This week we stop to give thanks for our loved ones and enjoy full houses, full hearts and full bellies.   It inspires me to share an experience I had with one of the many celebrations that happen here.  One thing you may not know about the Maasai- they love to celebrate. The Maasai throw more parties than any culture on earth. When one of my neighbors, Joyce (her name given to her by missionaries), invited to my first harambee, I had no idea what to expect.

    A harambee is a Kenyan party reminiscent of an American wedding or baby shower where gifts and money are given. It was originally introduced by Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya, as a way to raise money to build schools.  Over time, the harambee was expanded into a Kenyan tradition to raise money and gifts for any occasion: weddings, hospital fees, operations and school fees, among others.   I dressed in my finest kikoy, a piece of fabric wrapped around your waist as a skirt, and layered all of my Maasai necklaces and bracelets.  This is the only way to dress for a party in these parts.  I then walked down the hill to the boma in the valley below.  A Maasai boma is a grouping of many small round cow dung homes placed in a large circle surrounded by a wall of thorny branches, which as very effective in keeping out lions, leopards and wild dogs.  The cattle, goats and sheep are herded into the center at night and during the day, while the family wealth is grazing on the plains, the center becomes a communal gathering place.   

 I had been told that ‘In Africa, nothing happens on time,” so I didn’t think too much about my own 30-minute delay due to work at the house- a faux pas for which I am still embarrassed as I was a guest of honor.  I was ushered into Joyce’s home for a delicious stew of meat and potatoes accompanied by tea with milk and sugar.  After several helpings we moved back outside where I was seated with four other senior women on a small wooden bench, the rest sat on the ground.  There were about 60 people in all.  The next three hours were a mix of a roast and a bridal shower.  One woman took on the role as emcee and called others to the front to tell stories about Joyce which must have been hilarious as the women were falling over each other in gales of laughter at each new talk.  Finally it was time for the gifts.  

  Banished to an acacia tree outside the bona wall, the men watched with interest as one by one each woman came to the front to present her gift to Joyce.  Some presented money, others brought dishes, plates, cups and bowls for the house, some brought kikoys and others brought food.  I never found out what the occasion was for having the harambee - other than just to have a party!   

I am happy to report that Miss Tiggywinkle is doing much better now that she has moved to her new digs, an outdoor 40’ square pen with trees and tall grass.   We were very worried about her last week but this week she is over the hump and hopefully will someday be completely free, once we are sure that she can feed herself without assistance. 

Several days ago, we introduced a very wild, Mr. Tiggywinkle, to her in hopes that he would teach her the ways of the bush, how to catch her own dudus, (insects in Kiswahili) and to forage at night.  As soon as we put the hissing little ball of prickly spines in with her he immediately snuggled up hoping for a cuddle and got a cold shoulder.  Poor little thing! 

I put two of our woven grass table mats over a large hole as shelter, a make shift house for them, in the middle of the small paddock.  Within 30 minutes Miss Tiggs had waddled out and down the hill as far as she could go leaving him to the house.  The next day she was back in the house – alone.  Today he has the house.  Seems the two will not share, not surprising since hedgehogs are not a gregarious species, but we had hoped that there would be enough interaction to teach Miss Tiggs a thing or two about the bush. 

We put a kerosene lamp in the middle of the pen at night to attract insects since they don’t have a wide terrain in which to forage and I supplement this with a very small amount of cooked duck cut into tiny hedgehog bite size pieces.  Our home ground ducks are low in fat and Mr. and Mrs. devour it like a juicy grasshopper without the fight.     

Mr. Tiggywinkle will be released very soon so we don’t disrupt his diet and habits too much.  Time will tell if she learned anything from him during his brief visit or not.  At least his presence is encouraging her to travel around the pen which can’t be bad for our not so over weight little girl.  She is looking pretty good these days!

One last effort to ask our wonderful and amazing supporters to please vote for The Leakey Collection in the World Challenge 08 Competition before Saturday, November 22.  For those who have voted- we thank you for your support!  Receiving this grant will allow us to put $20,000 towards a hydro-electric dam in Kenya reducing our dependency on fuel oil and helping the Maasai thrive for generations to come.  Click here to vote now and see our new video produced by the wonderful team at BBC.  

