Maasai

This is a weird keyboard, so bear with me on this looooooooong post!

Friday, 4 February
Drove up to Ketumbeine, the Maasai village we work with in northern Tanzania.  Purchased mangoes (about 30 cents apiece!), avocados (also about 30 cents) and pineapples (Huge ones for $1.50) to take to our friends up there.  As soon as we arrived at Mrs. Lazier's home, the NAAPOK bead ladies were waiting for us.  They welcomed us with dancing and singing and speeches.  After we had a luncheon of goat stew, beans and rice, we were priviledged to be able to assist Bethany Friberg (the wife of the medical missionary in the district, who was instrumental in establishing the beader groups) and Mrs. Lazier pay the women their monthly income for their beads. 

The women knew we were from the group in America that sells their beads, and so it was exciting in both directions.  What an amazing growth these women have experienced.  When we visited 4 years ago, the goal of the group was for each woman to earn enough to purchase 5 goats for herself -- not for her husband, but for herself.  That goal has been accomplished!  Along the way, the women have learned about banking, saving, sharing, quality control, and they have also learned how to make new designs in their traditional beading -- little beaded elephant sculptures, little giraffes and zebras as well.  They are also producing wonderful beaded wine carriers for their western customers! They have also been able to send their children to school -- both at the primary level and at the secondary level.  Schools are free, but residential schools aren't without cost, and both schools in the Ketumbeine village area are residential.  Read my next post for more info on the schools.

The current goal is Beads for Bati; Bati is the corrugated tin that is used for roofing on many of the smaller houses out in the bush areas.  Each woman makes 60 bracelets/year over and above her usual allotment.  The money is put into a communal pot.  Once there is a certain amount of money in that pot, bati, along with the required nails, can be purchased by one woman at a time, to be used for construction of a new home.  These women have lived their whole lives, for generations, in small round, thatched-roofed bomas.  The Beads for Bati project is enabling them to save for a 2 room house (approximately 20 x 24) with a real door, ceiling high enough to stand up in, and a tin roof.  The individual women are responsible for obtaining the cedar from up on the mountain, to be used as the uprights (the framing) for the house.  Then they are responsible for cutting the specific branches from local vegetation, to use as the horizontal lattice between the uprights.  They organize work parties every Saturday to go and cut the wood; each Saturday is the wood for a different woman.  Then they either prepare the building site themselves or with the help of their husband and sons and children; find a builder or build the framework themselves.  The roof is put on before the walls are completed; the spacing between the lattice of branches and upright cedar poles is filled with stones.  Once all that is accomplished, the houses are finished with a "adobe" of sand, dirt, cow manure and wood ash mixed to the proper consistency with water.  When this is dry, it is impervious to water and bugs.

The 56 women in NAAPOK have worked and saved enough for 7 homes to be constructed!  One of them is finished, except for the door.  The owner of the home currently uses a thorn bush as a door, to keep out the hyenas, since she hasn't had the time yet to surround her home with the traditional thorn barricade.  We were invited and honored to attend the blessing of her home.  Everyone walked or drove out into the bush to reach her boma (family compound).  All the women gathered at the house, speeches were made, songs were sung, dances were danced, and there were many prayers and blessings by Bethany, the evangelista and the visitors (us).  The lunch was served -- roast goat, rice and sodas.  The goat was a gift of the woman who owned the new home; the rice and sodas were purchased out of the NAAPOK savings account.  We were invited to eat inside the new house, which was quite an honor.  The contrast between the traditional boma which is small, dark and tiny inside, and this new home which is large enough to walk around in and has 2 actual rooms, is just miraculous!  I really don't imagine that what I am writing can convey any of the sense of accomplishment these homes represent.  Ii is humbling in the extreme to participate in these ceremonies.  This one was especially moving, since 3 years ago, we were invited to this same boma for the blessing of a new baby; that baby is now a sturdy, healthy little 3 year old, who is just adorable.

Running out of computer time, so will write more when I again have access to a computer.  Love to all of you; God is good and His blessings are not only everlasting, but sometimes overwhelming!