Our Sunday outing to our guards’ nyumba, or Maasai boma, was quite the experience. We were met by his six children, wife, uncle, sisters, nieces, nephews, bibis (grandmothers) and neighbors. We had chai twice during the hottest part of the day, a tradition for most visits. We also brought oil, rice and a futbol (soccer ball) to the kids. The huts made of cow dung, mud, and water are a dark grey color like an overcast winter sky in Gettysburg. Most of what we saw in the boma has not changed for hundreds of years. A fence for holding cattle is formed in a circle, made of acacia limbs with 3 inch-long thorns. The huts are round, smooth-walled, with steep thatched roofs. The rooms are very dark, windowless and small. We ducked our heads to enter a very different world. The walls are of the same dark grey material. The floors are a packed, smooth, hard sort of clay. In one room there was a newborn infant sleeping near a smoldering fire. Fires are simply a triangle of rocks on the ground. There is no vent for the fire. The men always proudly showed us their beds, covered in layers of scraped cow hides. Was this a confirmation of their virility? Women slept in a different bed with two or three watoto sleeping beside them.

We also wormed 25 goats and as many of the cows as we could catch. It was a Maasai rodeo! They chased a cow down and grabbed it by one front leg and hold on. Our Maasai friends are making jewelry for us. If you want anything like what you see in the photos, let me know and I’ll bring some home for you.