisions of their everyday living. Often the complaint is heard: “Why don’t the Maasai settle down? If they would only forgo their love of the semi-nomadic life style, they could have good schools and medical care and other important services.” It is frequently overlooked that the Maasai don’t love moving, with its´ disruptions. They move because of the need to find good grass and water for their herds. The fact of their being a pastoral people dictates that they live in harmony with their environment and to wrestle out of this harsh land the means of survival. That said, I am hoping that the day is far off when everyone moves away and I’m all by myself.

Clan Leader Chosen

A few days ago OlenKotomindia was chosen as the “Oleguanani”, the Spokesman and Leader of the Molelian clan. The Maasai people are divided into many different clans. Clan members live throughout Maasai country and form a kind of extended family. Among the Maasai a man may not marry a girl of his own clan. The court of final appeal for such things as inheritance is the clan so the clan leader is a very important position and has a lot of prestige connected to it.

The feast of investiture for the new clan leader was a very big deal. Clan members from far and wide contributed cattle and goats to be slaughtered for the feast. Lesser Molelian clan leaders from all over Tanzania and Kenya gather for the investiture of their new leader. Molelian men and beautifully dressed women, many dressing elaborate skin cloaks participated bringing intricately beaded gourds of fresh and curdled milk. Two huge oxen and 18 goats were slaughtered and honey beer brewed.

The first order of the day was a solemn blessing of OlenKotomindia by the clan leaders with much prayer and aspersions of milk and honey beer. He was then given a ceremonial “Olrinka”, a ceremonial stick of authority. The clan presented him with a heifer signing the blessings they wished for him. He was clothed with a beautiful new blanket and finally presented with a five gallon container of honey.

The next day the new clan spokesman sat with other Molelian elders drinking beer and receiving their advice. Finally, after some weeks he will undertake a journey to visit his Molelian constituents through Maasai country.

Maasai Wedding

This week Moilomet Olorwas and Evelen Ngaa were married at my outstation of Ngoile. Since it was within an hour’s walk of the main mission at Olbalbal, most of the Christians came. The feast was frosted with some beautiful songs composed by the Christians. The singers took words from the bible about the creation of the first man and woman and various admonitions from St. Paul about how wives and husbands need to respect each other. The songs were great and high points of the celebration.

At Maasai weddings replacing rings, the bride places the “engonongoi” necklace of blue beads around the neck of the bridegroom. In fact, the man of the house only begins to wear this necklace on the day of initiation of his first-born. So it doesn’t technically fit, but the Christians determined to use this symbol signing hope for a successful marriage and family. The bridegroom then places the “eomonyorit” chain around the neck of the bride. At this wedding the couple also exchanged rings. In Europe and America, the bride’s chain would be a terrible symbol to use at a wedding. But among the Maasai, it is the traditional sign of a married woman. Unfortunately all to often, the chain analogy is born out in the daily living of the married couple. We hope that the relationship of Moilomet and Evelen will be more enlightened than the chain symbol indicates. Another unique symbol at our Maasai wedding was the smearing of the joined hands of the bride and groom with blessed sheep fat. Sheep fat is much used in the preparation of the special clothing of the bride at traditional weddings and was a meaningful addition to the Christian service, a very graphic blessing of their union.

An ox was slaughtered and there was meat and soda for everyone, coca cola of course. America has coca-cola-ized the world!

Prayerful Women of Olbalbal

The Maasai pray at milking time. There is a song of the women that is heard often. It is a prayer in the morning and in the evening begging God to give them children and cattle. I would like to share it with you. The morning star is not prayed to, but Enkai, the multicolored one, the one of many and varied qualities.

Warriors Retire Reluctantly

A reluctantly retiring warrior age group met this afternoon just below the mission. After agreeing to clean the silt-clogged spring in the hills above Olbalbal, they discussed the steps they will soon take to becoming young elders. In three weeks each warrior will drink milk alone, individually and apart from other warriors. A Maasai warrior never drinks milk alone; he always shares the milk gourd with at least one other warrior. Then in September the Ilkurianga age group will take another major step to elder hood; they will eat meat publicly. Maasai warriors only eat meat among themselves and away from the “destructive eyes” of women. These rites will signal, much to their annoyance, that a new age group is replacing them as warriors. The age group they derisively named “Etur engop”, “sod busters” is now open. The “Sod busters” have already begun to be circumcised, and, in fact, there will be a circumcision celebration tomorrow at the nearby village of Olenditai. These events make the Ilkirianga very unhappy campers, and in fact, after planning to un-silt the spring and talking about their coming demise as ruling warriors with the individual drinking of milk later this month and the public eating of meat in September, there was a third order of business. They enthusiastically decided to give those upstarts, those sod busting sorry excuses for warriors as much of a hard time as possible as they go about usurping “our God given place” as warriors. All this rhetoric will not prevent them from attending the circumcision feast of a “sod breaker” tomorrow, dancing with the girls, and keeping a sharp eye out for any young prospective “Etur Engop”, daring to show his face at the feast of an age mate. In the unlikely event of one showing up, he’ll be beaten and chased away by the lame duck Ilkorianga.

A Grandmother's Ordeal

It is evening here and Naomom just stopped by on her way home from visiting her grandmother on the mountain above us here at Olbalbal. The old lady is blind and mostly deaf. She can no longer move around and stays inside the house most of the time. Tired from her daylong trek up the mountain and drinking a cup of tea on my front porch, she reminisced about her days as a little girl living with her “koko”.

Naomom had a horrendous story to tell. One day years ago and only four years old, she was playing near the cooking fire in her grandmother’s house. The old lady was resting on the skin-covered bed just a few feet away. She was lying with her head outward toward the hearth to better keep track of Nomom. The Maasai normally sleep with their feet toward the cooking fire. All the people of the small Maasai village had gone off, the men to herd the cattle or visit friends and the women to gather firewood or draw water. Suddenly there was a hyena in the house grabbing the old lady by the scalp pulling her off the bed. That wasn’t working so the animal tried to grab her by the arm and shoulders. All this time the old lady was screaming and finally was able to grab a stick with her good arm and land a good blow on the nose of the hyena. He ran off leaving Naomom’s grandmother badly mauled and Naomom shaking and in a state of shock. The old woman carries horrendous scars as a reminder of that awful day.

Olbalbal beats Endulen for Water

For the past twenty six years at Endulen, I’ve had to take the car and trailer every other day to fill plastic water containers at Endulen spring. Here at Olbalbal water is available in the front yard.

High above the village, on Ngorongoro Mountain lies the spring that provides good drinking water to the Maasai of Olbalbal. After five months here, it is evident that the spring doesn’t dry up. It provides the Maasai with enough water for drinking, cooking and washing, but not enough for the Maasai herds. The cattle sheep and goat drink at the depression forming a small lake, from which the area gets its name, Olbalbal.

The spring water flows by pipe filling a cement holding tank not far above the village. From there more pipes take the water to three water points, two in the village and one here at the mission. It is great to have a dependable water source at the front door.

Mother’s Day Naming

An old man, OleKoitaat tells me that there is a feast among the Maasai called the “Ox of the Infant.” When a child is born and it is time to give it a name, an unblemished black ox without any blemish or white or brown spot is slaughtered. The men are given a share and then the women cook the meat. When the meat is ready, a woman calls out, “The honey is ready.” Then the mother of the child is given milk and the women eat the meat together. After they have eaten, the women go home to their own villages.

In the evening, the mother carries her child to the cattle enclosure and milks her cows with the child on her back. When she finished, three old men and the child’s father join her and the child is named. There is plenty of honey beer to help the group decide on a good name. Names are usually chosen among those of relatives or friends that have been successful pastoralists.

The “Ox of the Infant” is slaughtered at the door of the mother’s house and the skull, instead of being thrown away, is placed by the door. The tail is not separated from the hide as is usually the case. It is left on until the hide is worn out. This explanation is a combination of what an old man told me together with what I’ve gleaned from my reading, especially Hollis.

A Walk Through the Market

I’m the new guy in town and a walking through the twice monthly Maasai market here at Olbalbal is getting me a lot of attention, not least because I have the only white face in sight.

Those Goats and sheep are changing hands so quietly and with so little haggling that I begin to wonder if any buying and selling is really going on. Noonkuta, a Maasai lady standing nearby, assures me that it is.

This lady is buying beads to make a beaded belt for her daughter. These sandals made out of old car tires are the best for walking in the bush especially when it is muddy. That young man riding the motorbike is clearly driving without the benefit of lessons. I carefully keep out of his way. Here is an old man, OleLesinka, a friend from Endulen, wanting to go aside to “eat the news.”

I don't need beads, tire sandals or a new "shuka", the cloth that the Maasai wear toga style, but spend an hour just wandering around saying hello and chatting with people.

