All Maasai people are one person

In the Maasai native language of Maa, “Maa” means “one person,” and the Maasai’s way of life is reflected well in their name. They help each other and welcome all in a communal way of life, as if everyone in the community is one person.

Maasailand spans Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania. Remote and dry plains you can see far and wide, with an area bordered by the plains of the Serengeti. About 1.6 million Maasai people live within these lands between the two countries. As nomadic people, the Maasai migrate back and forth between Tanzania and Kenya looking for grass and water for their livestock, living in an amongst the landscape and wild animals of zebra, buffalo, antelope, elephant and more. The migration of wildebeest occurs from Mara in Kenya through the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. The wildlife and welcoming Maasai culture and customs of its people has made Maasailand a favorite stopping point for many tourists.

Every community member has a roll to play in Maasai culture. Boys go to look after livestock, and girls work with their mothers at home, collecting firewood, water, cooking, and making huts. Woman play a central part of life in the community as they sit in groups under the trees, telling stories, making jewelry and calabash for milking cows. Stepping into a boma (compound of homes that contain more than 4 huts) is warm and energetic, filled with women and children playing everywhere. Maasai people value their children very much. Without children, Maasai feel like they have an empty life. Children bring happiness, and status. Cows and goats mean nothing if they don’t have children - children make a man rich.

And yet, women do not have the same rights and freedoms as men. This practice of inequality starts even before birth. It’s custom that a man can give a gift of a gold bracelet to the wife of one of his friends, and this gift signifies that when the wife gives birth to a daughter, that daughter will one day be given as a young wife to this family friend. The choice and freedom of one’s own future, is given away to a man, even before this girl is born.

Traditionally Maasai depend on cows and goats as their central economic system. If Maasai experience a long dry season, their economy will collapse, because everything is dependent on the livestock. Cows and goats bring milk and blood to drink, meat to eat, and animals can be taken to market in exchange for money - from there, clothes and other necessities can be purchased. A family has a hard time surviving without livestock. Historically, Maasai girls are treated more like a commodity in this system. If a family has no cows, but 5 daughters, those daughters can be sold into marriage in exchange for cows. If each girl brings 10-15 cows to a family, the family will gain good economic standing, and a better chance of survival.

All these factors, put in place generations ago, are what drives early childhood marriage of our girls.

At about the age of 12, a young girl is forced into marriage to a man who can be 4 to 5 times her age. She will be one of his several wives, and will not be allowed to go to school. Her life is at home now, with no freedom of choice for her future. The boys of this age will be going to school, be given positions of authority in the family, and choices for their future. It’s not seen as inequality here, but just the idea that a boy has more rights than a girl.

“This is what creates the contradiction I feel for my homeland…We are changing this contradiction.”

I love my culture, I love my people and community. I want Maasailand to survive and thrive with all its individuals making up the whole of the one “Maa” body. The girls of our community, as with all girls in this world, deserve the same freedoms and choices as the boys, by nature they deserve equality.

Help us teach our elders and younger community members, that the quality of a girl is equal to that of a boy. We can survive and thrive even farther as a community when we give all our children the same rights over education and choice. That young girls can grow up into strong decision-making women, who can bring strength to our economy and community. If we let them, they can help support their families, help their parents, play a roll in decision making, and bring economic growth to our tribe. We want all our girls to have the choices and dreams of what they want their life to look like.

- Isaya Oleporuo, co-founder of Osotuwa Foundation