After a full day of driving we arrived at Lesoit(City)
village. During the trip Mrs. Askew taught us how to greet in Maa. So after a
little practice during the trip I exited the car into the pitch black, moonless
night to be greeted by tall dark silhouettes.
I Crashed and burn my Maa entrance exam, but the rest of greetings were
said in Swahili. We all sat outside the Maasai Boma (house) Chris and I would
live in for the following two weeks and drank chai maziwa; A milk based black
tea lightly spiced with cardamom and ginger I think. As we drank tea Chris and
I were acquainted with Paapaa, Juma, Mary and a few others that resided in
Lesoit. Being bad with names it would take me some time beyond our initial
acquaintance for me to keep faces with names. After tea we were introduced to
our new living quarters; a mud and dung exterior with a stick foundation. The
boma was decorated with, goats, chickens, roosters and a cabinet constructed
from wood planks. Chris and I got
settled in and prepared for bed- a large wood frame with hay under a goat skin
all of this under a large cover. We threw our sleeping bags over the bed and
hit the hay (literally). The next morning we’d experience our first goat
slaughter.
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| (from the left) Juma- kneeling, Chris, Paapaa, and me leading the goat out of the village |
We woke up around 7:30 in the morning for chapattis and chai
maziwa. After breakfast we went on to prepare lunch. Frank and the others led
out a single goat from his boma. It would be slaughtered in honor of Chris and
my arrival to the village. We all began to walk out of the immediate village to
the area the slaughtering would take place. Chris and I led the goat as it
struggled to escape. Oddly enough it seemed to have an idea of was going to
happen next. It would spontaneously turn around from my direction towards the
village in vanity. The whole scenario became uncanny as the rest of the goats
back in the village began to bleat as if they were in the know as well.
Regardless we continued about 70 yards
out of the immediate village. The traditional Maasai goat slaughter is on the
more humane side; the goat is traditionally suffocated then harvested. But, due
to the presence of our Muslim driver Tano who would be eating with us, the
ceremonial goat’s throat would be slit. The goat was laid on leaves cut from a
tree, one man held it’s horns, another secured the goats feet, and a warrior
took out his simu (a small machete like knife) and began cutting through the
goat’s neck. It’s body began to writhe in struggle for it’s life for nearly a
full two minutes until it went limp. A gaping hole now encompassed the goat’s
neck, the men around us began the process of harvesting the goat. The rest of
the afternoon was dedicated to skinning, cutting, and eating the goat. No part
of the goat was wasted Chris and I sampled nearly every part from the face to
the liver. To quench our thirsts we drank a sort of soup that was created from
combining a wood known to contain medicinal attributes and meat. After a long,
filling, and drawn out lunch we set out to tour Lesoit Village (city).
The entirety of Lesoit is comprised of smaller villages or
Kraals owned usually by the man of the
family. The size of the Kraals are determined by the quantity of wives and
cattle a man had. A larger Kraal usually had multiple bomas, wives, and (as one
could imagine) children to the tenth degree. To the Maasai there is no greater
importance the children, it equivocates to wealth. The children, excluding
those that attend school, take care of the life stock of their father so the
structure of Maasai life never collapses. Frank’s Kraal was named Cha’ ngombe
(many cattle) and was on the smaller side due to the fact that Frank has yet to
take a wife. As we walked through the sandy bush land of Lesoit we saw the it
was like walking on mars, seeing the large candelabra trees, the massive sisal
plants tower over me It was nothing that I was used too.
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| Three of the five secondary school class rooms. |
As we toured the
village center which was surrounded by the primary and secondary schools we got
a peek into Maasai student life. Campus included
a small store which sold snacks and pop as well as a soccer field and what
seemed to be a basketball court… After the tour we laid under a tree after sipped sodas until the sun passed and the
shadows grew long (around 6:30) then headed back to the village for dinner to
close our day.
