Cultural Field Studies

(sorry about the color everyone we'll see if this works better)

Interent is going in and out that is why this is a bit late and very long, i had a while to write it. Sorry for lack of posts there would be atleast 3 more if the internet would work! Pray for the internet!!! :0)

4 hours, 4 tires, 17 teens, 1 teacher and a long bumpy road away from civilization lives the people and town of Maji Moto. I quaint little town with no more of a population than 600 people and that is really stretching it!
This year as I venture into a new school I get to be involved in one of the most rewarding “field trips” I have ever been on. It is called Cultural Field Studies. The explanation is simple…send a bunch of students out to the bush (middle of no where) so that they can finally appreciate what they have. It Really has been so much more than that for me. CFS was my “winter weekend” or time to get away from reality and really hear from God. I didn’t even think it was going to be like that. I expected to go see a new place in Kenya, which I did, and meet some new people, which I did, PERIOD, but that wasn’t where it ended.
I learned so much. Being with different people of all different beliefs, characters, and thoughts really changes your thinking. When you are with your youth group every one has a lot of the same thoughts about things. What is right what is wrong. When you are with so many different people your perspective gets open.
Honestly the only “spiritual” thing we did was praying for our food. That is what is the real surprise. How so many teens can get so much out of this experience without even having services or even talking about what God has done in the day. Having started this off…let me tell you what we did do, other than praying for our food.
For 4 days we lived out in the middle of no where. In no where there was a Mission house where we slept surrounded by people who lived at least 20 minutes walking distance away. It is like the country side where everyone has their land and lives a bit away from everyone else. There is so much open land why would anyone want to lived steps away from anyone else’s door step. So in our little oasis lived 9 girls and just steps away in another little room lived 7 guys.
The activities of the day were so fun! The first full day we were there we walked to 3 different manyatta’s (Massai homes) and went inside to visit and see how they live. Walking there is half the fun. There is so much to see on the way like different kinds of trees, bugs, and holes in the ground. The first home we saw was a women and her husband’s who had lived there for quite some time. Our leader/school teacher had taught this family how to farm and they had a blooming “shamba” or in English a piece of land with vegetables. The real character showing aspect about them was with their persistence in life even through the circumstances they had just come through. The past months had sent terrible rains through the village and had destroyed their mud, stick and dung made house. The roof had completely capsized. Leaving them homeless in the rain. They had to build a home. The outcome was such a small area I had to turn sideway to walk in, and it wasn’t a hallway or a doggie door…it was their home. Their strength was touching and the most amazing part was their happiness to show us their home and they even had smiles on their faces. They couldn’t speak a lick of English (we had translators) but people’s facial expressions say a lot. You could see in the Mama’s eyes the long hours she had worked in her life and she was not even very old. But she was still happy. Her strength encouraged me and challenged me so much. How she does it everyday I will never know.
That afternoon we played soccer in the blistering heat! The girls first played some young girls that I am sure have never played soccer in their life! They were so fun to play and quite hilarious. We needed more players and ended up getting two from the other school. I asked the girl “Are you good?” talking about her soccer skills and she said yes. Come do find out soon after she didn’t speak English and had never played soccer before. She gave me a good laugh. After a 15 minute game with them the boys were up to bat with a boys team. They won 2-0. We then played a team with awesome jerseys and what looked like talent. They were good. They had a lot more coordination than the first team, but our make shift team must have been fairly good too because we tied 0-0. But we didn’t loose!
Church on Sunday was the main thing I had no idea what to expect. To be honest I expected some dry church for about 2 hours with no substance and then we’d leave. I was completely wrong! It was a Holy Ghost filled church, and that was evident from the second we walked up to the door. You could hear the Maasai praying aloud from the door and excitement went through my body. The singing was beautiful, they preaching was AWESOME!, but the altar call topped them all. Many of the Maasai went down for prayer and they were all slain in the spirit. You could tell their expectancy from God! I am so happy that God has been spread all the way down there and people are getting saved in the toughest conditions! They have to give up so much and make a huge stand in front of the entire community when they get saved. There are so many traditions they have to give up. I have to admit it would be a struggle to be saved in their position and I don’t know how I would do it! It really is purely with God’s help and the Holy Ghost!
After church we went hiking 5 miles up and down a mountain with a girl’s school. They gave us some unexpected surprises. One being that they were obviously very hot because I turned around at one point to see who was behind me and I saw a lot more than that! If ya get my drift. Some of them were nice. As one of the teacher put it, they are “cheeky” if you don’t speak English like me (yes that is an English word, I had to ask a definition) it means, rude, bold, sassy, mischievous, etc. They really were just that. All of them were about 15 to 19. I did get to talk to some of them without my ego being defeated and I was even given a Maasai name, Nasarian (na sarie ann) it mean peace and safety.
Monday we went and taught at a elementary school. Here in Nairobi all kids over the age of 8 KNOW English pretty fluent. So we had kids in 6th grade which is about 11 right. So I was like yeah I am gonna teach these kids and it is going to be great. So we get in there, I introduce myself and I told one of my friends I know a way we can figure out how much English they know (be aware we were supposed to teach English so they should know quite a bit considering that too!) So I said really slow “if you understand me clap your hands” the room was silent. I was the only white girl in the room and the only one who couldn’t speak fluent Swahili. So I looked over to my friend and said it is all yours. We ended up doing an English spelling bee and I got to choose half the words to be spelled. I wasn’t completely useless. Although I was very humbled by the experience. That was my first reaction with kids where I couldn’t do anything. It made me realize that I really need God’s help more than character to be able to work with children.
The last night was the best. We got to slaughter two goats. They boys got first dibs on cutting the neck so I wasn’t able to do it but I did eat (drum roll) raw kidney, cooked liver, and an entire plate of intestines. I was going to drink the blood but I still have the fear of God in me! The maasai performed lots of songs and dances for us. They let us jump with them, the woman are not supposed to do that so it was very nice of them to allow us! it isn’t like they are used to tourists because they aren’t this is their everyday life that we are just intruding on. So that they allowed all of us girls to join in was very very very welcoming. It was a great night and the 30 minute walk back to the house was really the most exciting part because the night before the boys had gone out hunting and saw a lion directly in front of them. The lions are as plentiful out there as bears that one year at Quaker Ridge when the forest fires had come. So walking out in the middle of the grass land in the middle of the night and even the Maasai warriors are scared really makes you think. So we kept a steady pace and did live to tell the story. Thank God.
I learned so much through the trip. I am so happy I went!

