The Maasai still keep their traditions intact - herding cattle and living off the land as modernization changes the world around them.  They are known to be a culture with close community and family ties and who love to celebrate all occasions in a big way; so they naturally adopted Christmas into their culture as yet another wonderful celebration and embraced it with relish.

In the months approaching Christmas, the Maasai are busy making presents, planning events, cleaning their finest of everything, scrubbing the houses, repairing the grounds, getting out the jewelry and shopping for new kikoys, the European version of a shuka- Maasai fabric, to wear.  The air is full of excitement. Bees love the blooming acacia trees, and produce the most flavorful of all the honeys in the world.  This honey is then used to produce honey beer- a common holiday beverage at Maasai celebrations.

When you wake up Christmas morning, think for just a moment about the Maasai half a world away.  Cuddling exhausted children, patting stomachs full of meat, drowsy with libation, and admiring their lovely presents with family all around.  Wishing you all a very happy and safe holiday from The Leakey Collection Family.  

We have several “MacGyvers” in our Leakey Collection family such as TLC manager Kristan Fazio and my husband Philip (to name a few).  A “MacGyver” is a remarkably talented person who know how to make something from nothing  much like the television hero; and of course fix anything with his Swiss Army knife! As a result of Philip “MacGyver” Leakey’s abilities- I am excited to announce we have new fallen hardwood coming soon!

After building our new workshop Philip was eager to work with our beautiful fallen hardwoods that we collect from an environmentally sustainable source here in Kenya.  Maasai men are known for carving lovely 3 legged stools, rungas – wood clubs with a round end they use for protection when herding cattle, and other small household items.  We have enlisted several to get our new fallen-hardwood line of products into production.  It has long been a dream and now such fun to see the gorgeous grain of the wood come to life.  I am reminded of a statement attributed to Michelangelo, “I release the figure from the stone”. 

Not to make the comparison with Philip’s handy work; but I must say that the hardwood grain and warm golden, red and brown tones are so luxurious when sculpted.  Each piece is a work of art and the hardwood trays, bowls, plates and small jewelry holders do look as though they have been “released” from the fallen hardwood. 

The work is tedious, hard, and dirty but just like any piece of art - worth the labor!  Every bowl, platter, tray, and small piece is lovingly hand sculpted, sanded, and waxed to perfection.  We can’t wait to begin taking orders this coming January.  Each piece is so unique that it is difficult to decide which ones I want to keep.  Of course we’ll keep our first pieces, the testimony to learning and like children; we love the flaws of our own first born. 

Pictured is MacGyver at work at his lathe, working on his first salad bowl.  The other small bowls are gorgeous and I have my name on the one in the photo.  I love the silvery tones to this particular piece of wood.  We have 3 wedding presents for friends children selected too!  And of course there is Christmas coming. 

    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.  

 

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.  

Doing something from “nothing” is the most exciting aspect of creativity for my husband, Philip, while designing with elegant lines and rich colors, using materials that radiate light, is my passion.  Our visions were joined together by an unexpected event:  a devastating drought during the late 1990s in Kenya where we live. 

 Our home is in the bush several hours south of Nairobi, and our neighbors in the Great Rift Valley are the elegant, tall Massai, who still maintain their pastoral way of life.  During the drought, as the grasses died off and the earth became parched, over a hundred Maasai mothers were coming to our house for money to buy food for their children. 

 Traditionally, the Maasai men who trade in livestock to provide for their families handle financial matters.  When their cattle began dying, bleached bones were a signal that the men must drive their remaining herds to greener pastures for survival- sometimes hundreds of miles.  Families were left behind to fend for themselves and, in the absence of men, a need grew into what would later become an opportunity for the women.  My husband knew he could not take care of all these families for very long, so he sought a way to create something out of ‘nothing’ that could be made by the women- a product that could be sold. 

 Inspiration came to Philip as he studied some stands of tall golden grass.  He envisioned jewelry that could be made from a sustainable natural resource, utilizing the Maasai women’s skills as master beaders.  Soon the women were harvesting the grass-already dried by the hot African sun-one blade at a time, and then the blades were cut into tiny “beads.”  As the system has evolved, only three or four blades are selected to be cut from a stand, leaving most of the grass behind.  After it is collected and cleaned, it is weighed and packed into bundles for sorting, cutting, dying and drying. 

 As we dyed the grass rich hues of every color imaginable- reds, blues, pinks, greens, yellows, purples, burgundies, browns and earth tones- we discovered that it turned into an element with an amazing beauty of its own.  The grass beads have a depth and luster not found in other materials, and because the dye penetrates the waxy grass unevenly, lovely variations in tone occur in every color.  We were thrilled.  We had a product.  We had made something from ‘nothing’.

Friends,

Please vote for The Leakey Collection in the World Challenge 08 Competition.  We are so very proud of this nomination and need your support!  Winning this competition 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. Please ask your friends to also vote- simply copy and paste this url in an email and ask your friends to support the Maasai women in Kenya.  Every vote counts.  

http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/html/project08_leakey.html 

Today, my thoughts are on the fast approaching Season of Giving- also known as “the holidays” in Western culture.  For many, the season of giving is preceded with a season of healing.  In the Maasai culture, healers are known as the Laibon.  The Laibon apply their healing practices through herbal remedies and sacred rituals. Meanwhile, thousands of Westerners across the globe are participating in numerous healing rituals of their own to raise awareness and fight one of the top killers of women- Breast Cancer. 

Some alarming facts I found about Breast Cancer from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Not counting some kinds of skin cancer, breast cancer in the United States is the most common cancer in women, no matter your race or ethnicity; the most common cause of death from cancer among Hispanic women and the second most common cause of death from cancer among white, black, Asian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native women.  In 2004 (the most recent year numbers are available): 186,772 women and 1,815 men developed breast cancer.40,954 women and 362 men died from breast cancer. 

We are determined to do our part and contribute to this season of healing as well by battling this awful disease.   This fall, we are participating in our second annual campaign in the fight against breast cancer.  The Leakey Collection is again donating 10% of all sales from our pink Kuponya (means ‘to heal’) necklaces, bracelets and earrings.  The donation will be divided between our women’s health initiative in rural parts of the Maasai Mara and with a donation to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  This annual ritual we participate in maintains the global connectivity of women helping women.  Perhaps the readers will find a healing ritual of their own to share to keep this connection alive and well.