While the pastoralist Maasai are being discouraged from their roaming by a government, justice system and economy that is foreign to them, young Western people like myself are being compelled outwards to the developing world – whether to gain experience or perspective, to help, to assuage guilt or to spread whatever ideology they subscribe to. For people like the volunteers on this project, the world is shrinking, thanks to improved global communications and awareness, cheaper flights and development projects like this which invite participation. The Maasai’s world is also shrinking, in a way; their lands no longer theirs, they have physically less space to move around in. But, slowly and unevenly, technology, infrastructure and development are creeping into Maasailand and broadening opportunities for the Maasai people. Simple as the two buildings of the new school are, what they represent is much more complicated, tied up in the big themes of development, progress, cultural change and globalisation. On July 27th, a bus load of Maasai girls and women arrived for a ceremony marking the end of the first phase of construction. The women, of course, were dressed in their finest Maasai garb, huge earrings weighing down the tops of their ears, flat, wide collars dancing up and down on their shoulders as they swayed and sang; as they roamed the hallways of the dormitory, many of them were crying, amazed at this new facility, with indoor plumbing, made for their daughters and granddaughters. But the younger schoolgirls were dressed in Western school uniforms, and their singing and dancing was reserved, or maybe embarrassed. The path that lies before them will require a lot of choices – between past and present, traditional and modern, Maasai and Tanzanian. The goal of the Maasai Women Secondary School is not to make those choices for them, but provide an alternative vision of how these things can be reconciled, preserved, bettered and used for their benefit. /
A rivulet was diverted from the water hole around the perimeter fence to water seedlings that will grow into the school’s hedge, keeping cattle and wild animals off the school’s grounds.The living fence was a compromise between the traditional thorn bush fence of the Maasai and the more common tall brick fence topped with glass shards and razor wire that is commonly seen in towns across Africa.
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