Snapshot: Teenagers are the same everywhere
That man can jump
We're in Kenya, where we have been staying at a Catholic retreat center with friends of friends and exploring from there. We did a couple days of safari, where we were among a very small number of out-of-country tourists (it's mostly Kenyans and some folks from other parts of Africa).
As part of one day near the Masai Mara savannah, we got to visit a Masai village. The Masai occupy a special place in Kenyan culture, with the vast majority having decided to keep their traditional way of life as nomadic herders even in the face of a changing world.
Masai teenagers (and adults) found me, as a too tall white dude who persistently tried to speak the local languages, hilarious. At the place where we stayed, once they figured out that I was happy to laugh at myself (mostly because they kept correcting my Swahili), they kept bringing over all the tall Masai (part of the small minority who had left the villages) to stand next to me to see who was taller (me).
When we got to the village, we were welcomed by a group of teenagers who had clearly been dragooned against their will into performing some traditional dances. It was awesome, but eye rolling is apparently cross-cultural. There was a lot of standing next to me and straightening of postures.
“Seriously. You’re making us do this dance for the foreigners AGAIN?!?!? Geeeez!! (deep sigh)
Somehow I ended up in a jumping contest. Whoever jumps the highest gets the most girlfriends in the village. I clearly lost (I will be calling U of L Athletics shortly), but I put up a good fight. What followed was a lot of laughing and speculation about the rest of my anatomy-or at least that was my interpretation speaking no Masai, but fluent "bro.” The whole thing got me sort-of included in the banter I didn't understand while we were there.
On our return, that led to some fascinating conversations with the Masai bartender, who grew up in a similar village. He basically adopted me at our lodge (he was very bored with so few customers), and he wanted to talk about his experience straddling both worlds (and kept calling over other people to tell their stories), and we had some fascinating conversations- but that’s another blog.
