I think this’ll be my last post for tonight…though, with me, you never know. I heard about this while we had the radio at work on to the Lionel Show, one of the talk shows on The Buzz, a local talk-radio station.
The original story was from the New York Times — “Where 9/11 News Is Late, but Aid Is Swift” (as the NYT site requires registration, and many people would rather not do that, I’ll include the article at the end of this post also). Basically, an African Masai tribesman who was visiting New York at the time of the 9/11 attacks went back to his tribe and, as they’re fairly cut off from the world, explained to them what had happened and how it had affected life here in America.
The tribe, then, felt that they wanted to do something to help — and so they took donations from members of the tribe, and are donating 14 head of cattle to the United States of America! I was just amazed at this — this is a fairly small tribe (the article mentions that a catastrophe that killed 3,000 people would be enough to wipe out their entire tribe) — 14 cattle is, by their standards, an amazing amount of wealth to give up freely! I’m not exactly sure how it would translate to our standards…possibly roughly equivalent to donating Texas to another country. Or Bill Gates. Whichever is worth more.
Anyway, I just thought it was one of the neatest stories I’d read in a long time, and while it may be incredibly bitter and jaded, I really can’t see us in the US doing anything like that. A shame, really — good to know that there are still some places in the world that seem to have their priorities straight.
Where 9/11 News Is Late, but Aid Is Swift, By MARC LACEY
ENOOSAEN, Kenya, June 2 — Skyscrapers are a foreign concept to the Masai who live in this corner of Kenya, where the tallest things on the vast horizon are the acacia trees and giraffes that feed on them.
So when Kimeli Naiyomah returned recently to this tiny village from his studies in the United States, he found only the vaguest understanding among his fellow Masai of what had happened in that far-away place called New York on Sept. 11.
Some in this nomadic community of cattle raisers had missed the story entirely. “I never knew about Sept. 9,” said William Oltetia, chief of the young warriors known here as morans, who was still confused as to the date. “I just never heard about it.”
Most Masai had learned of the attacks from the radio soon after they occurred. But the horrible television images passed by many Masai, who got electricity in their village only shortly before the attacks. In the oral tradition they rely on, Mr. Naiyomah sat them down and told them stories that stunned them.
Through his tales, Sept. 11 became real. The Masai felt sadness. They felt relief that Mr. Naiyomah was unscathed. They wanted to do something.
Today, in a solemn ceremony in a grassy clearing, they did, blessing 14 cows being given to the people of the United States. Elders chanted in Maa as they walked around the cows, animals held sacred by the Masai (often spelled Maasai). After the blessing, the cows were handed over to William Brancick, the deputy chief of mission of the United States Embassy in Nairobi.
To reach Enoosaen, Mr. Brancick had flown to the Masai Mara Game Preserve, then driven two hours along the most rugged of roads. At the ceremony, he seemed tentative as he held a rope given to him by a Maasai elder that was attached to a rambunctious bull. He thanked the people who had given cows from their herds. But, he said, transporting them would be difficult so he will probably sell the cows and buy Masai jewelry to give to America.
Mr. Naiyomah, a student at Stanford University, helped to arrange the gift after seeing his people’s reaction to his account. He used his connections to plan the roundup and contact embassy officials. His rise from Masai land to Palo Alto had enabled him to rub shoulders with everyone from President Daniel arap Moi to Chelsea Clinton, who met Mr. Naiyomah with her parents last year when she graduated from Stanford.
Mr. Naiyomah, who is taking pre-medical courses, is to graduate next spring. After medical school, he plans to return to his village.
He had been visiting Manhattan on Sept. 11 and came home last month with first-hand accounts of the horror of that faraway event. Now a young elder in the community, Mr. Naiyomah, 25, told the others of huge fires in buildings that stretched high into the clouds, and of men with special gear who entered the structures to save lives.
“They couldn’t believe that people could jump from a building so high that they would die when they reached the ground,” he said.
In the ceremony today, Mr. Brancick was given 14 cows, a sizable herd for the Masai.
“We’re out with our cattle every day so we’re not always up to date on the news,” said Vincent Konchellah, 22, who donated one of his 12 cows. “We had heard about a disaster in America but we didn’t know much about it. Now we feel the same way we would feel if we lost one of our own.”
There are three most cherished things that a Masai can offer as a gift — a child, a plot of land and a cow, which is far more than a source of meat and milk.
The Masai, who wear bright red tunics and elaborate multicolored jewelry, stand out among Kenya’s 40 tribes for the high leaps of their traditional dances. During ceremonies, they drink the blood of the cow, mixing it with honey beer, and they use every last inch of the animal for clothing and decorations. A groom pays the father of a girl he wants to marry in cows, and even dung is put to use, as a lacquer to protect the outside of huts.
“The cow is almost the center of life for us,” said Mr. Naiyomah. “It’s sacred. It’s more than property. You give it a name. You talk to it. You perform rituals with it. I don’t know if you have any sacred food in America, something that has a supernatural feel as you eat it. That’s the cow for us.”
The Masai have a reputation as warriors, which developed in the colonial days when they fought those who trod on their range land. The tribe still teaches young men to fight, but it is now torn between its traditional ways and life in a modern world.
It is now illegal for Masai to hunt lions, which had been a rite of passage for young men. Increasingly, youngsters are staying in school, dreaming of lives away from the range land. Television sets are appearing in huts, with images from a very different world.
Most Masai are still not up to speed on the intricacies of the Qaeda terrorist network. But they understand what it means for around 3,000 people to die at once. In Enoosaen, a disaster that grave would wipe out all of them.
“That guy — surely we would have to kill him,” Mr. Oltetia, the village’s chief warrior, said of Osama bin Laden. “We as the Masai have ways to kill, just using a spear and bows and arrows.”
When pressed about his tactics, Mr. Oltetia said: “He’s a strong man so we couldn’t do it directly. We would surround him in the bush.”