On our way out of Ngorogoro Crater, our safari guide asked us if we'd like to visit a Masai Village. We admit that we're fascinated by the Masai--even though a lot of the fascination comes from slightly to grossly exaggerated accounts about their way of life i.e. their drinking of cow's blood (it's mostly true), the gory initiation rites for young men (also mostly true), and their reputation as the last tribe to hold out against modern culture (kind of true).
When we found out that the going rate, per person, to visit the village was about $60 (prices vary depending on how many photos you want to take, and whether you want them to dance for you or not) we politely declined. Also, I felt conflicted about participating in this highly lucrative and questionable practice of a proud people parading their culture in front of gawking tourists and their fancy SLR cameras.
In the end, we convinced our safari guide to take us to a village only to see if we could pick up some jewelry and crafts as gifts.
The village was made up of a few simple mud huts, built low to the ground. A pen for livestock surrounded by a fence of straw and wood stood smack in the middle. Many of the women were off fetching water or firewood--we could hear them singing as they set out. We knew that most of the young girls and boys were off tending cattle--the one true love of the Masai. On our way down to Ngorogoro, we had seen three young girls, guarded by one slender boy with knife, leading a herd of cattle to water in the crater.
As for the men, the most privileged members of the village, they followed our every step, asking us in perfect English how much we wanted to spend and whether we had any Euro. No Euro, only shilings I said. We kept trying to show off our Swahili and they kept trying to show off their English.
Confession: Because we cared not to pay money to take pictures in the village, we've had to "borrow" the two posted here--from some nice people at SFU in Canada.
No comments:
Post a Comment