The Maasai are traditionally a nomadic people whose culture revolves around the raising of livestock, particularly cattle and goats. As a consequence our traditional diet consists mainly of milk, meat and blood.
We are very independent people and have many culture-specific customs including rituals that mark different stages of life for both men and women.
The men protect the villages and the cattle, whereas the women build the houses, cook and maintain the households. The roles of the sexes are reasonably balanced.
After centuries of criss-crossing the plains of East Africa, the Maasai now live in Kenya and Northern Tanzania. Land reforms forced the Maasai to settle, against their will and nature, onto Group Ranches. This means our nomadic lifestyle has been seriously affected.
With climate change causing ever longer and more severe droughts, coupled with the restricted freedoms to graze our herds in the traditional nomadic style, many more cattle are dying and our people are struggling to survive.
As a proud people with a strong culture and a long history of surviving in harsh conditions, we do not look for others to solve our problems for us.
Growing crops is not natural to us, neither is formal education but we know that, in order to survive, we have to be willing to change whilst protecting those elements of our culture that we hold most important.
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