The classes have started in earnest now, so we spend about five hours a day in lecture. The chumba (CHOOM-ba) is our main hall so we have lectures, meals, and meetings there.
(Left) After lecture today, the students and staff started an impromptu soccer game in front of the chumba. The cloud of dust will obscure the field enough that the players will lose the ball and run right into bushes. It's really quite fun to watch.
Today, we went to a local Maasai boma (homestead) as part of our afternoon lecture. We were greeted with a song by the "mamas" of the village (about twenty of them). We returned the greeting with a call and response song some of the group had learned at summer camp about a moose drinking juice. There were lots of hand gestures and giggles (on our part), but it seemed to be well received as they started clapping before we had gotten through all the verses. I suppose that also could have been a desperate attempt to get us to stop. We were allowed into the houses and went to a "market" that the mamas had set up for us outside of the boma. We asked a lot of questions through a translator and tried to play with the children. One of our staff members, Daniel, is Maasai, so he explained a lot of the traditional customs and helped us negotiate prices with the mamas.
(Right) The circle of mamas with their beaded necklaces, carved masks, wooden-handled knives, and colorful fabrics.
There are many more pictures to post, but the internet here allows me to upload about two an hour, so they will come slowly. I tried to upload a video of the mamas greeting us, but it was a little too much for the connection. Something for you all to look forward to when I get back.
6 comments:
Your dad called the minute he saw your post--talk about how fast word gets around. From the chumba to the mamma like lightning. The pictures are wonderful; it's great to have a sense of where you are. Now we just need to persuade the Oceanside crowd to join the crazy blogging fun. After all, if Hilda can... OXOXOXOXO
Mary!
Sounds marvelous - we will all be living vicarioiusly through you and wishing we were there all except for the bit about the mamba spiders! Would be neat if you could pull together a blog that all in camp contributed stuff to - would make a great record of the trip. Can't wait to hear more...
Kris
Ignore the typos :>)
Kris
I'm sure it was applause for your moose juice song. How could it not be? The pictures were very interesting, with the colorful fabrics and accessories. Playing soccer sounded like a fun break from the lectures.
I love the pictures, and especially how if you zoom in on the soccer game you can see a row of students with their laptops open. Ah, the universal dependence on technology.
But really, it sounded like an amazing experience to mingle with the Massai women. Did you feel like you were intruding or like both sides were genuinely interested in the interaction?
It felt like both sides were interested. The SFS site has been here for almost eight years, so that particular boma has been exposed to SFS students before. It did feel a little bit like an intrusion, but that certainly didn't come from them because they couldn't have been more welcoming. The woman whose house I sat in was the one answering our questions and she seemed happy to be explaining things about her culture. Unfortunately, the Swahili that we've actually been taught is pretty minimal and we're in a huge group of Americans all the time, so the language barrier makes everything more awkward.
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