Clash of the Warriors

A cool breeze is making for a pleasant evening sitting on the front porch of the mission house. The sun set hours ago and many warriors-to-be are gathered in a nearby open meadow lustily singing the defiant songs of their new age group. The “Sod Busters”, as they are disparagingly called by the Ilkirianga, the retiring age group, are singing of their new role as guardians of the herds and protectors of the Maasai people. Now I hear a band of Ilkirianga warriors approaching, singing their own age group chants. The older boys are bent on dispersing and beating the “Sod busters”, which they do as I sit and listen to the uproar. The gathering of the young boys of the new age group quickly disperses and the melts into the night. They are understandable not ready to take on the much older and stronger young men of the Ilkirianga. The whole exercise seems like so much wasted effort, since the young ones have already won the day. More and more of their initiation celebrations are taking place each week. As warriors, the Ilkirianga are history.

Holy Cow!

I came across this on a WordPress blog by testigoafrica. I don't know whether it is fact or fiction, but it’s a good story…

"La Chica has to share a story that she heard from el chico. El chico is a Maasai from Ngorongoro, a beautiful part of Tanzania famous for its enormous volcanic crater full of an abundance of wildlife. El chico’s dad is a full on Maasai (4 wives, 28 children) and his story is this:

There was a group of 20 morani, who are Maasai men aged between 18 and 35 whose responsibilities are to be courageous, strong and protective of their families and livestock, historically they were also required to fight other tribes to the death when their valuable cattle or goats were at risk. These morani decided to kill a lion, as in the Maasai tradition they would achieve true manhood and warrior status only when they had killed a lion with their spears and lived to tell the tale, with evidence comprising tails, toenails, hide, mane etc. Located on the border of Serengeti and Ngoronogoro (areas protected by National Park status) the Morani had a great choice of live lions to kill (illegally, unless in self defence or protecting their livestock). Imagine their delight to discover a lone lion. With typical Maasai stealth they surrounded the lion and before it could attack or escape they simultaneously released their spears, succeeding in a kill. Little did they know that the lion they had chosen to hunt was the subject of a research project by a European scientist who was tracking the lion through its daily activities. During the hunt, the scientist was hidden nearby, observing the lion, and on seeing such a large crowd of morani, stayed hidden! He had a video camera for his work, which he continued to use, and so captured the kill. He then left the area to report the incident to the authorities, and handed in his video footage as evidence.

Meanwhile, the morani excitedly began to divvy up the lion, cutting it into 20 parts for each morani to show off to their communities to earn their warriorhood status and eternal respect. One morani’s prize piece of the lion was something odd that none of them had ever seen before – it looked something like a necklace as it was hanging around the lion’s neck – how the heck could a wild animal acquire a piece of jewellery?! This ‘lucky’ morani took his part of the kill back to his boma (home) and casually hung it around the neck of one of his cows. (No doubt it was a fascinating talking point and a unique find!).

Soon the European scientist returned to the killing site with the authorities, to find only traces of blood and nothing else of the lion. But this didn’t deter him or the rangers, as they had video footage. But….they also had something else. The scientist has put a tracking device around the neck of the lion, and so they followed the signal to eventually arrive at the lucky morani’s boma where his chosen cow proudly wore the necklace. Ooops….guilty! The lucky morani became the unlucky morani, and he was arrested. In custody he was encouraged to give the names of the other morani, but he insisted that he was the only one who killed the lion, and it was because the lion had attacked his goat. (A story his morani mates told him to tell, so they didn’t get any blame).

Seeing an opportunity to exploit the situation with evidence of the involvement of 20 morani in the killing, the authorities said they would kill the case if the community paid 5,000TZS ($3.30) per morani living in the entire district. As la chica writes this blog, the hat is being passed around, and she suspects that very an official will have enough money to build a nice new house.

The moral of the story? If you kill a lion, for heavens sake don’t take the tracking device with you!"

Population Explosion

I extend a warm welcome to the two most recent additions to our Olbalbal community. If we had a welcome wagon, I’d send it to their “wallow.”

This morning, early risers at Olbalbal village were surprised to see two huge lumbering hippos passing by. They were witnessing, what I am told, is the annual migration of a hippo family from a dam deep in the hills above Olobalbal to the now substantial lake here at Olbalbal. In drought years our lake does not fill, but this year, because of good rains, the lake is full.

I am always amazed and how these huge animals know at great distances that dams are filling up. Near Endulen at Osinoni, there is a football field size dam in a very remote dry area that only fills every few years. Shortly after filling with water, this dam becomes the home of a hippo family. I could never figure out how they knew that the dam had filled. Where did they come from? There is no other body of water for many miles around Endulen.

A Perennial Problem

It has happened again. Two grade school girls here at Olbalbal are pregnant. It happens every year in many of our Maasai schools. The problem, of course, is not unique to Maasai country or to Tanzania. It is a worldwide problem happening in America as frequently as it does here. I guess it has such a local impact here at Olbalbal because we are a small community far off in the bush and our primary school is small. Here getting pregnant has really bad consequences for the school girl. Although theoretically she is allowed to continue her education, usually her chance for an education is finished. Often it is not the girl’s fault. At home peer pressure is very strong. The girls spend time with the warriors and there are very few girls who can take a stand and, in effect, isolate herself from her friends and their activities. The picture is not all dark though. In recent years, the government has taken ever stronger measures to deal with the problem. Although in the past, the girl has been blamed and the boy ignored, now there are some good laws and they are enforced. In the case of our two girls here at Olbalbal, the girls were questioned and they gave up the names of the boys. Police came yesterday and arrested the boys. Hopefully, there will be successful prosecutions that will act as a deterrent for the future.

Dusty Dry Plains

The rains are over and almost instantaneously the plains have lost their rich green color and are becoming brown as the grass dries and dust fills the air.

The hills in the Ngorongoro high country are covered with yellow flowers signaling the end of the rains. It is a very beautiful sight but means that good green grass for the cattle will be harder and harder to come by in the coming weeks and months.

Although the rains have been over for just a couple of weeks, the scarcity of grass is already causing people to move their herds to places that are still green. As the seasons change, it is brought home to me that the Maasai are totally dependent on their environment and must live in sync with it.

Newly Baptized Celebrate First Mass

Yesterday I traveled with OleWandai and Noonkera to the village of Nduyalu Loormoton on the plains. Baptism of his large family was at Easter time an

d we were returning to celebrate Mass for the first time with OleWandai and his family. After the service there were large cups of very sweet tea for everyone. It is good that we went yesterday since soon OleWandai will be moving as the dry season deepens grazing must be found for his small herd of cows, sheep and goats. We’ll have some difficulty finding them for the next visit.

Elephants and a Flush Toilet

Victor, the water person from Ngorongoro Conservation came yesterday with three of his helpers. They fixed a broken pipe unearthed and smashed by our local mastodons. There has been no water coming from the spring to the village and my place for a couple of weeks. Elephants smell water from deeply buried pipe and are expert in digging for it.

Also, they very graciously did some pipe work here at the mission and now there is a two hundred gallon storage tank on the roof and water on tap in my house. I now even have a flush toilet, something I haven’t had the benefit of for the last twenty seven years. I am totally spoiled and living the good life. My thanks go out to Victor, his helpers and Ngorongoro Conservation.

Donkey Solar Attack

Surrounding my solar panel with thorn bushes has not been enough to keep out the donkeys. Every day Maasai ladies come for water and those that live a distance come with their donkeys to carry very heavy five gallon container back to their villages. The donkeys have little to do while waiting to be loaded with plastic water containers. They nose around and get into everything. One blundered into my small living room the other day. Looked around, found nothing of interest and ambled back out. Theirs is a mostly boring job.

This morning, sitting at my desk, I heard the line to the fold up solar panel just outside the window being pulled by something. Fearing a silent high wind attack, I jumped up and ran outside. A curious donkey and somehow penetrated the thorn bush protective fence surrounding my fold up solar panel and become tangled in the line leading into the house through the window. Fortunately, after dragging the panel a few yards, it managed to disentangle itself and made off. No harm done to the hardy solar panel but a wakeup call to build a better fence.

22 New Warriors at dawn

It is the third hour of the night here. In East Africa we tell time in two halves, day time and night time. Each of twelve hours, so it is three o’clock at night here. There is the sound, loud even at a distance of three football fields, of chanting warriors. They are at least a hundred strong and have gathered at the nearby complex of “bomas” to sing through the night. They have assembled to encourage their 22 age mates who will be circumcised at dawn. It will shameful for the boys to show fear during the procedure, where a little cold water is the only pain deadener. At sunrise relatives and age mates will carefully watch for signs of flinching. The stories told of families embarrassed and celebrations spoiled are heart rending…aimed at sending a powerful message …”You better not flinch or even twitch an eyelid.”

