Wednesday morning, Peter, a Maasai man came into speak to our class about the Maasai. We learned a lot of interesting things over the course of the morning. In the afternoon, I did more yoga and then did some additional exercising.
Thursday, we went to a Maasai cultural boma and learned about Maasai traditions and culture. I have been waiting to learn about Maasai culture. They are all across the area near us. When we first got there, the Maasai guides gave us all Maasai shukas to wear. They lined us up and the Maasai performed their welcome dance for us. Then we went inside their ‘fence’ (cut down Acacia bushes placed like a fence). Then we watched one of their traditional dances and were invited to join them. The women joined the group of women, and the men joined the men group. The women gave us all large circular beaded necklaces to wear, took our hands and led us through the dance. The men all got to make these cool, yet odd sounding noises and jump extremely high. The women made softer sounds and jumped only slightly off the ground. At the end, the women had to walk over to the men, any man, and rub the woman’s shoulder on the man’s. I said thank you to the women who had been leading me the whole time in dance. She only spoke Maa and Swahili. I told her “Ashay” which means thank you in Maa. She was very amused with this and was smiling and asking me questions in Swahili that I didn’t understand. I then told her “Kidogo Kiswahili” meaning I know only a little bit of Swahili. Then we laughed and she let me go on my way. Makes me wish I knew more Swahili! Afterwards, they showed us how they made fire, showed us their weapons (knifes and spears), and showed us their shield. We broke up into groups and went for a bushwalk, which was a lot of fun, because I got to talk to the Maasai guides a lot. They knew english really well. Besides english and Swahili (the language all Tanzanians know), the Maasai speak their own language known as “Maa.” One told us that one guy, the Laboni (Village leader) who lives up on the hill has 60 wives, which then have at least 3-4 children/wife. That is insane! The number of cattle a man has shows how rich a man is. When a man has a lot of cattle, he tries to have more wives because the women take care of the cattle. It’s normal for a man to have 6-10 wives who all have their own homes and children.
When we got back to the village, we went and saw the children in kindergarten. One particular 3 year old boy was very smart. He led the class in singing to us, reading numbers in english and Swahili and then telling us the alphabet. We were very impressed with them all. Next, we went to the bush to shoot bow and arrows at a target and throw a spear. Last, we went inside the Maasai bomas to see how they were built. Overall, it was a pretty cool experience. I relaxed the rest of the day since I had my work done. We’ve had a lot of free time this past week. It’s been nice relaxing. To finish off the night, we watched The Departed.
Friday, we had our poster presentation beginning at 8 AM. I signed up to go 8th and get it out of the way. I presented on the ‘Habitat Preferences of Maasai Giraffes in three protected areas’. It went better than I expected, thank goodness. In the afternoon, we learned about all of the Directed Research projects. We should hopefully find out our DR tomorrow! Today, we went to the primary school for the reading program with grade 5. This is something that some of us voluntarily do, we aren’t required to go. Today, we sang ‘If you’re happy and you know it’, then read some books and went outside to play ‘duck, duck, goose’. It was a really fun day with the kids! I think I made some new friends too.
Saturday, I woke up at 4 AM and thought I was late for cook crew because there was light outside. I didn’t have to be up until 6:15 AM. I barely slept the next few hours, but got up for cook crew in time. Today was the day we received out directed research. Our first class was a briefing on how our directed research would be graded and advice for it. Right afterwards, we walked outside the classroom and noticed the directed research groups had been posted. I got the one I wanted. The overall topics in the group that I got to choose from are encompassed in invasive plant species management and quality and quantity of pastures. I am considering researching something to do with invasive plant species. There are subtopics we can choose from, but we are also slightly allowed to branch out on them as well. So, that was exciting… now… I just seriously need to figure out what we can do..! One of the coolest things about this project is that all data collection will be in Ngorongoro Conservation Area.. near the Ngorongoro Crater! Otherwise, today was kind of a bust. Besides working on the habitat management plan, I struggled to get much done because I was not in a good mood today, which must have carried over from last night. To be honest, attempting to plan after program travel has become frustrating and stressful because of money constraints, which is partially the reason for my bad mood. I had done a decent amount of research on places on the coast, but now the plan seems to be changing and everything seems to be looking much more expensive.. and it’s bumming me out. Also, I had a group project that I didn’t really feel a part of. I didn’t feel as though my ideas were completely accepted and they should have been. I’m annoyed with a lot right now, and I wish I wasn’t! It’s my first real problem at all this whole trip and it’s causing me a little more frustration than it’s worth.. Anyways, to finish off the night we had a cook out, and got to have cheeseburgers and french fries! The cooking club made some good food tonight, and everyone was in a good mood.. so it helped with my mood. We only have 1 and a half months left in TZ. Hoping for the best!
Sunday was our full day to work on our research proposals, as everyone’s (except for my groups) were due at midnight. I was a bit of a procrastinator most of the day. I struggled to get much of anything done. I ended up completing a paragraph of my Maasai Tourism paper and 2 sections of my research proposal completed. Then at night, we watched Fight Club, which I haven’t seen in a while.
Monday was our day off. I wasn’t feeling to great in the morning, so I was deciding whether or not I should just stay here. I didn’t want to be gone all day in town with the rest of the people. I did decide to stay at camp, and thought I would regret it, but I didn’t. It was a nice quiet day. Didn’t do much.. but it was nice and went pretty quick.
Tuesday was a boring day. I spent the whole day inside working on my research proposal draft. I worked on it up til the last minute and still wasn’t confident with my work. Hoping for the best. Glad the first one is only a draft.
Location: Rhotia, TZ
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