Wild beasts, wondrous colors, warm friends:
Cheney's Kenya
by Cheney Ravitz
Photos: Sally and Larry Ravitz
Maasai is spelled with “maa” because of the Maa culture and language. Maa is spoken by the Maasai. Swahili is their second language. In Kenya, there are 42 tribal languages like Maa, but the official languages are English and Swahili. Many people speak English because Kenya was once ruled by England, but sometimes you hear French, Spanish, or German because people come from Europe to live or travel in Kenya. The Kenyan government chose shillings as the currency because of its past with England.
 |
The Kravitzes were welcomed to Kenya by Sironka and his family. "Our Maasai friends love to laugh and joke," Cheney says. |
Our Maasai friends came to America last year, and they invited us to visit them in Kenya. Our visit began when we flew from Delhi to Nairobi, and then went by car to the Maasai town of Kiserian. Nairobi was crowded and had lots of cars and high-rise buildings. Kiserian was less crowded. The streets were dirt and the buildings were low.
Our friends’ house is not the typical Maasai house. The normal Maasai house is a hut made out of sticks and cow dung, which might smell when it’s wet. They let it dry because you can’t have a wet hut weeping a bad cow smell! Our friend Sironka built a cement house for himself and his wife and children, and another house for his mother and grandmother.
Sironka is married to Seleina. Her nickname is “Her Majesty.” Kenyans usually marry at a younger age than Americans. Our friend Agnes was 12 when she married. Now she is 24 and has 4 children. Her nickname is “the Milk Lady.” The Maasai warriors that came to our house had nicknames like “No Problem” and “No Problem at All” and “Hitchhiker.” Our Maasai friends love to laugh and joke.
There is a toilet in Sironka’s house, but they are trying to save water, so in the daytime, you use the outhouse. The inside toilet is only used at night. When you take a shower, you use a bucket of hot water. Water is scarce and expensive.
It’s pretty good to be a cow in Kenya. Cows are valued and respected. Each of Sironka’s cows has a name. The Maasai don’t kill their cows — They let them have a nice long life, giving milk. The Maa culture is unusual because they drink milk and blood, which to Americans sounds really weird. They use an arrow to pierce the cow’s vein. This doesn’t hurt the cow. They get a little gourd to catch the blood and they mix it with fresh cow milk. One of my friends actually tried milk and cow blood and told me that to him it tasted like smoke from a fire.
|
There were more cows in the Maasai towns and villages than there were in Nairobi. They were behind gates connected to homes, not roaming around. Cows are like money to Maasai. The more cows and goats you have, the richer you are. If you have extra money, you buy an animal. |
Detail of Maasai beadwork. |
Maasai art is pretty. Sironka’s art is great! He paints on cloth. It’s called batik. The women make jewelry with beads. Maasai art can be flat or 3-D.
 When we went on a nature walk in Nairobi National Park we learned that giraffes got their scientific name because at first it was thought that they were a mix of camel and leopard. Camels and giraffes look alike with their long necks and funny faces. The giraffe and the leopard have a similar pattern on the body. The giraffe’s scientific name is Giraffa camelopardalis. It is the tallest mammal on the planet.
I also learned that the eye of the ostrich is larger than its brain! An ostrich is very powerful. It can run 70 kilometers per hour (about 50 mph) and can kill a lion with its strong kick.
For me, Kenya was interesting because it has so much exotic wildlife. I am still amazed at what I saw. We saw lots of colorful birds, like the lilac-breasted roller. Its head is bright pink and its belly is a wonderful shade of blue. I will never forget this bird. We saw a lion eating a freshly killed pregnant wildebeest, a serval cat mother and baby nursing, an elephant mother and baby nursing, a jackal waiting his turn to pick over a dead zebra, a warthog family running, all with their tails straight up, a newborn zebra learning to walk (he was very clumsy!). I will never forget any of this.
I want to go back to Kenya for two reasons: I want to see my Maasai friends where they live, and I want to see the animals in the wild again.
Want to read more about Kenya? Cheney's sister Irene gave us her travel diary, too!
No comments have been posted to this article.
Want to post a comment to this article? Click here.
|
