Maasai Adventures

Upper David Shepley spent two months of this past summer in a remote campsite in Tanzania with an organization called the “Tanzania People and Wildlife Fund.” He lived with the Maasai people and kept a journal in efforts to later share his experiences, and this is the first of his series of journal entries.

These entries explore Shepley’s cross-cultural experiences with the Maasai community, his participation in their cultural and tribal traditions, daring encounters with deadly local animals and observations about wildlife conservation and community development in the region.

Shepley has decided to share his accounts with the Exeter community. He believes that they will provide exciting experiences that will educate the community in the rich and famous culture of the Maasai. He also hopes that his journal entries will encourage and inspire other Exonians to pursue similar opportunities.

I am in an incredibly intimate and special place that very few foreigners ever experience.

After lunch, I sat on a log with my Swahili phrasebook to try to learn some phrases until I was joined by a Maasai elder and a young Maasai named Selas, both of whom were interested in looking through my journal. They started helping me with vocabulary and pronunciation, and we talked about religion through a translator. This is when I found out that the Maasai are very Christian even though they adhere to the Maasai culture, which includes a norm of polygamy. He also told me that, in the Maasai tribe, the men always eat first by themselves while the women wait in the boma, a brush hut, until the men finish. When the men are done eating with the warriors, they process back into the boma to begin their celebratory dancing. The dance consists of one Maasai singing a call and response chant while the rest of the tribe stands in a circle and sings back.

Selas started to take a liking to me and walked me to the dance. We were holding hands, of course, which is their cultural sign of friendship. We probably held hands for close to two hours, but because it was such a common thing to do, it didn’t feel out of the ordinary. I was simply grateful to have befriended a Maasai.

As best as I can describe it, the Maasai dance consists of moving your shoulders up and down while shaking them back and forth. This was actually very difficult because I had to keep with the beat of the song. During the song, we jumped in a circle before crashing to the ground as one. We then joined the circle again and repeated the cycle for hours. Selas described the movements as “answering the call of the song.”

I learned that all the songs are about giving thanks, whether it be for wives, food or brotherhood. The Maasai hold thin staffs in their right hands like rifles when they jump. Without the staff they aren’t allowed to enter the circle. When the women joined in the dance they were not allowed to jump, but they could still do the shoulder dance. From my perspective, it looked like a full body “twerk” and they maintained this “twerking” motion for longer than I could remember anyone else being able to dance for. These movements seemed to excite the men. The way they got close to the girls’ faces and tried to size them up made it seem a little like a mating dance. Several times, I “answered the call” and went into the circle to jump with the Maasai. It was intimidating because I was surrounded by fifty Maasai warriors, and, as a foreigner, I felt out of place. However, everyone assured me that they would like it. As it turned out, they did, and the Maasai acknowledged me with hand shaking, laughter and what I hoped were words of approval in Maasai.

Eventually, Selas took me from the dance to show me the rest of the boma on a private tour. He spoke English fairly well, so we could hold a simple conversation, but I realized that it would be better to say less and enjoy our silent friendship. He introduced me to the village elders and led me into a hut—I was not sure if it was his. I was offered a Sprite and sat in the hut with him and some other Maasai to relax and “talk” a little. The reason I put talk in quotes is because, it was not really talking but more saying a couple words and then sitting together in silence and taking in each others’ presences.

I tried my best to use the two Maasai words I had learned. “Thank you” and “Hello,” which are pronounced ashay naling and soapye, respectively. I was surprised at the Maasai’s friendliness to foreigners despite their evident pride of being a people who retain very special traditions and lifestyles. I did my best to show them that I wanted to embrace their culture, whether it be drinking milk from the calabash or taking part in the jump dance, despite how bad I was at it. This celebration went from about 6 a.m. until we left at 4:15 p.m., at which point the celebrations were still going strong.