My ELCA missionary colleague, Marvin Kananen, (who reads the blog, so hi Marvin), once said that the new Maasai warrior was an educated Maasai girl. This weekend, I had the joy of spending time on both Saturday and Sunday with Nai (not her full name) and her three children.
Reconnecting after almost 20 years!
Nai was my student in Form 3 (9th grade equivalent) biology class, which I absolutely loved to teach! Most of these girls came from traditional Maasai family settlements with huts made out of sticks, mud, and cow dung—as Nai did. Somehow, her father arranged for Nai to test and interview for the Maasai Girls Lutheran Secondary School, and she was one of 3 out of 100 girls who tested to get in for these few available slots.
After secondary school, Nai took a 1-month crash course in teaching to help fill a teacher shortage! Later, she was able to go back and eventually earn a bachelor’s degree. She now teaches English and Kiswahili in secondary school (O-level for those of you who know the British system) as well as being head of the department. She has 5 sections with 255 students, and then her administrative role. Her students cherish her teaching and care for them.
It is amazing to see the agency of a woman who grew up in a patriarchal culture (this is the technical term in anthropological analysis) where females are trained to be passive and facing painful consequences if they are not. Nai decided independently to learn to drive and move her family into the house still under construction. So, her husband calls her “Mama Surprise.”
Nai is married to a Maasai former colleague who is also a teacher. So, it is great joy to see these two thriving and being a blessing in their work, in their families, supporting their extended family members in schooling and health care. The new Maasai warrior is an educated woman.
On Saturday morning, I made my weekly hike to the next village for groceries. On the way back, I bought some bread that was so fresh it hadn’t been put on the shelf yet. So, I asked to take a picture.
The “seed” bread is wonderful!
This is part of a Lutheran church vocational program. They had a farmers market opening up an hour later, but I needed to get back and to my laundry to get it hung to maximize the sunshine. Nai and I will go another day, as I’ve offered to take her to lunch at their café.
Sunday was a costa bus rid to the Arusha Community Church. While standing, I heard “teecha” (teacher—as it is rare to have an mzungu on these busses/vans, and I get picked up at the gate of Tumaini University Makumira, and I was shown a chair. However, I mistakenly thought it was the flip down chair that fills the aisle in the back of the bus, but it really was the row behind, where I would share the flip down chair with another person and a bit of the seat next to it. Yes, 5 people in a row with 4 seats. After some got off, I ended up in the very back with only 4 across in the 4 seats.
It was the harvest festival Sunday at the Arusha Community Church. So, there was an auction afterwards to sell donated items. Low and behold, there was a rake! They sold both together. I don’t really need 2 rakes, but I can use them in different ways!
I did not buy the 3-month old male and female rabbits—offspring (a couple generations removed) from the rabbits from last year’s harvest festival.
The gift that keeps on giving!
At church, I met one of Anya’s playmates from our years in Tanzania. During our last year in Tanzania, Anya really wanted to go to school. There was a small pre-school program at the Arusha Community Church, and Maria was one of the teachers. Maria, originally from Germany, just oozes love and joy. Two days a week, Anya would ride to Arusha with Eric (we paid for kilometerage for the ELCA Land Cruiser that our missionary colleagues had). Eric was then volunteering for Heifer International, after dropping off Anya at the pre-school in the morning in Maria’s class. Maria, was willing to take Anya home with her until a couple hours later, when Eric would pick her up on the way home. At their home, Sophie Dorthy was about 3 years older than Anya, but still a lovely playmate. Maria found a picture of them from 2003 or early 2004.
Playmates in 2003 or so
And today!
Sophie Dorthy is now doing a PhD in Germany on the complexity of the environmental issues around palm oil. While palm oil is rather demonized in the EU for being non-ecological, non-sustainable, and one of the quintessential extractive (exploitative) industries, Sophie Dorthy’s research establishes that it is very complex and not a binary issue. Intrigued, I asked some questions about criteria and other environmental issues that can inform my project. One question for me is the role of humankind in the environmental criteria, which I have discovered in the InVEST model out of Standford University, but is beyond my capacity. So, I’m going to network with a dear friend’s daughter, who earned a masters in environmental statistics from MIT. This friend was also a playmate and soccer team member with Anya. So, my networking seems at times quite providential, even including Anya’s friends.
The power is going out several times a day, so this is being composed and sent over a couple days.
Mungu akubariki! (God bless you!)
Wow, I think I’d be gaining weight with the bread. Looks great.
Yes, networking is one of God’s surprises, I think, to us. Maria is one of them.. We are part of a huge community of people, eh? And I loved the provision of REAL rakes! So what are you going to do with the wire one? Loved the photo of Nai. . . do they live in staff housing with Dr. K?