Natamuse

Today the Tuko Pamoja team is off to the southern border town of Loitokitok. We are visiting a school, Natamuse Primary, where we have worked previously. Ginger kept up a friendship with our contact at the school, Elias, for several years since then. Tuko Pamoja is in a position to help now.

Below is a veggie stand along the way. These are very frequent. I liked this one due to the color. Tomatoes, potatoes, red onions, garlic, pumpkin, butternut squash, watermelon. Whatever is grown locally.

The drive to Loitokitok is a solid 5 hours, not including stops. Then the school is another 45 minutes, at least, from Loitokitok. Today, the traffic on the Mombasa Road was bad (which I should expect, because it is always bad). We left at 6 am and got to the school after 1 pm. 

When we got there, the kids were all lined up from the road to the school. Boys on the left, girls on the right. A school director is also on the left.

The Maasai traditional greeting when an adult meets a child is for the child to bow his/her head and the adult to place their hand on top of the child’s head. So we went down one side of the line greeting each child, then back up the other side.  

Below is Elias with Claudia. Elias is our main contact and a director at the school. He wore traditional Maasai clothing and beads for the occasion. Note his knife and club, both of which are also traditional attire.

Below is one of the directors at the school. She made all of the beadwork she is wearing. She is the fourth wife of a Maasai man (polygamy is part of the tribe’s culture). Several of the necklaces had special meanings, such as engagement, wedding, having a son circumcised, etc.

Below are classrooms. They are a combination of wood and metal sheeting. Dirt floors. No electricity in the school. Often a child has to pay for a desk when they start at the school. Daniel, Virginia’s cousin, is in the background, as well as directors from the school.

Below I’m with Dorcas’s sister. Dorcas is a young woman who Ginger and I sponsored. Dorcas also went to Natamuse school.

Dorcas’s mother came to the school to meet with us. Thankfully, Mama Dorcas speaks enough Swahili for Virginia to communicate. Many of the people in the Maasai areas, particularly older ones, only speak Maa. Virginia speaks English, Swahili, and Kikuyu, but not Maa. 

Below is lunch being served. Tuko Pamoja provided the lunch, in order to make the day a special occasion. The kids had rice and beans instead of the traditional gethiri.

As has happened before, Wangari just walked up and took over serving the food. Daniel and Virginia joined her.

Behind them is the kitchen.

Above is the lunch line at the start. Kitchen in the background. The black container on the left is for water. Note the gray pipe at the level of the kitchen roof. This is the drainpipe from the gutters of the classrooms. Rainwater is used to fill the water tank.

If rainwater is insufficient, water can be trucked in, but it is expensive.

Wangari and I taught one self-defense class at Natamuse. Many of the girls didn’t have strong enough English for me to teach. Wangari can easily translate for me now, typically embellishing what I say. But that slows the class down and she already know everything to say. So she just ran the whole class other than my introduction and closing. I assist her.

Interesting fact that she shared ths trip. When I first trained her a few years ago, she hadn’t actually volunteered for the class. I was told she was a Red Cross volunteer. Which was actually true, but her aunt had agreed to be trained, not Wangari. Her aunt couldn’t make it. So she told Wangari she’d pay for her transportation and lunch if Wangari filled in for her. She showed up and no one else was there but me. So we did a private class.

Wangari now teaches the classes and has been involved in classes that probably cover well over 2,000 girls and women. Her aunt chose well!

Natamuse is so close to the Tanzania border that the road actually crosses into Tanzania at one point. Our phones connect through Tanzanian cell towers. There is one place where there is a lightly guarded border crossing. No gates or anything. We stopped at that crossing for a photo op. Below are Wangari and Elias.

The road on the Kenyan side that we travel on to the school is extremely rough. Dirt and rocks, washed out. It is terrible and the reason the drive from Loitokitok is 45 minutes. But if you make the turn to the border, the Tanzania side is a very nice, paved road.