New Car On The Way To Olbalbal

Title:Purchase of a Vehicle for Olbalbal Mission, Archdiocese of Arusha / Tanzania

The Toyoto Landcruiser for Olbalbal left Nagoya Japan on the 8^th of June. Exepected arrival in Dar is the 10^th of July.

A Big Step for Olbalbal Teenagers

These days warriors go off to school and during leave time join in the activities of their age mates. But it wasn’t always so. In 1967 when stationed with Fr. Vince Donovan at Loliondo near the Kenya border, Vince asked for my help. He had chosen a boy, Parkurito, to enter the seminary and asked me to talk to the parents and get him ready to go off to school. I was still new to Maasai country and little did I know what a formidable task that was going to be. It seems that Parkurito was a warrior and there were some major hoops to jump through before he could join his secondary school mates. As a warrior he could not eat anything or even take a drink of water without sharing with at least one other warrior. It turned out that the boy must become an elder before leaving for school. He went through a telescoped version of the rites of passage and thus technically became “old”, no longer a warrior. No one batted an eye. This, clearly, wasn’t the first time such a process had been employed. Parkurito’s head was ceremonially shaved of warrior pigtails; he drank milk without the presence of another warrior and ate meat from the cooking fire of his mother. All this accomplished, Parkurito could now go off to school. During leave times though, he could no longer dance with the warriors and girls at celebrations, and although a teenager, he was counted among the old men.

These days, here at Olbalbal, the Ilkurianga warriors are taking a major step in the process of becoming elders. They drink milk, each one individually. The warriors in transition are presented with a milk gourd by their wives or if single by their mothers.

Spiritans Meet

This week, 150 men and women, our Spiritan representatives from all over the world gather at Bagamoyo on the coast of Tanzania. During their month long meeting, they will elect our new leader and make decisions about our work throughout the world. In the picture, Spiritan Bishop Agustine of Zanzabar reenacts the coming of the first Spiritans to Tanzania in 1868.

My Neighborhood

During April and May Wildebeest and Zerbra dot the plains as the move from the Western Serengeti to our neiborhood.

American Wife and Boycotted Circumcision

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.

The Staff of Power and One to Curse

Maasai leaders, “Illeguanak” gathered from far and wide this week to choose the new “Oleguanani Lo Losho”, one of the three leaders of the Maasai of Tanzania. There were no written ballots. Long discussions settled on the articulate, well liked and rich Olendooki. He and lesser kingpins walked the five miles to the village of the retiring Olendioto, the outgoing leader, to “steal” his staff of office. I have learned that there are two knobbed sticks, one is carried by the Leguanani wherever he goes, the insignia of his position. The other, kept hidden in the house of his oldest wife and never seen in public is the “Cursing staff”. Only used in crisis situations to ward of some great malevolent situation or calamity threatens the Maasai people.

Five stalwart warriors carried Olendooki from the entryway of his village to the middle. They carefully lowered his massive bulk in the midst of his bellowing herd of cattle, angry at being held back from pasture, for the celebration. Here Olendooki was blessed by the assembled elders, sprinkled with milk and honey beer from gourds sprouting rich green grass. Olendooki held his staff of office, the other “Cursing staff” now hidden in the house of Ng’to Moson, his senior wife.

It was a very big deal. All of North and most of central Maasai will now call Olendooki their “Spokesman.”. The outgoing leader, Olendioto, who lives just a few hundred yards from my home here at Olbalbal, has become too old for the travel that the job calls for. The new man, Olendooki is also the leader of our Christian community at Ngoile, eight miles from our center.

Joe Shio Will Be Very Hard Act To Follow

Joe Shio, our Spiritan leader here in Tanzania has been chosen to be part of the international leadership team based in Rome. When Fr. Shio took office four years ago, the East African Province had just split into four groups, Tanzanians, Kenyans, Ugandans and Ethiopians. During his tenure, Joe and his able associates have moved us far along the road of mutual understanding and brotherhood. His will be a very hard act to follow.

Disaster for the Wandai Family

Just now, people carried two sheep with their stomachs and entrails dragging behind them past the back door. They were attacked by hyenas minutes ago behind my house here. Attacks are taking place more often as the dry season deepens and the predators get desperate for food. The two sheep belonged to the Wandai family. They have just a small herd of sheep and goats and no cattle. This is a major blow to the family fortunes.

Leopard returns for stolen meal

I was wrong. It was not a hyena that killed the two sheep that I described in my most recent blog. It was a leopard and he showed up last night looking for the meal that was quickly taken from him when the alarm was raised. A few of us were sitting on the front porch of the mission about nine last night and we heard a growl. I directed the beam of my flash light into the almost moonless night. The terrifying eyes of a large leopard were staring back at us. We made some noise and he moved off without his meal that we had made our own some hours before.

Invaded

This week two scorpions invaded my home, two that I saw and stamped on. Who knows how many more are creeping around that I didn’t see. One, I found lurking in the shower and grabbing a heavy book, I smashed him flat. It could have been a her; I did no close inspection and wouldn’t know what to look for anyway. The second was yesterday evening and showed up about three feet from my bed. I was just about to turn in and almost stepped on the thing. Again, a heavy book did the job. These events have gotten me a bit jittery. I’m certain that it is only a matter of time before one of these things gets me. The Maasai tell me not to worry, that they find them regularly in their house and even on their beds. They nonchalantly tell me that a sting from an “enkulupa” is not fatal: it only hurts terribly for hours…small comfort.

Maasai Leader Pictures

The recent installation of the new “Oleguanani lo losho”, the Maasai leader for the whole country, saw me without a working camera. I got my battery charged and took a few pictures. After our Sunday service at Ngoile yesterday, Olendoiki and his family posed for these pictures. The final picture is of Olendooki and four of his five wives, Nasha, Ngoto Dayo, Nolosiyo and Moisan.

Please Note

Due to my very slow internet connection here at Olbalobal, I can’t do justice to my web site and other things like Face Book. I’ve chosen to focus on the web page and leave the others till I get a better connection.

Checks sent to me for the work here at Olbabal should be made out to: “Congregation of the Holy Spirit” with a note somewhere on the check that the help is for Olbalbal Mission. The bank that the Spiritans use will not accept checks made out to an individual person. The address to send the help remains the same: Sandra Grey, 405 East St. Elmo Ave., #318, Colorado Springs, CO 80905

Naishorua graduates Med School

Naishorua OlDumu graduated from Clinical Officer Medical School last week. The road to this day has been long and difficult for Naishorua. She came to me 17 years ago ready to enter grade one. At the mission she was able to attend school and to get medical attention. Her kind of diabetes has required insulin injections and a special diet for all these years. She stuck it out, and after 7 years of primary school, 4 of secondary school, 2 of junior college and 3 of medical school, she will now begin her work as a clinical Officer in Maasai County. A clinical officer here in Tanzania does most of the things an MD does, barring open heart surgery and a number of other small differences.

Help from Taiwan Spiritans

Spiritan Jean Pascal Lombart, and seventeen volunteers from Taiwan spent a couple of days with us last week. They came to hold talks with teachers here at Olbalbal. Fr. Lombart and his students from the University of Taiwan spent two days with our teachers constructing an ongoing program to help our Maasai young people. Out of the discussions came a plan for Taiwanese students to spend some weeks at Olbalbal during the coming year helping our kids with English and Math. There will be a lot of red tape to unwind but we can make this happen. The visit ended with a traditional goat roast.

Torture test for New Car

Olbalbal has a brand new shiny car. After mass here at the mission yesterday, 26 people piled in for the eight mile trip for the second service at Ngoile. New springs and shocks got the torture test. Normally, the car should carry 12 including the driver. Here it is very hard to limit the number of passengers. The final passenger yesterday was a very old lady. On being told that there was simply no more room, she crouched down demonstrating how little room she would occupy. She managed to squeeze in.

Sand and Rocks

The new car is just great. I had a carrier made for the roof to carry stuff the people are always asking me to take along for them, bags of corn and beans together with the occasional goat. Our tracks are rocky and often deep with sand, but the new car seems to take everything in stride.

High School Graduation

Moisan showed up on the front steps of Endulen Mission 20 years ago. Her mother brought her from far in the bush hoping to enroll her in the local primary school. She stayed with us under the care of Mrs. Tropia Mushi. Now, all these years later, Moisan has graduated from high school and is ready to begin junior college. At the celebration last week, Moisan talked of her hopes to become a doctor and work in Maasai country.

