Thursday, October 28

 Well, these past few days have certainly been interesting!  As soon as I arrived at the boma, my sister Nyini stripped my down and redressed my as a Maasai woman, complete with tons of jewelry.  Nyini led me around and she pretty much never left my side.  The Maasai have no concept of personal space.  We slept together, collected water and firewood, beaded jewelry, ate from the same bowl, bathed together, and went to the bathroom together!  She went to primary school, so she speaks Kiswahili, but no English.  Most people only speak Kimaasai, so I was lucky to be able to speak Kiswahili with someone.  I was so proud to be able to get by without English for 4 days!  I learned how to carry water and firewood on my head, to bead jewelry, to milk a goat and a cow, to spread fresh manure on the house to patch holes, and to sing and dance at the Esoto.  It was really funny to see the looks on the tourists’ faces when they saw an mzungu Maasai!  Each evening a huge dust storm would sweep through and we got caught in two while collecting water.  I couldn’t see, hear or breathe!  The first day it was accompanied by a rain storm.  The rain was blowing horizontally and felt like hail on my face!  When we crossed the river, the water was blowing upriver and it was like walking underwater!  At least there was a beautiful rainbow!
 The families ask that we take picture while we are visiting as compensation instead of other gifts.  Baba Jack’s friend who is a National Geographic photographer was so jealous to hear that we have free reign to photograph Maasai for 4 days!  Everyone wants their picture taken, and many of them have probably never seen themselves in a mirror before.  The kids go crazy whenever they see a camera.  It was really hard to take good pictures, because people would insist on posing, or kids would swarm and push each other away, or someone else would grab my camera away.  No one knows how to take pictures- they don’t understand that you can move to get a better angle or distance.  It was fun for awhile, but it got really frustrating!  I learned so much from this, and I’m sure I’ll write more stories later.  But, for now, it is nice to have some space to myself and some food other than rice, ugali, and beans.