Maasai Days

Between 1980 and 1986 the author accompanied her husband, a newspaper correspondent, on his assignment to Kenya. There she happened to get to know very well two English-speaking Maasai schoolboys, Joseph and Noah, who introduced her to their village in the Great Rift Valley. There she met their parents and siblings, their teacher, William ole Sekento, who acted as her interpreter, and other leading figures in the village. During her stay, an arsonist burned down a Maasai village, a man was eaten by a lion, there was an involved trial, and the Maasai's grazing land shrank steadily as other tribes encroached on their territory. She describes the changing times and economic decline of a proud people.