Lenkangu also graduated high school last week. Lenkangu showed early on in kindergarden that he would do well in school. As I remember, he was the only student able to count up to 25 in the Swahili language, very different from the Maasai that he spoke at home. Lenkangu is looking for a career in science. Time will tell where he will go with his love of the science laboratory.

I am very proud of these two Maasai young people that I have supported and encouraged over the years. They now prepare to begin junior college next year, and I must look for the funds to enable them to continue their studies.

Blessing of the "Olkuma"

Today I blessed the ceremonial knobkerrie of the new Maasai spokesman. Olendoiki had a bad fall a few weeks ago when getting down from a land rover. He dislocated his knee joint. Till the middle of December, he will have to wear a cast so his travel to settle disputes among the Maasai is put on hold for the time being. He mainly sits in the shade in his village and passes the time in conversation with people that come to visit.

Our blessing was accomplished with prayer, anointing with oil of both the Olendoiki and his “olcuma”, the sign of his office as Oleguanani, and a generous sprinkling of “Engare pus”, water mixed with milk from a the ceremonial gourd. There was plenty of singing and tea afterward.

A few tire punctures aside....

The new car is wonderful. The bad roads that I travel going to the places that I am evangelizing and the heavy loads of people that usually go with me are no problem for the new car. Of course punctures due to sharp rocks are a problem that one has with any car, but changing and fixing tires have been the only tasks we’ve had to keep us moving.

Maasai Girl Graduates University

Narropil Lememakua graduated from Tumaini University in Iringa Tanzania. Narropil has been with me since her very early years coming to the mission so that she could attend school. She started in kindergarten through seven years of primary school, four years of high school, two years of junior college, three years of clinical officer medical training and now three more years of psychology, qualifying her as a counselor and therepist. She now begins her career as a Clinical Doctor and Aids counselor at Salian hospital near Arusha. During her first eight or ten years with me she was under constant threat of being “sold off” in marriage so that her family could reap the short term benefits of the “bride price.” Narropil stuck it out and resisted all efforts to short-circuit her education. Her graduation from university was a very proud day for Narropil and for me. She has now begun to help her younger brothers and sisters as they pursue their education in primary and high school.

It's Raining

The rains have come in a deluge. Two of our neighbors, women going for firewood were taken by by surprise when the churning waters swept down a dry river bed some one a football field distance from the house here. Both women saved themselves by grabbing tree roots. They were lucky. Every year people are taken by the sudden flooding of otherwise dry streams. The lizard in the picture jumped on the rock as the waters rose.

Rains bring out the Dung Beatles

I took some pictures of a dung beetle foraging around in the wet dung after a rain. When I returned to sit on the front porch with some people, they told me this story:

Long ago a woman named Kaipoi gave birth to Senke, a baby girl. Senke grew up and there came warriors from the Ilumbua section of the Maasai to steal her away to their country. They called to her saying: “Come away with us! Here is milk in a white gourd”. Senke replied: “Go away, you are not my mother”. The warriors went away to visit the witch doctor to ask him what they might do to win Senke. The “olaibon” told them that they must stop eating dung beatles as was their custom. Then Senke would agree to go away with them. The warriors went back to the village of Senke but on the path they came across some dung beetles. Unable to contain their hunger, that broke off the legs of the beatles and ate them. On arriving at the village they called the girl as before. “Come away with us! Here is milk in a white gourd”. Senke answered as before: Go away, you are not my mother”. The perplexed warriors went back to the “Olaiboni”. He said: “You continued to eat those luscious dung beetle legs didn’t you”? You must stop! The warriors agreed to avoid their special delicacy and went back to the village of Senke. They called her as before and she immediately left the house of her mother and follow them to their far country. Her mother cried for days saying: “Those stupid warriors don’t understand how difficult it is for a woman alone without a daughter to help her”.

Men abandoning families in Ngorongoro

Women living within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) have decried the increasing wave of men abandoning their families in the area and head to unknown destinations searching for alternative lives as hunger descends into the world’s heritage site. Speaking before the visiting parliamentary committee in-charge of Land, Natural Resources and Environment, NCAA-based women complained about the emptiness in their households as men and youth flee the area.

Nabulu Kolombo is one of the women in Nainokanoka Ward (one of NCAA wards), who revealed that all energetic men have left the Ngorongoro Division, setting out to unknown lands in search of alternative lives.

“Our youth are currently also following suit, crossing the border to Kenya, where they would rather work as night guards or watchmen in Nairobi,” said Mama Nabulu Kolombo.

District Chairperson of the Union of Women in Tanzania (UWT), Ruth Laltaika also pointed out that when it rains, women in other parts of the country plant seeds in their farms and harvest during drought season while in Ngorongoro agriculture is a forbidden activity.

According to Mama Laltaika, the district was still suffering the drought effects of 2009 when hundreds of thousands of livestock were decimated by famine which killed over 700,000 cattle, goats and sheep in Arusha Region.

Ngorongoro is resided by mostly the Maasai people who rely on cattle for their survival and the division which is mapped within the NCAA happens to be a conserved area under strict watch of the United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

“People here are given relief food of just nine kilograms per family of which they are expected to use for six months; imagine nine kilos for six-months and they are not allowed to farm here,” said the Nainokanoka Ward Counsellor, Edward Maula.

He admitted that men and youth are leaving Ngorongoro all together and that the division is only left with women, children and old men.

“Right now the people here have given up hope and are ready to do anything; the government should take note on that,” Mama Maula said.

For his part, Kakesio Village Executive, Saiboko Kimirei said a number of children and old people have died in the area due to hunger related ailments; “It was not ordinary diseases as reports claimed but hunger and just hunger.”

Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee, James Lembeli said the team will take concerns and table them before the next sessions of the National Assembly in Dodoma.

“Our delegations comprises of legislators from all political parties so be rest assured that your grievances will be heard in the right corridors,” he said.

Going Home

After a couple of months in the states, I’m returning to Tanzania next week. Stints were needed in my heart and leg. All that went well and now I’m spending a very blustery week with my two sisters at their place on Lake Champlain in Northern Vermont. There was snow here just a few weeks ago. On the 18thof June, after refueling stops in Rome and Addis Abeba, I’ll be back home Maasai country.

Church Bombing in Arusha

This recent event has brought the growing Christian Moslem animosity close to home. Choose "continue reading" and then the YouTube link to see the video.

Wild Flowers

The rains have been good this year. As the wet season tapers off and comes to an end wild flowers take charge. The depression below our air strip has become a lake and and will the cattle and sheep herds of Olbalbal will drink from it for months to come.

Dusty welcome

Arriving here at Olbalbal yesterday I find the country bone dry. Two months and two artery operations ago the country was green and lush. Now I find myself in a world where there is little grass and thus little milk and the Maasai are struggling. Yet, it is good to be back and to smell the dusty plains of Maasai country.

Boy Caught in Quick Mud

Last night there was some excitement here. A young boy driving his donkey across the plains here to Olbalbal to buy corn was passing near the pond just below us here at Olbalbal. The pool fills with water during the rainy season providing cattle and goats with a place to drink and lasts some time into the dry season. The boy of about 12 sunk into the mud beside the pond while pausing to water his donkey, Slipping deeper and deeper into the mud he was trapped with the sticky ooze almost to his shoulders. Fortunately, people here at Olbalbal heard his cries for help and ran to pull him out.

Olbabal Village Outlaws Strong Drink

Olbalbal is a small trading center for the Maasai on the edge of the Serengeti Plains. In recent years some old men and even some young men of warrior age have begun to hang around the shops drinking and bothering people who come shopping for corn, sugar, tea, cooking oil and other household necessities. In recent months this has become quite a problem, with one young Maasai elder dying of pure alcohol overdose. The local Maasai decided to do something about the situation. They held a series of meetings that resulted in a local ordinance forbidding drinking and the sale of any alcoholic drink locally or factory produced. The step was taken some weeks ago and since then the village leaders have been imposing very heavy fines offenders. If caught, a drinker or a seller of the stuff pays the equivalent of $75, big money here. Just yesterday, two of our government primary school teachers and a young Maasai warrior surprised as they staggered near a shop. Considering the penalty they must pay, they’ll be staggering elsewhere in the future.

Lost and Drowned

Two small boys went missing two days ago. The children were herding the goats and sheep of their Maasai village. Evening saw the goats arrive back at the village without their shepherds. At dawn yesterday, every able-bodied man among the warriors and elders was off searching the countryside for miles around. They search the forest above us as far as Ngorongoro Crater and the plains below to the edges of the Serengeti. Last night all returned without having sighted the lost children. The hundreds of exhausted men promised the now frantic parents they would resume the hunt for the missing boys in the morning. Early this morning, the search was resumed, now focused now on the large lake formed by the rains. This year the lake is huge due to the unusually heavy rains. Feeding it are streams from as far away as Endulen by way of Oldupai Gorge to the West, and Ngorongoro crater in the mountain above us. This afternoon, the boys were found drowned and floating together in the shallow lake. Somehow, they had lost their way in the gathering darkness and stumbled onto the sucking mud flats on the edge of the huge pond.

