Maasai women look on as men of their village demonstrate their jumping skills. -- Photo by Pat Bean
“The great thing is the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
Journeys
While drinking my morning coffee, I read that today was International Women’s Day. My first thought was how the world has changed for women during my time on this earth.
I’ve gone from marrying young and being barefoot and pregnant to being a homemaker who also brought home the bacon – if you can call that progress. I successfully fought for equal opportunity and equal pay in the workplace. Today, I take pride in the role I played so my granddaughters can take such things for granted. .
And then I remembered the Maasai women I had seen in Africa just three years ago. These beautiful women have such hard, difficult lives that our native guide, who was not a Maasai, expressed sorrow for them – and called their men lazy turds. This remark came every time he saw a man walking carrying nothing and a woman walking behind him loaded down with water or firewood.
It is the Maasai women who build the mud and dung huts for the family. It is the women who walk miles every day for water and firewood, unarmed among dangerous wildlife. It is the women who milk the cows and cook the food and tend the children. And yet it is the men who own everything.
This young girl, looking on at the jumping men, is surely thinking she can do that, too. -- Photo by Pat Bean
While I appreciate ethnic cultures, this is one aspect of the Maasai way of life that needs to be changed. And I make no apology for saying that.
I definitely thought this after a visit to a Maasai village in Kenya, where the men demonstrated a game they played with stones then noted that it was too difficult for the women to master. I was not impressed and huffed off.
But then a young girl in the tribe offered me hope that change might already be sniffing at the men’s heels.
It happened when the men were showing off their jumping skills, something young boys began practicing almost as soon as they can walk. Off to the side, where the shaved-head Maasai women stood quietly looking on, a young girl, ignoring the disapproving looks coming her way, jumped in rhythm with the men.
She, I thought, was the beginning. I hope one day she will be able to look back on how far she’s come, too.
Pat Bean's blog 
It does gall to see the perpetuation of unfairness and domination. I’m happy to have met two young sisters recently from Kenya. They were full of the dickens, so lively and excited about life. And they were returning to Kenya. For those who still suffer, still there are many who have found, and are finding, their freedom and authenticity. Where was the photo taken, Pat?
The pictures were taken in Kenya, near the Pornini tent lodge where I stayed and about an hour’s drive away from Amboselli National Park. Thanks for commenting.
Pat, this post reminds me of something I just read in The Wisdom to Know the Difference, a book about knowing when to accept a situation and when to take action.
The author was speaking of her time in Botswana. The school where she taught had only one water spigot out in the dusty yard and there was generally a messy muddy area all around it. The primary attitude in Botswana (at the time of her experience) was the equivalent of “it’s God’s will” and it just had to be accepted. That leads to a rather relaxed and laid back attitude but doesn’t accomplish much.
She and some others figured a simple way to keep the water away from the stand pipe and henceforth people could get water without getting muddy. It was a simple procedure but the “let go and let God” attitude prevented the local people from even trying to correct the problem.
I don’t know if the locals learned anything about taking action from this experience but I have hope that the little girl in your picture is a new generation and maybe she’s developing the “wisdom to know the difference.”
Thanks for a thought-provoking post. Sam
Slavery. As simple as that. Alas, there is far too much of this uncivilized and uneducated behavior around the world.
I speak on this as someone who was born in a so-called ‘developing’ world: Things will change when the women in these countries want them to, when they feel empowered to make the change and not a moment before.
Each generation’s strides will be greater than the one before just like it has been on this side of the world.
“You go girl” I’d say to that one who stands out from the crowd. Thanks Pay, for another geographic lesson!! Love the photos!
I love that photo of the young girl. I hope her gumption stays with her throughout her life and that she does move the Maasai women ahead.
On a sad note, I also remembered that studies have shown that even our young women here in the U.S., so full of life and ready to tackle the world, often lose some of their spirit during their adolescent years. I would have thought that would change in my lifetime but I still see it happening with some teenage girls.
I hope by the time my granddaughters are teens, we will have progressed even more.