Maasai Village at Amboseli continued. July 21, 2017

I ran out of room on my last post, so we continue on here.  We crouch down low and enter the hut.  The hut is basically three rooms, a kitchen, a sleeping area, and another area with the pails.  I wasn’t sure what was in the pails, water maybe?  The sleeping area was behind the sticks in the photo with the fire.  The bed was a piece of cow hide, it looked really small as the Maasai men were pretty tall.  Not as tall as Steve, but Steve is six foot two.  The Maasai practice polygamy, I’m not sure if both wives would be in one hut or not.  If they did, I can imagine difficulties in such small huts!  After our tour of the hut Sally spied some baby goats.  They were adorable, only a few days old.  Some if them had their umbilical cords still attached!  Everyone held them but me.  All I could think about was immigration authorities asking me if I had any contact with wildlife.  I can’t lie, and I didn’t want to be put in an awkward situation.  ​After we played with the goats it was time to get the hard sell of Maasai trinkets.  I didn’t realize we were supposed to bargain, and overpaid.  I didn’t want to make any if the wives selling jewelry feel bad, and only bought some if what I was wearing from the greeting ceremony.  I should have been more picky as one if my necklaces was pretty beat up and missing parts.  I was planning on giving them to Sally, this way she was going to easily warn her students to be careful as one if her prior groups of students broke the necklace.  I never said I couldn’t let others lie, I just wouldn’t lie!  

We entered the school house after the hard sell of trinkets.  The kids were adorable, here is the tail end of th​eir version of the ABC song.  Sorry, I didn’t get the whole thing, I didn’t act quick enough.  Afterward we were asked to sign up to get on the email list and to donate funds for the school. As we overpaid for the jewelry and other souvenirs, I declined. The money all goes into one pot anyway.  There was a backpack smashed on the floor, I’m not sure how much education these kids got beyond the song.  By now we were happy to leave, between the hard sell, the knowledge of polygamy, male circumcision at thirteen and the female genital mutilation, it was an interesting but uncomfortable morning.  

Author: lindalant

Lover of luxury travel. My husband and I are retired and are traveling meeting people and having excellent adventures. LindasExcellentAdventures.com is my blog site.

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