Arkadiusz Comes to Olbalbal

It has yet to be determined which is easier on the ears of the people, American accented Maasai or Maasai with a Polish accent. Arkadiusz Nowak, a “Society of African Missions” priest, has come to Olbalbal. He will spend a couple of years with me learning the Maasai language. I am doing my best to help him, although I’m mostly finding out how little I know. Arkadiusz is in his early forties and has had a wide range of missionary experience. He worked among the pigmies in the Central African Republic for two years and has been in parishes here in Tanzania, first in the diocese of Mwanza for a couple of years and for the last seven years in the parish of Moita Bawani here in the archdiocese of Arusha.

Here at Olbalbal, besides his language studies, Arkado

has undertaken a number of trips by foot to visit our widely scattered Christian communities on the plains and in the mountains. Due to my decreased mobility, I have only been able to get to places that I can reach by car. Just this week, Arkadiusz, known to the Maasai here by the much more pronounceable “Arkado”, had his first mass in Maasai. The preaching will come along later. It is great to work with someone who is enthusiastic and committed to our Maasai work.

Mutual Concern Not Dead

“Everyone is out for himself or herself these days” is a remark often heard, and frequently made by the Maasai themselves. As elsewhere, some Maasai are adopting this way of looking at things.

This week saw brotherly Concern dramatically played out here at Olbalbal. The youngest age group called derisively by the older boys, InturuEnkop (Sod Busters) met to help an age mate. Lesion fell from the back of a fast moving pick up truck traveling up to Ngorongoro from Olbalbal. The young man was badly injured with a broken leg and multiple head lacerations. As he explained to his age mates gathered in the shade of a tree just below the mission, he will need an operation to correct the damaged leg. The boys deliberated for a number of hours, and then collected the equivalent of about $500 for the operation and related expenses.

The age group just above the “Sod Busters” also had a meeting this week. They met to help a cattle and goat poor age mate to obtain a wife. Under the same tree, the assembled “Karianga” age group collected 30 goats from their members for their wifeless or in the local idiom, their brother “without a cooking fire”.

It is true that the closeness and interdependence of age mates these days is a far cry from what it used to be. In the “old days” a warrior could not even drink a gourd of milk without the presence of an age mate to share it. It seems that in really difficult situations age mates are still very ready to kick in a buck or two to help each other.

Crater Day

Fr. Joe Herzstein is the pastor of Ngorongoro parish. Olbalbal, an hour and a half to the South, is a satellite mission. Joe and I arrived in Tanzania together in 1966. A few days ago, Joe and I took Fr. Brendan Smyth and Fr. Kisuda, one of the members of our Tanzanian Spiritan Leadership team, into Ngorongoro Crater. Fr. Smyth lives in Brussels Belgium and heads up the European Spiritan Fund Raising Organization called “Kibanda.”

It was a beautiful sunny day, a perfect day to roam the crater floor taking pictures of the animals and enjoying the spectacular scenery. Ngorongoro Crater is 20 miles across and some hundreds of feet deep, a caldera created when the top of the mountain blew off some millions of years ago. This day Brendan had the opportunity to take pictures of most of the more well known East African animals, wildebeest, zebra, various gazelle, a couple of huge male lions, and a rhino from a distance.

We were surprised at the absence of elephants at their expected haunt, a small forest near the salt lake, tinged pink by numerous flocks of flamingoes. Disappointed at not seeing any of those most magnificent of the Ngorongoro crater dwellers, we went on to the hippo pond for a delicious lunch of cold chicken and hard-boiled eggs prepared by Joe. Despite having to compete with swooping birds for our food, we enjoyed a great picnic. A couple of massive hippos chose that hour for their mating rituals and vied with the dive bombing birds for our attention.

Awaiting us as we exited the hippo pool was a most incredible sight. Some seventy elephants were grazing on the open plains on the side of the road. They were not spread out but were grazing the prairie grass in compact groups. I had never seen so many elephants at one time. Brendan was able to get some stunning close up pictures.

It was a good day. Brendan is the man that found most of the funding for the Olbalbal car, the Toyota Land Cruiser we used for our crater excursion. He will retire from the fund raising job at the end of this year, so it was a chance for me to say ‘thank you” for the help that he has provided Olbalbal.

Palm Sunday at Olbalbal

Musa

Musa, almost two, has been with us for a year. A year ago, while on high school vacation, Lenkangu Moses was visiting some friends at a nearby Maasai village. Beside the village entrance, he came upon a small child, pathetically thin and crying. Lenkangu was surprised to see this child. Children in Maasai country are normally well cared for by the family and the village. This was clearly not true in the case of Musa. Lenkangu learned that Musa’s mother had died some months before and, at the same time. Maasailand was experiencing the worst dry season in years. In fact, most of the people had moved into the highlands of Ngorongoro taking their cattle into the high country where grass was still to be found. This left Musa with the co-wives of his dead mother who themselves had numerous children. The family gave Musa a small share of the available milk, but it was far from sufficient and the child was slowly starving to death. People had pretty much given up on the infant and expected him to die very soon.

On his return to the mission, Lenkangu told us the story of Musa. We sat talking, wondering if there wasn’t something that we might do to save the dying boy. Naponu is the lady that lives here on the mission and watches the place when the catechist and I go to the villages to teach. She offered to undertake the care of Musa if I would buy milk for him each day. That same day we sought out Musa’s father and told him that we would like to care for the child until he might be in a position himself to provide for his son. He immediately agreed saying that He had given up on Musa and expected him to die.

After getting the approval of Musa’s father we brought the child to the mission to be cared for by Naponu. Musa has been with us a year now and is thriving. He gets plenty of milk and lots of attention. It has taken many months for him to recover from his months of starvation. He still doesn’t walk by himself as do most other children of his age, but his legs are becoming stronger every day, and soon he’ll be taking his first steps. Musa’s father and people of the village come by often to see how Musa is doing.

Easter Sunday Pictures

Lazarus and the "Black Stone"

Earlier this week we had a meeting with the people at Loongoko. The subject of our presentation that day was the “Raising of Lazarus from the dead”. This story always elicits a lot of discussion, and initially draws laughter and derision. How can this fellow (me) expect us to swallow this one? It was bad enough when he came telling us that we shouldn’t hate people of other tribes and even help them when they are in trouble. (That was the teaching around the story of “The Good Samaritan”.) But now he comes saying that Jesus raised someone from the dead. He tells us that Jesus brought a body back to life that was rotting in the tomb for four days. The story of the Good Samaritan was far fetched, but this one about Lazarus is totally weird. Most Maasai haven’t been to school but we’re not stupid!

In the midst of this heated discussion an elderly lady ran up screaming that a woman had just been bitten by a snake. The Good Samaritan and Lazarus were quickly forgotten as we all followed her to a nearby village. We found a terrified woman, whose foot was already beginning to swell. Some one among us had a “black stone” and a couple of small cuts were quickly made at the site of the wound and the black stone applied. A young man of the village quickly wrapped the foot, securing the stone in place. The “black stone” is a remedy that has been around for years. Carefully applied and tightly secured, it very often is quite effective in drawing out the snake poison.

We bundled the young lady into my car together with her mother and husband, and quickly reached the Serengeti road just a mile or two away. A tourist car, headed up the mountain to Ngorongoro Crater, stopped at our frantic waving. They graciously agreed to take the snake bitten woman and her relatives to the government clinic located near the crater. A couple of days later found the woman cured and back in her village. It seems that there was no anti-venom to be had at Ngorongoro but the “black stone” seems to have helped her. Since poisonous snakes are common in Maasai country, we’re never without a “black stone” in the car.

The people of Loongoko are still debating about Jesus restoring to life the man who rotted four days in the grave. We’ll be returning there in a couple of days to talk further of Lazarus.

Dorothy's Party

Dorothy, Arkado’s niece, came to visit and left money for a goat and a crate of soda for an Easter celebration. This week we bought a goat and had a party. Dorothy has been helping her uncle for many years. She aided him in his work with the pigmy people of the Central African Republic, a very dangerous place these days. An SMA mission, staffed by Arkado’s missionary society, was recently attacked. The missionaries and medical volunteers were chased away. More recently, Dorothy helped at his mission not far from the town of Arusha.

