The Maasai are one of East Africa’s pastoralist peoples found around both Nairobi and Arusha. These people are a very interesting breed; they don bright red and blue attire and possess lots of cattle. The Kikuyu are constantly laughing at the Maasai for being “primitive”. They laugh that many Maasai politicians discourage their tribe mates from sending their children to school while they the politicians are not only sending theirs to school but to schools abroad. Come election time, the politicians use the illiterate populace to win votes, only to discard them til the next elections. A few years ago, there was talk in Nairobi of a court case in which the Maasai were suing Her Majesty the Queen’s of England’s government, for so called atrocities committed by the British soldiers against the Maasai. In the end, the Maasai were awarded hefty sums of money. Being villagers, they had no bank accounts but these were soon opened in Nairobi. And the guys were duly issued with plastic cards (most probably VISA cards). With lots of money stashed in the Maasai’s accounts, the villagers they began frequenting Nairobi in order to withdraw the “God sent” cash. Now, as they trekked to the big smoke, they were exposed to many new aspects of life. For instance, many of them had never ridden in a car, they had never watched TV, never gone in a lift (I mean the gadgets that take people up and down the tall buildings in towns). Now, the Maasai guys went to town and bought huge television sets. They transported these to their remote homes some as far as 200 kilometres from Nairobi. The distance in itself wouldn’t have been a problem, but the special ingredient necessary for the functioning of any television set, the “umeme” (electricity) is more myth than reality in these remote rural areas of East Africa. The rest you can only guess! The useless television sets had to go back to Nairobi. When they eventually got to Nairobi, they expressed their dissatisfaction and it was agreed that they should buy generators to. In the end, they bought the generators and were instructed on how to use them. Off they went, and truly, the magic machines worked miracles, the television sets came alight. Their joy was, however, short lived; the generators eventually ran out of fuel. Now, not wanting to be labelled primitive, the guys went back to Nairobi and purchased several generators, whenever one ran out of fuel, they would throw it away and turn on a new one. Before long, the Kikuyu heard of this; picking up the thrown away generators, they refuelled them and sold them back to the unsuspecting Maasai. This is a really tantalising story about my fellow villagers, for that matter, I have decided to go and have a first hand opinion on these brothers. Who knows, we could have a lot in common! I suppose, the next time you read this column, I will be writing from one of the manyatas of the Maasai. Contact: Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm
