Youth Activity Day

April 25, 2009 Today was a great day. As we rode the motorbike to the manyatta and site of the Youth Activity Day, it was so great to see kids walking from the distant manyattas. There were close to 150 children in attendance after all arrived. We held the activities in an abandoned chicken house, a hige warehouse with a cement floor and no real walls. We began with a prayer, then time for treats (candy, cookies, cheese puffs!) The children waited in line for them patiently. After the little sweet snacks, the children formed a square around a space for dancing, poems and songs. Groups had prepared songs and traditional dances, wearing some of the traditional beads. One poem was about treatment of the girlchild in an inferior way to the boys. It also talked about circumcision or female genital mutilation – something outlawed but that continues to be done. The boys did a skit about home life and how the mother is treated and the point was that the boys did not have time to read or study because of their work and herding of the cows and goats each day.

After the presentations, the groups split into three. There were about 30 children around the ages of 2-4. The sat most of the time and ate. Each group did some athletic games using worn out soccer balls. During this time, some of the women prepared juice and we served about 150 chapatis Mwololo had made in town. Then it came time to cut the cake that was brought from Nairobi. It was actually very good! “Thanks, Ed Colina and Company!” Some of the Masai men were around. The women had gone with the herd so that the children could stay and enjoy the day. Fred had made that request that the children be freed for the day. Therefor the women went out – not the men. We saw a group of men slink into the woods to kill a cow and eat the meat, never thinking to bring any back for their wives or children. We met some of them cleaning the blood from their knives. When the cake was cut, Mwololo made sure it was two young ones, a boy and a girl who cut the cake together. Then he put pairs together of a boy and a girl and made each one feed the other some cake. He even made one of the Masai men feed a piece of cake to one of the women. It was a sign of more equality in gender roles. At the end of the day there was another prayer and we rode off on a bike – the day complete and good. At one point in the day, Fred and I walked to his mother’s new house that she just completed. Tomorrow night, Sunday, I will stay in that house with Fred and his mother, sleeping like a Masai. I promised Mwololo to bring my own food (bread and butter) and some clean water. I promised Fred I’d bring a blanket and my iPod. I can’t wait. We asked Fred’s mother if I could bring her something small as a gift. She couldn’t think of anything but Fred suggested bubble gum – she loves it. I am so excited about staying in the manyatta. When we talked to Fred’s mom, she was completing a gift for me – a zebra tail with a beaded handle for swishing away the flies. It is beautiful and thoughtful “for my only American friend” as Fred says.