Food has not proved to be a problem for our European visitor. She has tucked into our cooking without complaint, if not with relish. Since my recent acquisition of a used frig powered by bottled gas, we buy some goat legs at the twice-monthly cattle market here in Olbalbal. On Sunday and Wednesday, we have goat and rice. On other days it’s beans and “ugali”, a stiff porridge made from cornflower and water. Dorothy arrived with some wonderful polish sausage that we have been enjoying also. I am especially fortunate in that my sister Martha and my sister -in-laaw Sharon send me a care packages from time to time. They provide goodies that make a welcome change from our somewhat monotonous fare.

Dorothy speaks only Polish and has no Swahili or English. Despite that handicap, she seemed to communicate well with the people here, especially the children. Her day job is at a desk at an insurance agency in the city of Warsaw. She takes the bus and subway to work each day, so life here at Olbalbal was quite a change. Here are some pictures taken at our goat roast.

Naponu and her new babby

Tuke drinking some blood

Musa waiting for the roast goat

Roasting goat

Cutting up the roasted meat

TB Meds for Olbalbal

Spiritan Pat Patton operates a flying medical program here in Maasai country. His Cessna with medical staff comes to Olbalbal for a clinic every two weeks and the people welcome the sight of his airplane that promises excellent medical care that day. During the past year, Pat has had two plane accidents that have temporarily left his without an aircraft. This has been very hard on the people here, especially recovering TB patients that need their regular supply of medicine. During the last months, during my monthly shopping trips to Arusha, Pat has given me the needed TB medicine. The much-needed medicine is then distributed by Ndoros, Pat’s man on the ground here at Olbalbal. This situation will soon return to

normal as Pat is receiving a new aircraft during the next few weeks.

Our Spiritan web site <Spiritans.org> profiles pat as follows: Pat has spent twenty years as a bush pilot in Tanzania, the only Spiritan and only priest of four Flying Medical Service volunteers. They provide regular preventive, curative, and emergency health care and health education in areas far removed from ordinary medical facilities. The volunteers fly about nine hundred hours a year using two specially modified Cessna 206 aircraft. Last year they treated 17,554 patients and flew eighty-four emergency flights, treating everything from the common cold to injuries by hyenas, lions, and spear wounds.

Pat shares this story: I was flying with the senior staff of one of the bush hospitals in the country, in all six adults and an infant. Weather was stormy. We were flying on instr

uments. We had a total engine failure at 7,000 feet. No one panicked. We glided down through 6,000 feet of thick cloud till we could just begin to see some patches of earth only a thousand feet below us. We landed in a rice field without any injuries and not a scratch on the airplane. But it took us six weeks to get out. We built a small airstrip and had to drain a swamp to get our makeshift runway dry enough to take off again. We slept in a mud hut, which we shared with a giant monitor lizard and a green snake. Hippos occasionally visited us on the runway. There were crocodiles and pythons in the water around us—through which we had to swim to get to the plane. Ben Wilhelm has some wonderful pictures of the Flying Medical Service at his website: benwilhelmi.typepad.com/benwilhelmi/flying-medical-service

Two Weddings

During the past few days we had a double wedding at our outstation of Lorlmunyi. A double wedding took place high in the mountains above. Arkado went by foot the day before, a

three-hour uphill trek. I followed by car on the day itself. The road is ugly, strewn with sharp rocks and deeply rutted through dense forest. Although it came through the trip undamaged, I feared for the safety of our Toyota Land Cruiser. The heavy rains this year have made an already almost difficult track, just about impassible.

Since wedding celebrations would take place in each of the bridegroom’s villages, the blessing of the marriages took place in the small church. In addition to the traditional exchange of rings, there is the customary necklace of blue beads placed around the neck of the groom by the bride. The groom places a light metal necklace around the neck of the bride. Another unique feature of the Maasai wedding is the liberal smearing of sheep fat on the joined hands of the bride and groom. This is done when the priest says: “What God has joined, let not man tear apart.

For many years, I have been resistant to having church weddings here in Maasai country. I ended up agreeing to do the ceremony, only after much discussion with the bride and

groom. Eventually, marriages often end up polygamous with the taking of a second wife. This puts Christian marriage in an awkward position. The Tanzanian government recognizes traditional weddings that are potentially polygamous, but stipulated that Christian marriages be monogamous. Theoretically, a church marriage that becomes polygamous would be against the law.

There are strong reasons for polygamy among this semi-nomadic people. Maasai life, lived on the edge of survival depends very much on building a strong family consisting of more than one wife and many children. The work of a woman is hard. She carries water sometimes at great distances. She cuts firewood and brings it back to her village. She must care for the children. She looks after the small goats and calves that are left in the village when the herds go to graze. A Maasai woman goes to wherever corn, the staple of Maasai diet, is sold and carries it back home. She milks the cows and cooks the food and, of course, builds her own house. She is the first one to push her husband to look for a second wife, because alone, if she falls sick, the family will falter and is in danger of crumbling.

Asked what role the Maasai men have, it is often said with tongue in cheek, “They deliberate and make the decisions.”

The Coming of The Dry

Just two weeks ago, following an especially heavy rain, parents were out on the plains searching for their young children charged with caring for the flocks of sheep and goats. These

Maasai mothers and fathers were seriously afraid that their children had not survived the solid sheets of water that fell that morning. Coming off the nearby mountains, torrents of water roar along normally dry riverbeds and frequently carry off small unwary animals and even children. These small forms are later found thrown up like rag dolls on the banks of temporary fast-moving watercourses.

Now all has begun to change with the coming of the dry. Like a can of rust colored paint thrown over a lush landscape painting, verdant green is quickly becoming dull brown. It is like the moisture is being sucked from the land by a giant vacuum cleaner. The herds of wildebeest and zebra that dotted the plains of Olbalbal just days ago have disappeared as if they never existed.

The signs of the changing season came suddenly, signed by strong winds and a carpet of purple and yellow wild flowers covering the plains. Then quickly, emerged the brown hues of the long dry season ahead.

Now the land will crumble and the dust deepen. Often I will need four-wheel drive to reach the places that I visit. Water will become ever more scarce and the Maasai women will travel ever longer distances to find it. As the grass dries out and disappears, the Maasai encampments will begin to move in their yearly odyssey to find fodder for the herds.

OleTajeuo stands Strong

OleTajeuo in the suit at left leads the choir bringing the the bread and wine to the altar.

Our Maasai choir here at Olbalbal has gained quite a reputation. We traveled to a few celebrations during the last couple of years and made a huge impression on people.

This popularity is primarily due to Matayo OleTajeuo, their director. He is a great singer and his unique voice stands out among Maasai singers. Due to his growing reputation, our group is being called upon to lend their voices to various Maasai gatherings here at Ngorongoro and beyond. OleTajeuo also composes Maasai music and comes up with unique words and melodies drawn from bible stories and themes for Sundays and feast days.

This popularity has a bit of a dark side to it. With the elections for president coming up next year, a political event took place at Endulen. They asked Oletajeuo and the choir to come and sing at the “feast”. A man from one faction in our area came here to the mission to teach songs in praise of his group. We had an impromptu meeting of the choir on his arrival. It was clear to us that we could not endorse a particular group, even though a good many of our Christians are from its’ ranks. The choir told the visitor that we would be happy to join the celebration and sing our own songs, but we would not sing songs endorsing the

one faction over others. OleTajeuo told him that as a church whose members belong to various factions, we had to remain neutral.

The fellow reluctantly agreed to our reservations and in fact sent cars to take OleTajeuo and the choir to the celebration and to bring them back in the evening. They came back saying that it was a great party, plenty of food and song. They also were clear that they had stuck to their guns, remaining neutral. This incident has caused some hard feelings among some of our Christians who feel that we should have been ready to sing the songs of one group. I am hoping that time will heal the frayed feelings of some.

Bees

Beehives can be great moneymakers. Many Maasai have beehives and reap significant profits from their efforts. A “debe” of honey (about four and a half gallons) can be sold for about $75, a considerable sum here in East Africa.

One finds a suitable dried out tree trunk and cuts a section of about a yard or meter. The next step is to hollow out both sections. The final move is to tie the two halves together with

bark rope and hang the thing up in a tree. Then one waits for the money to roll in; little or no maintenance is required. The major objection to this traditional beehive is that harvesting the sticky stuff destroys the colony of bees, killing much of the workforce.

The modern beehive avoids the slaughter and allows the colony to go on living in the hive, less the fruits of their hard work. On cattle auction day, every two weeks here at Olbalbal, the happy beekeeper sells his honey at a great price and perhaps, buys a good size goat and a sack of cornmeal.

The zinger in this equation is that the beehive must be hung in a place where there are bees. I was surprised to discover that the low country where we live on the edge of the savanna is not one of them. Some time ago, I bought a modern beehive in the hope of providing some income for the mission here at Olbalbal. Setting it up some distance behind the house, I dripped honey on its’ insides and waited for the luxurious new apartment to attract a house hunting colony. It never happened. Six months down the road, I began to think that the American housing glut had caught up with us here at Olbalbal.