Misc. Facts I learned

- Maasai girls can be married off as young as 10, the man can be as old as 50
- A 10 year old is able to get pregnant
- The dowry for the woman is less for a man with bad character and more for a man with good character
- If a lion eats human flesh once he will never desire animal flesh again and will hunt only humans
- Intestines are good, until you find out what they do in the body
- Nasarian means peace and safety in Maasai

The finishing story. To me this is the most interesting story of all that is why I saved it as a reward for those of you who read to the end. It is sad and not necessarily funny or exciting but interesting. During our time there we had a crazy lady who lived in the community. One morning while girls were bathing at the spring the lady came a was like why aren’t you getting in the water (the water is more than 140 degrees) so she was like it is too hot we can’t get in the water. The girl then asked one of the other ladies to get some water for her. The crazy lady then stripped down and started wading in the spring saying “I’m normal, I’m normal” we then later found out that she had eaten her husband’s ear off, dug her nails in her kid’s faces and ripped off their skin, and carries a knife with her at all times. We really didn’t see her much after that morning at the spring. Right before we left she started talking to one of the guys in our group who spoke Swahili and told him that if we don’t go she is going to go and if we go then she’ll stay. So he sarcastically said ok we’ll stay. So she climbed on our bus and started going through one of the girls things. We finally shooed her off and she was really insane! I thought that was quite interesting. We saw her sporadically though the trip but she didn’t do anything super insane except for the above stories. She needs to be delivered!

This is a very long post especially to not have any pictures. I was too afraid to take my camera because last year they got held up with machine guns in a different group and I didn’t want my camera to get stolen. One of my friends did take hers so I will be producing pics ASAP!! Miss everyone tremendously! Thanks for your prayers!!!