While staying in the boma, we also met Susan’s kids and we shared family photos. This is also where I got to use the only Swahili words that I remembered:
1. Mama - Pretty self explanatory
2. Baba – Dad
3. Dada – Sister (its getting a little complicated)
4. Kaka - Brother (very appropriate word)
5. Rafiki (friend – I know yall recognize that one!)
We played with the kids by giving them our headlamps and watched them run around flicking them on and off. We helped cook dinner by shining the light in the pot when necessary. We cooked an entire dinner in the smokey boma (which I had to keep leaving due to the copious amounts of tears and snot that I was producing due to the smoke being emitted from the fire inside the boma.
The dinner consisted of cabbage and potatoes and onions and ugali. Best ugali and cabbage I have ever had in my life! I ate soooooo much! I should also mention that although we collected water, the water and food that we actually ate (as in the raw ingredients) were provided by the the CFSIA program so that our Canadian stomachs didn’t get sick. THEN. Since it was pitch dark outside and there wasn’t too much more to do, we went to “sleep”… which is a whole other story in its self… that I will have to share another day.
This boma homestay was something special. I have lived my whole life so far without ever thinking of the Maasai that live in the bomas in the rift valley of Kenya. Nothing has ever prompted me to think of these people in my day to day life. But, these people have always been living their lives in this way and will continue to do so when I go back to Canada. Susan will send her kids to school and then she will fetch water and milk her goats. But now I have a connection with a Maasai woman. Our paths have crossed and I will probably reminded of her by different activities in my own life, many times in the future. It just makes me think of HOW MUCH there is in our world and how much I still have to learn.
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| The kids (Talangu) inside the boma |
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| Susan cooking some chai (obvi) |
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