Sitting on our front porch with Maporo, a Maasai elder, I casually spoke of my dilemma. This, you will say, is something I should have done half a year ago. Yes, I should have because he told me, with a smile, that bees don’t like this place. Situated as we are on the edge of the plains, there is little for the bees to eat, and no food no honey. Now I’ve decided to give the hive to our recently married catechist Simon and his bride of a couple of weeks. Simon and Nemayani live at Lorlmunyi in the mountains, a place much loved by Ngorongoro bees.

Wife Robbers

The warriors have been holding meetings the past few days on the unlikely subject of “wife stealing”. It is time for the Korianga, the older warriors, to start families and become independent of their fathers and older brothers. They are marrying in large numbers these days. The poorer among them lack the means to give their prospective fathers-in-law the traditional cattle to secure wives. Many shepherd the herds of richer men and in exchange, are promised a daughter of the family after ten or even fifteen years of herding. Others are lucky enough to have a sister of marriageable age to exchange with a family that also has a daughter and is looking for a wife for their son. Still others muddle through by offering a few goats now and more sheep and goats to follow later. In these latter cases, close friendship between the families helps the in-laws overlook the fact that the young man has little or nothing to offer for a wife.

All the above situations have a couple of things in common, the prospective suitor is relatively poor and the father-in-law is not getting much material recompense in exchange for a daughter. This situation provides fertile ground for the abuses that have prompted the recent series of meetings of the Korianga. A man with cattle to spend and unwilling to go through the long process of negotiation for a wife in the normal way, swoops in with his wealth in cattle and “steals away” the wife of a newly married age mate. He approaches the father-in-law of the newly married warrior and makes him an offer of cattle that is hard to refuse. The avaricious father-in-law then takes his daughter away from her husband and gives her to the richer age mate.

The Korianga are reacting strongly to this phenomenon that is becoming all too common. They have gathered from all over the Ngorongoro highlands and are meeting not far from the mission. Since they can do little to stop the practice short of mayhem and murder, they have opted for an equally extreme Maasai solution, “The Curse.” In extreme cases their spokesmen, the “ileguanak,” can resort to cursing an offender, who will not listen to reason after many warnings. The Spokesmen of the age group have agreed to curse the wife robbers. Also, the Witchdoctor has agreed to curse the rich wife hunters. Each age group has it’s own Olaiboni, witch doctor, chosen at the inauguration of the age group.

This now has taken place. The Korianga chose nine of their number, including a couple of their “Spokesmen”. These nine have publicly and solemnly put a fearful curse on any man who would offer a father-in-law a bribe of cattle to break up a marriage and take another man’s wife.

This solution is likely to have some good results. People are very afraid of being cursed, especially by a parent, an age group spokesman, or worst of all by a Witch Doctor, the Maasai Laibon.

Land Fever and A Gold Rush

A fever to acquire land has captured the collective imagination of Olbalbal Maasai. The village elders have opened the way for the local people to request plots of land in our small

village. The process is to write a letter to the town elders requesting a piece of land to build a house, a shop, a teahouse or whatever. Since the number of plots is limited, a fever to prepare letters of application that cannot be refused has possessed many. In the past few weeks the beginnings of structures have popped up in many places around the village. Many don’t seem to know why they want or need a plot, but the fever has gone viral and numerous people are putting in requests. It is clear that the majority of petitioners don’t plan to live in the village, nor do they have the wherewithal to open a shop or teahouse. But this doesn’t seem to make a difference or to slow the hunger for land. The fever is upon us and we need to get a piece of land.

Traditionally the Maasai don’t own land. Their country is the property of all and is freely used by everyone to build their “in-kang’itie”, their villages, and to graze their herds of cattle, sheep and goats. It is a new phenomenon for a Maasai man to “own” a plot of land, something previously unheard of. Maybe this is part of the attraction. Of course, a Maasai woman, having no rights over material wealth be it cattle or land, is conspicuously left out of this frenzy to get a hunk of real estate.

A related story is taking place some three hours drive to the east of us. There are reports that a “gold rush” is taking place in the Sonjo valley. The word is that over 4,000 people have descended on the Sonjo village of Samunge tearing up people’s gardens and most any other place that is dig-able in their manic search for gold. No news has so far reached us that any of the precious yellow stuff has been found.

Samunge in Sonjo is the same place that saw huge crowds a few years ago. People flocked to Samunge in their thousands. Drinking of a cup of brew boiled from a local plant promised miraculous cures of all ailments. The perpetrator of that fiasco was a man called “Babu.” Many people stopped taking their medicines, even those essential for survival, in exchange for the magic drink. Numerous people died and the “brew” was found to be worthless.

Fr. Gerry Kohler, a Spiritan missionary to the Sonjo people for many years, writes: “Back in the 1930s some Brits were looking for gold in the hills behind the Indians shops near Loliondo town. One of the children subsequently wrote a book about life there in those days, before the World War and well before independence”.

So the land rush continues here in Olbalbal and Gerry’s comments leaving me wondering where I might get a copy of the book that he mentions. It would be fascinating to read an account of what our area of North Maasailand was like in the “30’s.

Naponu’s Fat Goat

Naponu lives here on the mission with her children and watches the place during my daily trips to villages for teaching and prayer meetings. She was silent this

morning. Her normal smiling face was suffused with sadness. She was clearly preoccupied with something. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t good. It developed that the fat goat she was preparing to exchange for a heifer had died. Naponu was depending on the hoped-for heifer to provide her children with milk. She has no cattle, not even one. The heifer would have been the beginning of a herd for her family.

It seems that the unfortunate goat had strayed a distance from the rest of the flock into the bush and there was bitten by a snake. A small band of passing warriors came upon the dying animal, slaughtered it and enjoyed a feast. Naponu doesn’t believe it. She says that the warriors came upon the strayed, temporarily unattended goat, and took advantage of the situation. In fact, she has sent her brother, a warrior himself, to find and confront the goat-stuffed warriors. He left early in the morning and hasn’t yet returned.

Generally, the Maasai tend to take this kind situation philosophically. They say that the warriors are the protectors of Maasai country. If there is any threat to a village from cattle thieves or from other tribes, it is the warriors who mobilize and address the threat. If a child is lost, it is the warriors who search the countryside for the missing child. When lions or leopards attack the Maasai herds of cattle and goats, it is the warriors that respond, tracking down and killing the offending cat. They do this, at the risk of being permanently maimed or even killed, something that happens all too often in encounters with lions. So people feel a disappeared, or a snake bit one now and then, is a small price to pay for the level of protection provided by the warriors. Of course, it is usually somebody else’s goat that goes missing.

Some months ago in the middle of a moon lit night, going outside to answer a call of nature, Naponu spotted a leopard just a few meters from our front porch. She made the unique trilling sound that the Maasai make in the face of danger. That sound travels great distances and within a short time a number of warriors had awakened and came running from the nearby villages. They chased the leopard away and stayed around for most of the rest of the night in case the cat returned.

The warriors were and remain today the militia that guards Maasai country, responding to emergencies of all kinds. Their role, as we have seen here at Olbalbal in the cases of lost children and lion attacks, is an important and necessary one. But Naponu is anything but philosophical about her loss. She is happy that the warriors are around and respond to emergencies, but strongly feels that they shouldn’t take advantage of that by randomly catching and eating her goats. She was depending on that goat to get big and fat enough to exchange for a heifer that would develop into a cow and provide milk for her children.

The Woes of a Son-in-law

OleTajeuo, our catechist and song leader, married Neema about eight years ago. Shortly thereafter, Neema’s mother suffered a stroke, paralyzing her left side and turning her into an

invalid. The task of nurse fell to her only daughter. Neema has remained at home taking care of her mother all these years. This situation left OleTajeuo on his own, except for infrequent visits to his family at the village of his mother-in-law. Some time ago, the old lady agreed to come and live here on the mission, enabling OleTajeuo to be with his family, Neema, Lekumok, his son of six years and their two-year-old daughter. After a couple of months, the pull of her home village proved too much for the old lady and she prevailed on OleTajeuo to take her back to her village at Nainokanoka. Neema, her daughter and “nurse,” had to go with her.

Over the years, OleTajeuo has used most of his salary each month to supply Neema’s mother with medicine and fruitless trips to one hospital after another. Along the way, he has slaughtered any number of goats from his small herd to provide rich “soup” and meat for his mother-in-law.

Among the Maasai, in-laws take full advantage of a son-in-law, demanding endless gifts and expecting him to bear the financial burden of dealing with any difficulties that may come along. This is especially true of a son-in-law that has a salary, no matter how meager, and it doesn’t get much more meager than the salary of a catechist.

