Manistry was great we were with the Maasai tribe on the shoulders of the rift valley. I learned a lot in the two weeks we were there. One of the first things I noticed when we got to Maasai village was the respect that the people had for one another especially the men. The children showed great respect when greeting an elder by bowing their head and waiting for the adult to place their hand on top of the child’s head. The young men were friendly to us. They wanted to get to know us so bad that they would go way out of their way to do anything for us like climb up and down mountains to find us just the right walking stick. All the people had the most respect for the older generation, or should we say “the well seasoned adults” especially the “well seasoned” men. Everyone truly honored the grown men, and the women would bow their heads to their fathers to greet them.
So I was starting to see and think there is something different about these men here. There is something that bonds them, something that makes them live to a certain standard. Seeing this makes me think that Gary Black is on to something when he talks about the importance of initiation. You see all the men in the tribe go through some pretty crazy stuff in order to be called men. When they are young they get their 2 bottom front teeth popped out with a knife. After that they get branded with little curled up leaves that they stick to their skin with saliva and then light on fire all to prove they are tough enough to become men. Around the time the boys turn 13 they get circumcised to truly become men. During this process, as in all the other things they do, they can not make any facial expressions, noise, or even clench their fist. If they do, everyone would run from them, make fun of them, and it would bring shame to their whole family. So once you were a man you could become a warrior by killing a lion with a spear. Now to me a lot of this stuff sounds like weird old traditions, but after being there and seeing these men that have done all of this, I’m seeing that there is so much more than just tradition. There is something about it that makes the boys live a certain way, and work for something that is not money. The boys and men have got amazing work ethic, which is something that they can’t and don’t learn in school, things that the boys in America don’t have and aren’t getting. I sometimes wonder when would a boy get to become a man in America or do they ever? When my generation is called the fatherless generation, I think most of the problem is that you don’t need to become man to have kids, but I do think you have to be a man to be a father.
