Men and women are standing at the gate to the family settlement with children amongst the crowd of sun-kissed faces. Maasai life reverberates in the village of Imurtot, located in the Loitokitok area of Kajiado. Imurtot is the village in which I will spend a day and half with a family living here. The village is on a valley engrossed by endless amounts of grassland, pure blue skies, and in the southern horizon stands the majestic snowcapped Mt. Kilimanjaro. I felt the sun’s evening rays and crisp, clean mountain air, more so than anywhere else I have traveled the world. I felt a little anxious as my colleagues drove away, not knowing how I might be received in my new home. The cows are mooing and the goats and sheep bleating as they return home from the pastures. The women, numbering about 6 of them greet me with shy faces. A man comes, and
because he understands Swahili we are able to have a conversation. Nearly everywhere you turn you can see the animals around the compound.
Venturing inside the family compound provides you with a different feel. There are all these nice ladies and kids who are so at home in this house, and so I cannot figure out who my host is. This group of people live a life quite different from any ordinary townsperson. I must have looked as lost as I felt. Yet, the sense of peace and freshness in the air makes me envy these people who are not aware of what pollution is. The homestead in on a grassland, the manyattas are basically the most popular shelter. Most of the day is spent outdoors where the family members and neighbors work, spend time together, enjoy the company of friends, and sometimes sleep at night. Before now, they were as unfamiliar to me as I was to them. It was indeed this very idea of unfamiliarity and interest that gave me a desire to learn more.
I spent a day and half studying anything that was relevant to nomadic way of life. Most of my research was conducted in rather informal ways, be that through participant observation or interviews during conversation. I met several people during my stay who I shared infinite conversations with. Needless to say, that was the first time I ventured out into the grasslands for the nomadic way of life.
Unlike most people, pastoralist communities do not usually associate the concept of "home" with a geographical place, or even any place they've lived in for a significant period of time. There is a broader understanding of what home is and it doesn't exist as a place, necessarily, but has more to do with the people and the relationships that were built and nourished while residing in a certain destination. Home is the presence of people with whom you fellowship. Protection of a home is therefore protection of relationships.
Still, on the concept of relationships, pastoralists don’t just relate with people, they also relate with nature. One man told me that they have had a supply of healing herbs for ages because they traditionally are not allowed to uproot a tree that did not have other of its species around it. Swamps and hilltops were sacred and were only accessed by priests. This kept the river sources secure and protected.
So my dilemma is who really are pastoralists? In my life as an educational researcher, I know that we have made weighty errors in defining pastoralists because we focus more on the technical aspects of economic development and ignore the bona fide goals of human development. We know pastoralists as people whose livelihood depends mainly on the raising of domestic animals including cattle, camels, goats, sheep, and donkeys, which are used for milk, meat, transport, and trade. Living among these people seeing how basically satisfied they are with their efforts to make life better and their ambition to improve further I ask myself, “Are there multiple avenues to improve the human condition among them besides just having a sole focus on the emphasis on changing the livestock aspect ?” In essence, we probably need to see the world through their eyes and them to more effectively engage a changing world and have more choices about how they live day-to-day. After all people are more inclined to bring about change they believe in than what ‘progressive minds’ suggest or impose.
After the Loitokitok visit, I am sure, even confident, that there has been new knowledge created, and I have personally had to change my perspective on certain things. It will be interesting to see how we engage them and manage to sustain the process of change though the curriculum, learning together, and reinforcing the need for adaptation.
