Village visits

Mambo!

Yesterday and today were spent traveling to Maasai villages. Ellen and I really enjoyed our time at both villages; here are some details of each.

Saturday's visit was good, but long. We left LJS around 8:00 a.m. to travel to a village with Pastor Hafermann. Along the way, we had to stop in town to do some shopping for a friend of P. Hafermann's. So by the time we got to the village, it was around 11:00 a.m. The Maasai don't have a sense of time like we do, so the worship service that was supposed to start at 11:30 a.m. actually started around 1:30 p.m. Once we arrived, we were served tea and then given a tour of the village, as well as the thirty-foot deep well that had just recently been finished. The construction of the well sounded pretty spectacular; apparently the men would drop down into the well to lay each brick and then be lifted back out at the end of each day. This was all done with a rope and pure human power. Amazing! It was also very interesting to see how progressive the village is...they own about one hundred acres of land and lots of cattle. The service didn't get done until about 4:30 p.m., mostly because there were sixteen baptisms that took place. We were then served dinner following the service which included the usual rice, cow liver, and gravy. One of the observations that Ellen and I made was that if we had been born and raised in a Maasai village, we would most likely be married with three children by now. There were new mothers that were middle school and high school age; that is something that neither of us can imagine!

Today we visited another village and the worship service took place in a church, which was complete with a cement altar that had finished tile all along the sides. It was very nice compared to what we've seen so far and it is mostly due to the pastor/church elder of that church being very wealthy. We ate outside of his house following the service and were served the usual meal (rice, cow liver, and gravy) by the warriors. We never get to eat with the women because they eat separately from the men. And the children eat last because they get what the adults don't eat. After our visit we stopped by another village to pray for a woman's daughter who was being taken away that day to be married to a warrior of another village. After praying for the daughter, we made one last stop at another village to pay respects to a family who had lost a loved one. Unfortunately, because the family was so grateful that we came, they served us another full meal of rice, cow liver, and gravy. We didn't want to be rude, so we ate what was given to us, and I don't think I could have taken in one more grain of rice following the meal. It was very cool, however, to see how generous the Maasai people are and how meaningful it is to them to treat each guest as best as they can.

We had a great weekend that was full of wonderful experiences and many chances to meet awesome people. Tomorrow we have a day of classes at LJS and then on Tuesday and Wednesday we are off to Mikumi National Park to go on a safari!

Hoping you all are well,

Laura