Recently, the mother-in-law died. Due to the stroke of years ago and other ailments, her health has deteriorated steadily and she passed away. OleTajeuo had been with her for many weeks, first at home and then in the hospital. He has slaughtered goats to give her strength and bought medicines that might be helpful. During her final days, when the old lady had ceased to respond to any medical or traditional Maasai help, he stayed with her in the hospital helping in any way that he could. The long ordeal ended a couple of weeks ago and OleTajeuo returned here to Olbalbal to resume his work as catechist and song leader, but not with his wife.

The final time in the hospital was costly, and after her death the body needed to be transported in a rented land rover back home to her village of Nainokanoka. All this was very expensive and OleTajeuo had no more money. The brothers of his now deceased mother-in-law "lent" him the needed money – about $80 - and now will not allow him to take his wife until he returns the money to them. The total responsibility for their sister fell on OleTajeuo. The irony is that they have a decent sized herd of cattle and goats, whereas OleTajeuo has his very minimal salary equivalent to $40 a month and a few goats. Along with all of this, he already takes care of his own mother and unmarried sister - heavy burdens, all.

This story exemplifies the nature of a Maasai marriage. In Maasai country, marriage is more than a union of two people. One marries the whole family of in-laws. A son-in-law must

shoulder all their troubles. For example, if an animal needs to be sold to enable a father- or mother-in-law to travel to a hospital and get treatment, it is the cow or goat of the son-in-law that will usually be sold, seldom would it be the animal of the in-laws.

A Local Plague

This afternoon I’m sitting on the front porch with Naponu, the lady of my blog of a couple of weeks ago. You may remember that her very special goat “died of snake bite.” A band of

young warriors, who just “happened” to be passing by, took the opportunity to have a goat roast. Now another one of Naponu’s goats has a problem.

We are watching her black and white goat that recently gave birth stagger around our front yard like a Maasai elder on his way home from a honey beer party. The goat is a victim of the disease "Olmilo". This good milk goat was perfectly healthy and producing milk yesterday morning. Last evening she was in trouble, dizzy, disoriented, wandering aimlessly around with a high fever, and bumping into things. This morning, she is dying. “Olmilo” is a plague that has gotten into North Maasailand and is destroying cattle and goats in some numbers.

At the time I came to Ngorongoro 28 years ago it was still a new thing, and people weren't too concerned. They figured that there must be medicine to cure it, and if the medicine were obtainable in Arusha or Nairobi or wherever, it would soon become available in our part of the country. This complacency has long since dissolved. It turns out that it is a “tick-born” disease known by the English name Hartwater. There seems to be no known cure once the animal is infected. The only medicine is preventive in the form of dipping the animal about once a week.

The fact that it can only be dealt with by dipping is enough to strike fear into the heart of the most stalwart Maasai here in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The dips are a disaster. They are under the control of Ngorongoro Conservation and are not maintained nor supplied with cattle dip. In fact dipping is not a viable option for the ordinary Maasai person. First of all, the medicine is not readily available and it is very expensive. To shorten a long sad story, a lot of the medicine is sold on the black market or "magendo" as it is called in Swahili. With a huge markup in price, I'll leave it to your imagination as to how much medicine gets to the dipping tanks. The people, desperate because they see their herds dwindling before their eyes, sell healthy animals to buy the lifesaving medicine. Then, the stuff being so precious, they carefully dilute it to the prescribed ratio of water to medicine and then carefully, with a cloth, wipe it on to the parts of the animals most prone to tick infestation, the ears and under the tail. Fewer cattle die in the herds of those people who have the wherewithal to get the medicine at the inflated prices, but even among those herds, cattle continue to die, since submersion is the only sure way to get to all the ticks.

Among the majority of herds of cattle and flocks of goats and sheep, which have no access to the medicine, the situation is very bad. Even when some barrel or other of medicine does find it's way to the dips - and this, surprisingly enough, does happen from time to time - " they must pay for each animal that goes through the dipping tank. Most of the people find this prohibitive as large numbers of animals are involved and they must be dipped every seven days.

Naponu does buy as much dip medicine as she is able and applies it as often as she can. It helps but now and then she still loses an animal to “olmilo.” Naponu’s goat is doomed – It looks like we’ll be having a goat roast in a day or two.

Lenkangu off to Teacher Training College

Developing leaders takes on a special urgency in Maasai country where there is massive pressure from non-Maasai and more sophisticated people. These are after Maasai land and water for purposes of cultivation. The Maasai of Ngorongoro, where there is no cultivation, face other pressures, hunger among them. Only educated and articulate Maasai can reverse this situation. Fr. Gene Hillman began our Spiritan Education efforts in the 1950’s.

I use the resources that I can beg from my Spiritan family, friends and acquaintances, to educate Maasai girls. Maasai parents are more ready to help their sons. With the boys, families have a hope of help once their sons complete their education and find a job. The girls, on the other hand, provide an infusion of cows and goats upon their marriage and sending them to school puts that windfall off for many years.

Sending Lenkangu, a boy, to school was a departure from the usual group that I help and, as it turned out, a good move. Lekangu’s mother came to me fourteen years ago asking for help to educate her son. The family was without resources, their cattle decimated by the cattle disease known to the Maasai as “Olmilo” that I talked about in my blog of a week ago.

I was able to get a substantial reduction of the fees at Arusha Modern School, an English-medium school near Arusha. Enrolled there, Lenkangu attended kindergarten (1 year), Primary School (7 years) and Secondary School (5 years) at that very good school.

Now having graduated from Secondary School, Lenkangu wants to return to Maasai country as a primary school teacher. It is almost unheard of that a secondary school graduate would choose to

be a teacher. The pay is low and the living is difficult. Most choose more lucrative careers connected one way or another with business. I have told Lenkangu that I would do my best to provide some help toward whatever path he might choose. To my delight, he has chosen to be a teacher in Maasailand and to cooperate with me in facilitating the education of Maasai young women.

Lenkangu talks sadly of the sorry state of schools in Maasai country. Generally they are poorly supported and lack books and other teaching materials. Getting their kids to school is far down a list of a Maasai parents’ priorities. Anything can take precedence over the attendance of their child at school. Even something like a mother needing help to cut firewood can prevent a child from showing up for classes. Once at school, a child in a Maasai school spends little time in class. The teachers don’t want to live in the bush and busy themselves writing letters to the education authorities asking for transfers to schools in or near towns where there is access to shops and sources of diversion. Most teachers in Maasai country start some kind of business near their school and are much more concerned with that than spending time in the classroom with their students. Another perennial problem is the salaries. In addition to being quite low, they often arrive months late, making it difficult for a teacher to buy even the food he or she needs.

Years ago, teachers were held in very high regard. The title most used for Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania and Father of the nation was “Mwalimu”, the Swahili word for teacher. In the early days after independence, teachers were the ones chosen for responsible government posts. Now, given the sad state of our education situation, few are ready to undertake this thankless and

Lenkangu will begin his two-year course on July 9^th at Arusha Teacher Training College. It is a two-year program and will enable Lenkangu to teach primary school. Once he qualifies, our plan is for him to work with me during leave time and evenings if possible, to provide supplementary study in English and Math for Maasai students. My hope is that eventually, with upgrading courses, Lenkangu will find himself in a position to influence the education situation in Maasai country.

A Time for Feasting

Feasts are taking place all over these days as families celebrate the transition to warrior-hood of their sons. It is also the mid-year school break so those boys that attend primary or secondary school

are home for a month providing time for them to be circumcised. Each family puts on the most sumptuous feast they can. Naponu, the subject of my recent blogs, slaughtered two goats last Friday for the circumcision of her son, Tetia. This is in contrast to the blowout celebration staged yesterday by Shaudo, one our Christian leaders and the richest man around. He slaughtered six oxen and seven goats to feed the many hundreds of well-wishers gathered to celebrate the transition rites of the twelve boys of his family.

A new age group opens about every sixteen years. All the boys circumcised during the time that the age group is open are members of that age set. Traditionally the members have a very close bond and help each other in difficult times. An example of their closeness and interdependence is food. A warrior is not supposed to even take a drink of water alone. He needs to be with an age mate and share the cup with him.

At Naponu’s celebration for her son, we had a good meal of roast goat and rice together with family and friends gathered for the party. Shaudo’s celebration by contrast was amazing. Happy crowds gathered for his feast. Warriors and young girls were dancing and singing in one place. In another, women in great numbers were singing their songs of happiness at having children or laments for lack of them.

The day before, the boy’s heads were shaved and even their eyebrows are carefully removed. Circumcision s

March 23, 1966