       This is the story of how an unlikely friend found us in the Rift Valley Kenya and made her way into our hearts. 

The very fat and lovable Miss Tiggywinkle came to live with us in the bush about 2 weeks ago.  Rescued by our daughter and her family as a tiny baby Miss Tiggywinkle, a prickly but cute hedgehog, flourished a little too much under their generous care.  By the time she came to us she weighed 213 grams, so over weight that she had difficulty walking so it was up to us to put her on a diet.  I was told that so common is this with pet hedgehogs that there are many websites dedicated to hedgehog weight loss programs. We found this funny but took it seriously for Miss Tiggy’s sake and set about to get her some exercise.  

One website suggested swimming.  I didn’t know that hedgehogs swam but our Miss Tiggs certainly loved her first foray in the bird bath, doing several quick laps with ease.  When she gets a big older I’ll take her to the river and swim with her, documenting her progress in a future blog update.

Hedgehogs are nocturnal animals so exercising her meant a 4 hour night time vigil outside our tent to make sure she didn’t get lost.  Now that I know she likes swimming during the day she’ll be in great shape soon, something I wish I could say for myself.

 Miss Tiggy weighed in at 195 grams yesterday, a net loss of 18 grams, pretty good for the intrepid little girl.  I’ll keep you posted of Miss Tiggywinkle’s progress with updated photos and stories until she is ready to make it on her own in the bush. 

Sometimes my husband and I think we must have gone mad to start such a business, but we see the hardships brought to the Maasai by the relentless flow of urbanization and know that without a bridge to join the modern economy, these people will not be able to afford their lifestyle as times change.  Children are now schooled in government or missionary schools and this costs money.  Modern health care costs money, and transportation for provisions for a once nomadic society now comes at a price.  We have seen a future where the children will have to move to the city to find work, and the customs and culture of the once proud Maasai will fade quickly into history. 

Imagine employing 900 people working without electricity for light or equipment, roads to transport goods and buildings in which to assemble your products.  Imagine building a business where centuries long customs bumps against modern work ethics, where traditional values clash with western values, and where long-term vision is lost to a subsistence-only view.  Every day an interesting new difference between our worlds emerge.  In order to provide opportunity without inflicting change, we have worked hard to carefully structure our business for the people with whom we live.  We employ twice as many we need because the women must be free to come and go as life dictates: the leopard killed a goat so a few women must go with the young to watch the herd for the day; or an important celebration has called many women to build a manyata; a temporary ceremonial village, and spend several weeks preparing for the feast of change. 

 Now that we have expanded to reach more than 900 women across the Rift Valley, we often become embroiled in local politics and we always run into problems unimaginable to the city business owner.  Our first payday, we carried 125 envelopes, a woman’s name of each envelope, to one of our work stations in the bush.  After calling all the names, there were many women left who had not stepped forward to collect their pay.  We discovered that for every day that they came to work, the women had given a new name.  After several weeks, they could not recall the aliases given.  Each person in Maasai society holds a unique spot in the clan and in Maasai history, which dates back to the 15^th century.  A selection of names paints a picture not only of who you are, but where you fit in terms of territory and clan as told through 600 years of history.  It took three weeks to deliver the 125 envelopes. 

 The women walk miles to a workstation each day, sometimes taking two hours each way.  They come with babies tied to their backs and sit on the ground- their preference- under the acacia trees beading until lunchtime. A long Christian prayer is led in their native dialect, “Maa, ” by someone they elect each day; then they enjoy a light lunch of cooked maize meal and milk brought in a calabash, a lovely beaded gourd.  Many put in a seven-hour day even through they have  a long walk home- they want to earn the much needed income.  We emply all who want the work: the blind, the elderly, the destitute, teacher out of work, and shopkeepers who have no business of their own in hard times. 

 It has not been easy to build a business that is beholden to the western values of delivering orders on time, within strict specifications, in a world belonging to the nomadic herdsman where time is told by the seasons and priorities are set by the immediate need.  As I sit on my rock watching the beautifully adorned women who sparkle like jewels as they walk home across the Rift Valley, bathed in the low peach light of dusk, babies asleep on their backs and calabashs swinging at their hips, I think of them bridging their traditional past with the necessities of modern life to keep their culture, as well as their families, alive, and I don’t feel so crazy after all.