Rain

The rain has finally come to Maasailand. Where before there was nothing but overwhelming dust, unbearable heat, and thirst, there is now new vegetation, a mild climate, and plenty of water to drink. It came on Monday afternoon, the unfamiliar dark clouds and a strangely humid smell in the air made the teachers of Ronesa send the kids home early so that they could arrive before the downpour began. It started as a harmless drizzle, but before I knew it there was hail bombarding the tin roof, making us shout if we wanted to say something to one another. After the hail ended the sky just opened up and dumped buckets on us. The cracked, dry ground turned into a lake before our eyes, as the storage tanks which had been empty for months finally began to fill as the gutters brought them water from the roof; it was the most rain I've ever seen.  It was the kind of rain you could take a shower in. (A shower I probably could have used...)

But before the rains came, when the area was still plagued with thirst, I went with Beatrice to fetch water at the tap that's at the government school of Olosho-Oibor. Carrying 20 liters of water on your back, with a cloth tied from the top of the jug to around your forehead is no easy task. Beatrice was very doubtful that I would be able to carry it, and she had every right to. She let me test it, and even just walking a few yards made my neck sore. I was allowed to carry 5 liters in the same manner, feeling silly walking next to her carrying 4 times more than myself. The Maasai are very strong, tough women. Their backs are straight as a board, but they are always slightly angled forward from the hip from years of hauling firewood, water, children, and everything else in the same manner as I described above.

Yesterday Beatrice started to plant Rosemary's fields with maize and beans, and she called me to come and help her, or try to at least... She showed me how to properly hack away at the hard earth with a jembe (a small hoe) in a line down the length of the field. Beatrice walked behind me, dropping 4 kernels of maize into the shallow hole and then pushing the earth back to cover them with her foot. Planting beans is even more tiring- She tied my leso (a large piece of fabric) around my waist so that I had a pocket in front like a kangaroo, and filled it with beans. Handing me the jembe, she bent at the waist and quickly and expertly began to carve away the soil with one stroke of the tool, sprinkle a few beans in the hole, and then cover them with another sweep of the jembe. I was not so quick. Often I would drop my handful of beans and have to pick them up, or i would get too close to the fence, or hit a rock, but I slowly improved. When it started raining we abandoned our work, and I had two small blisters on my jembe-holding hand to show everyone how inexperienced I am. Before running inside to escape the giant bullets of water raining down on us, we had to run back to the maize field to chase away the chickens that were trying to peck down to the maize we had just planted.

At Ronesa things are going well. I realized this past week how much the spoken English of grade one has improved in the past 4 weeks. They understand now that they can't communicate with me in Kiswahili, and the way they furrow their brow in concentration when they try to talk to me is priceless. "Teacher Kate! Teacher Kate! You-- I-- has finish number 4!" Sometimes it's exhausting, especially when I'm in the younger classes, because their attention span is much shorter and they would much rather cause mischief than learn how to write the alphabet. All the same, I can call every child at the school by name, and even though some of them are trouble makers, I love them all so much and the idea of leaving Ronesa is painful.

One thing I failed to mention in my last post is the night sky. It's absolutely incredible. My dad warned me before I came that the stars are brilliant, but it's impossible to describe to someone how truly awe-inspiring they are. I've never been able to actually see clearly the outline of a constellation, but here they are clear as day because none of the stars are blacked out from light pollution; when you walk outside at night it's pitch black. The first night I noticed them I literally had to catch my breath, which has never happened to me before, especially not from simply looking up!

Two weeks ago on Sunday, there was a celebration for the opening of the new church for the community. It was a huge event and seeing so many people in a place where people are hardly ever so concentrated was overwhelming. My mom was out until 3am the night before preparing food for the masses along with the rest of the ladies in the community. About ten ginormous pots were cooking over fires when I arrived to the church, and men were busy dissecting a goat on the grass under a tree, while freshly butchered cow meat was smoking next to another fire. Later, after the ceremony and service, the peace keeper of the area (the man who carries the giraffe tail) asked me, "Nashipae, have you taken blood?" Replying no, he wanted to give me some before I was able, with a little difficulty, to explain to him that I don't eat animals. A very strange concept to the Maasai, who love their meat so much. Usually I just tell people that it hurts my body to eat meat, because otherwise the questions become endless and I am the recipient of many strange looks.