During my first week in Africa, many years ago, I befriended a local who became my “fixer/tour guide” and took me up to the Ngong Hills on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. The hills offer amazing views of the Rift Valley and this is where I got my first taste of the people of the Maasai tribe. The Maasai are a nomadic tribe and were among the most fearful warriors in Kenya and Tanzania. We came across an old Maasai warrior, walking slowly with a cane up the red dirt road, who claimed as a younger man to have fought and killed a lion and had the scars to prove it. They are best recognized for wearing blood red cloaks and carefully crafted beadwork that adorns their necks and wrists. To this day, these people refuse to assimilate to more modern ways and they continue to live near game reserves, alongside wild animals.
The kids herding sheep were fascinated with me and my winter white skin, stealing little touches on any of my exposed flesh and from time to time tugging at my long hair. The boys fought for my attention challenging each other to shadow boxing matches, races up and down the hills and they performed a traditional Maasai dance just for me. We also visited with a family, sitting quietly in the hot sun outside their cow dung home, where a woman wearing a stern look sat making a beaded necklace and the men played Owari, a bead game similar to Mancala. The photo of the woman with the stretched earlobes was the first photo I made in Africa that I really loved. Even though most of her face is in shadow I think you can still feel her strength and pride.
