Market Day In Elangata Wuas- Site 1 of Oral History Interviews

As told by Sean Hewens

Unice Market

After another refreshing 7-kilometer walk to the library, we arrive in plenty of time to meet the students and head over to the Saturday Market. The population of Mile 46 appears to have quadrupled and it's only 10AM. Masai in bright colors are everywhere, selling fruits, vegetables, jewelry and lots of items I can't quite identify. We walk through town and make for the borehole near the dry riverbed. Masai herdsmen have brought their cattle, lining them all up to walk down and drink in a very orderly three-by-three or four-by-four fashion.

Masai herdsmen with their cattle

We head back to town from the borehole and the students split up into groups to do their first oral history interviews. We’ve discussed the matter of written consent with the class and left a stack of signed consents for interview subjects to sign. However, we’ve also discussed that in many cases a signed consent for a Masai person that can’t read nor write could be rather silly. In other cases, there are cultural differences that make the written consent not always workable. After a discussion with the class in which I explained that there could a chance that, down the line, some universities might not accept the oral histories into their archives without a signed consent from each subject, we decide that a recorded oral consent (along with a detailed explanation of the project, also on tape) will suffice in most cases. However, the final call will be up to the student interviewers.

Oral history interview of a Masai Herdsman

After a whirlwind tour of the Masai market, we return with approximately ten to twelve interviews. The students are learning and most of the interviews are brief, perhaps five to eight minutes in length on average. All of the interviews are in Ki Ma, the language spoken by the Masai. On the way back to the library, we stop for a tour of the village medical clinic. Priyanka, who is about to start medical school, gets the star tour from Leboo and several of the doctors and nurses at the clinic. Because it’s market day and so many folks have descended upon the town from the surrounding area, the clinic is mobbed. The doctor tells us that the clinic does ten times more business on Saturday market days than it does on weekdays. Conscious of the long lines and the sick people who need attention, we make our departure and head back to the library. It’s now the students’ turn to do the hard work, taking over the uploading and processing of the oral history interviews they’ve just completed. Definitely Leboo and George, and to a lesser extent the rest of the class, have grasped the use of iTunes and Windows as the means for organizing what we hope will be the large amounts of data collected in EWuas over the next five weeks.

Masai Woman

As the day winds down, Priyanka conducts exit interviews of the students so that we can see what they learned during the class. Unfortunately (and not surprisingly) the giant booster tower in town has not turned on during our days in EWaus, and we leave with promises to send along a modem toward the end of the month when the booster, fingers crossed, becomes operational. For now, we’ll have to rely on the stream of AfricaSOMA volunteers going back and forth from Nairobi to provide us with news. The class ends and we walk back to Mile 46 to catch a cab back to the hotel. First, there is a detour in the bar owned by George’s dad. It is full of Masai men drinking Tusker and talking loudly. Quite a scene. We all have Cokes and attempt to make conversation with a very enthusiastic Masai warrior who, through a complicated chain of hand gestures, makes it clear that he wants my name and phone number. I comply, although not holding my breath about when I might hear from my new bar friend.

We roll out of Mile 46 in the back of a pick-up truck loaded with approximately 25 people, no exaggeration. Somehow we make it back to Kudu Hills with no one falling off or under the truck. The evening passes uneventfully, marked by an extended lecture from Caro of AfricaSOMA on the history of the Masai, including such highlights as male circumcision and how the Masai fooled the British back in the day by sending only their least promising students into the world to be “educated”. Of course, we also hear lots more horrendous snake stories, including the one about the giant green snake in the tree above our heads that fell onto someone brushing their teeth in the very spot where we brush our teeth just a week or so earlier. Somehow we fall asleep.

Our cabdriver Sammy arrives only an hour late on Sunday morning and we’re heading back to Nairobi without too much difficulty. We pass a herd of camels and their Somali handlers on the way to the main road. This is quite unusual in cow-loving Masai territory and prompts an interesting and not always PC discussion between our cab driver and another Masai passenger (in English for our benefit) which reflects some pretty deep-seated animosity between the Kenyans in this area of the country and the Somalis, many of whom have come to Kenya to flee the now decades-long war. Back in Nairobi, we return to the Upper Hill campsite and then go to the mall to stock up on supplies and eat burritos. Kenya is a funny place.

More pictures from Unice Market: