Maasai at TED (almost)
| 07 November 2010
Petr, one of our Czech volunteers from the Summer has managed to upload hundreds of his photos to both Flickr and Facebook to pass on just how amazing the month was he spent at the village of Enkito, Amboseli National Park, alongside fellow volunteers, Shiv and Emma.
This is one of Petr's photos of Narakiramart looking at this actual photo! She's smiling now but was actually scared of the camera.
I also just heard from Ben Rigby of The Extraordinaries aka micro-volunteering at Sparked.Com who's been talking to the world via a stage at TEDxNASA about how he's helping us get help to put in a well for the village to ease Narakiramart's chores (and the other women) of walking up to 8 KILOMETRES to fetch water.
Listen to Ben's powerful talk here :
This whole project started after a simple conversation with Maasai's modern man, Jackson, pictured below ( thanks to Emma for the photo).
I met Jackson while at the fabulous eco-camp; Stilts, in Diani Beach on the Indian Coast, this April. He and a few other village members moonlight as askari (warrior) nightwatchmen there as part of an exclusive friendly contract written years back with the owner. Although we have fabulous photos of Jackson turning up with a Cosmopolitan under his arm he is still extremely proud of his heritage, village and traditions, working in Diani simply to earn more for his community.
I'd literally just walked down off Mount Kenya that morning and had bags and bags of dirty wet clothes. I was stood washing my ridiculously large amount of clothing chatting to Jackson who dresses simply in the traditional shuka, flipflops made from old tyres and shorts! They do make up for it with jewellery though and Jackson does a roaring trade with the visitors, taking orders to make bespoke jewellery and texting these orders to the women in the community.
I felt fairly ridiculous washing my 4th pair of trousers in the sink while chatting with him but this was when he told me how far the women have to walk for water. They have donkeys to help and having our volunteers spend a month with Jackson and the community this summer, we know there is a communal tap just outside that works every Tuesday !!!!!
So .. if you can help us help these fabulous people and their amazing children then please get in touch. They'd love to welcome you into their village for a visit under the watchful eye of Kilimanjaro, otherwise, simply click here to help us help them. Asante sana!