A tribal Visit

Trip Start May 31, 2006

Trip End Oct 14, 2006

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Flag of Kenya Archers Post, Kenya
Saturday, August 12, 2006

12th August saw another fairly early start...well 7.30 anyway. There was some misty rain in the air as we left but that quickly cleared and the sky grew larger and more blue. I saw a couple of oryx cross the road in front of the truck, and we picked up some more passengers, and drove with no incident (you notice we now note that there was no incident rather than the other way round!) until we came across a broken down car and gave it a lift to the town of Archer's Post. Here we also dropped our passengers and headed off the main road and into Samburu National Park area to our campsite for the night. It had been decided that we would take a detour on our way back and take in an extra national park. We were camping on the banks of the Euaso Ng'ico River, within 5 minutes walk of the Samburu Tribe's camp. Spent some time chilling in the bar and popped into town with a few of the gang for Nya chamba (I know you don't spell it like that Greg, but I don't know how you do spell it, it's basically Kenyan barbecued meat)

Dancing in the circle hitting legs

. Once we'd got some bits for dinner, we headed back to camp and were joined almost straight away with a lady from the Samburu Tribe who was taking us (for $10) for dancing by her tribe. We went just out side the campsite and were greeted by about a dozen ladies in traditional dress, who sang us their greeting song and then with them still singing led the way back to their camp. There they sang us the marriage song and then got us to join in with dancing with them and wearing one of their necklaces. After we'd done that some men joined and the guys were invited to join them. The it was a joint dance...we all laughed lots. Once the dancing was over, the woman who spoke lots of English told us a bit about their tribe - they are nomadic people who build their huts to last 6months to a year (these are built of sticks with a mud roof); they mainly eat smaller animals like goats, sheep and chickens but on special occasions they will sacrifice a cow or a camel (they mostly keep camel and donkey for transport but never eat the donkeys); when they do kill an animal they believe the blood is good for you so drink it straight from the throat of the dead animal (but they say it is good mixed with milk if you don't like it straight...think I'll pass thanks!); they practice polygamy, a man can have as many wives as he can afford, but it is quite expensive (I forget exactly but it was something like 20 cows, 30 goats, 2 donkeys, some chickens etc...I think we worked it out equivalent to about 20 grand...Jamie was considering it until this point), the woman we were speaking to was the 4th wife and you don't marry for love but the parents choose for the girl and she can be as young as 12; the husband then rotates round his wives who each have their own homes incase anything happens to one of the families and incase the wives don't get on (which sounded quite common - she said younger wives could be unpopular with older wives). The other thing they do is male and female circumcision...otherwise you are not considered to be moved from boy to man and girl to woman. The woman is circumcised on her wedding day and the boy at about 14 or 15. It was really interesting to learn all this about them, and we then got shown how they make a fire by working a hard and soft wood stick against one another and shown inside one of the houses with it's goatskin mattresses and sleeping kid! Then it was back to camp to make dinner, and as it was me and Tracey to cook I made some pancakes for lunch the next day too...so by the time we'd cooked and cleaned up, and Sara had set up our tent it was bed for an even earlier start and another fun packed day the next day.