The Maasai people live in and around Arusha and Ngorongoro. We were surprised to see that the Maasai people continue to live quite traditionally. We visited one of the villages. The Maasai people showed us how they danced. After we went where the little kids (4-6 year olds) went to school but it was not much of a classroom. The girls sat on one side and the boys sat on the other side. They showed us how they count to forty in English. The little kids went to school for 4 hours. When are seven, the kids go to the public school. Sadly, not all the Maasi kids go to school L. Many of them need to help out with the farm. There aren’t any rules in Tanzania that require the kids to be in school.
The Maasai houses are made of cow poop, soil and straw. The men get the wood that frames the house but it is the women that build the houses. In fact, our guide told us that the women and children do most of the work. He said the men just hang out and do nothing while the women tend the cattle, build fences, build the houses, do the cooking and more.
The houses are very small, maybe 12 to 15 feet in diameter. There is one small door (Tom could barely fit through the door) and no light. The houses are not tall enough to stand up in. Well, tall enough for me to stand up in but not most adults. They cook inside the house. The beds are just wooden frames made with tree branches with a cow hide thrown on top.
The Maasai men can marry as many women as they want. The villages consist of related families. In some cases it might be a single family. There was one village that our guide pointed out to us where the husband had 12 wives and 65 children. Each wife and her children have their own house. More photos of the Maasai people are here.