Scorpians, goats, and other Kenyan adventures...

My mom told me that people were asking about me since I hadn't updated for a while! I am doing quite well, but haven't thought of anything too interesting to say... But thank goodness, I had an interesting weekend so there is something to write.

On Saturday, David, Sarah and I went out to a traditional Masai village. The Masai used to be a pastoral cattle-keeping tribe, but now they keep cattle in certain areas of the country. In Kenya, they are the tribe that has stayed the most traditional. They are easily recognizable because they stretch their ears to huge sizes, particularly the women. They wear colorful jewelry and clothes, especially with the color red.

David knows an American at the University of Minnesota that had lived in this village, and so we went out without knowing what to expect. The village was in the Rift Valley, only about two hours from Nairobi. Greetings are very important in Kenya but especially with the Masai, so when we arrived I literally shook about fifty hands in a row. Most people couldn't speak Kiswahili or English, so communication was very limited. But everyone was so generous! We were fed well and we stayed in a mud hut, which is the way a lot of Kenyans live, without electricity or running water. The homes are built (and this differs by tribe) with sticks and mud, with no windows, just little ventilation holes. The women cook all their food over a fire and the pot sits on three stones, which makes the huts extremely smoky. When the wife was cooking, I couldn't even stand to be in the hut because my eyes just watered all over my face!

That day, we just walked around and chatted with our host before bed, but sleeping was very interesting. At one point I woke up and a goat was staring at me. Some cat kept jumping in the window too, and it was really freaking me out! But I eventually slept decently. In the morning, we went for a hike in the hills of the Rift Valley. Our host's children showed us around, telling us about the plants and the bugs and just generally being silly.

When we got back into the hut for the first of three lunches, I sat on the bed and took of my shoes. All of a sudden I felt a sharp, scary pain in my leg and I screamed and brushed something black off my leg. It hurt so badly that I immediately started sweating and had trouble breathing normally. The wife ran over and told our host that I had been stung by a scorpian! It wasn't poisonous, just incredibly painful. It hurt more than any tattoo or piercing I have gotten. It got very red and swollen and continued to hurt for a short while. Within hours though, the swelling was gone and I was fine!

The children in the village are fascinated by white people. I'm told it is a combination of being unfamiliar with us but also that we are always willing to play with them, whereas the adults of the village do not play with them and are very busy either in the home or with their cattle. They would play with my hair because white hair here is the beauty standard. Most of the women here relax their hair and try to make it soft and limp like white hair. And then, the children would touch my arm hair because most Africans don't have any body hair. The kids would touch my face, hold my hand, and crawl all over me. It was kind of cute! We played games with them, including some weird version of catch/soccor/football with a big rubber O-ring.

We had a good time and it was amazing to see such a different way of living. While the people do need and deserve running water and electricity, they are very happy. Water and electricity would help their health significantly, seeing as their life expectancy is approximately fifty years old. But more on this later... In the next couple of days I will post some awesome pictures from this weekend, and I want to share some general thoughts on Kenya thus far.