Masai wisdom

Eight years in Africa.

Eight years in the land of elephants, lions and giraffe. In the land of open plains and acacia trees, in the land of the Masai people, Samburu, Himba, Zulu and Mursi tribes.

In the land where you never say no, even though yes often seems insane. In the land where no one is ever on time but everything somehow has its order.

In the land where the most stunning sunsets are everyday business and where the moon rises like a big red sun and the stars cover more space than the dark.

Masai warriors parading at a ceremony

What have these eight years done to me? They have turned me upside down and shaken out all the dust, the fear, the doubt, the hate. They have left me standing with wide open eyes, ready to see everything anew. To see everything from a selfless angle of love. And one of my greatest teachers are the beautiful people I am so lucky to share my life with: the Masai.

They have taught me that tears are only cried for the dead and that any other tears are cried in anger rather than sadness. They have taught me that children are tellers of the truth and that they lift you out from the darkest corners of your soul.

Overlooking the stunning Masai Steppe 

They have taught me that it is rude to not accept gifts, even when they come from someone who has nothing. They have taught me that being still does not mean you are moving backwards,  but that it gives you time to reflect on your next move.

They have taught me happiness can be found anywhere and any day and that it is you who creates it, for yourself and others.

They have taught me that accepting each other's differences teaches you to accept not only those different to you but also yourself.

They have taught me that inviting strangers into your house leaves you feeling connected to the world and is nothing but basic decency.

They have taught me that laughter and stories are more important than big cars and designer jeans.

They have taught me that dirty, skinny kids are happier than ours could ever be and that it is OK to play with sand and sticks.

My husband and I.

They have taught me that family is everything and that sharing makes you rich.

They have taught me to live slower and with more purpose.

They have taught me to be patient and that detours make the journey memorable.

They have taught be to observe more and judge less.

They have made me softer and harder at the same time.

Warrior herding his cattle

They have turned me into the person who talks to strangers when passing them on the street, who gives a random child a sweet just to see it smile. They have turned me into someone who fears the coldness of the western world and who has stopped trying to explain to those who have never been to Africa.


Do YOU understand?

Speaking Masai language (Maa)

It has been nearly a month since my last post - I hope you can forgive me!

In the Masai Steppe, cattle often take over the roads.

It is not like I got tired of sharing stories with you. It is because I was so super busy running my crowdfunding campaign, Stephanie's Masai Education Fund, to bring environmental education to the Masai community I live in.
It was a successful campaign and we raised enough to take part in a three day Bootcamp in land management and conservation at the Mara Training Centre in Kenya. I am so excited by the change and opportunities this project can bring for us!
I will keep you posted!

So the last two months, I was glued to my tablet all day long sending emails, replying to donors, posting updates, etc. All my energy and inspiration went into this project and it left little time for anything else. Now I am back and would like to share with you another beautiful aspect of Masai culture: their language.

In the western world the Masai language is often called Maa. I do not like to use this term, as it is not what the Masai call it themselves. When they mention their language they call it: Enkotok te Masai, which literally translated means: the mouth of the Masai.

Myself (right in red), my family and my friend Nare from Armenia.

Here are some basics and their translation to English. Masai language is pronounced as it is read. Vowels are pronounced seperately and treated as syllables. For example the number two is pronounced: A~Re, three is: U~Ni, six is I~Le.

Numbers:     nabo                        one                                      
                       are                           two 
                       uni                           three
                       omwan                    four 
                       imieyet                    five
                       ile                             six
                       napischana            seven   
                       isiet                         eight
                       endoroit                  nine
                       tomuon                   ten

To say yes, you say: E-Eh     and no is: A-Ah 

Greetings:     supai                      greeting for boys, girls, warriors and old men
                        hapa (ipa)             reply to 'supai'
                        takwenya              greeting for women
                        iko                          reply to 'takwenya'
                        kiduaye                  we will see each other
                        sere                         bye
                        kadake                   later


Basic vocabulary:    sidai                  nice, beautiful, good
                                    torronok           bad, ugly, unpleasant 
                                    enketeng           cow
                                    enkine               goat (female)
                                    enkir                  sheep (female)
                                    enkerai              child
                                    enkema              fire
                                    enkaji                house
                                    Enkai                 God, higher spirit
                                    enkolong           sun
                                    olappa               moon
                                    lolkirr                star
                                    oljetta                tree
                                    enkoitoi             path
                                    enkarre             water
                                    endaa                 food, ugali
                                    endito                girl
                                    olaiyoni             boy
                                    enkitok              woman 
                                    olmorani           warrior (circumcised boy)
                                    olpaijan             old man 
                                    owaou               grandmother
                                    kuyaa                 grandfather
                                    esepata               true
                                    muluki                false, untrue



Colours:         naiborr           white
                        narok              black
                        nanyuki           red
                        nanyorrei       green
                        pus                   blue


I hope you find their language as beautiful and interesting as I find it and enjoyed this post. Drop me a comment if there is a particular word or expression you would like to know. Wishing you a lovely week and promising to not keep you waiting for too long for my next post! 😉

An african love story

I have not shared stories with you for a while as I am so involved in my Masai community education campaign which is leaving little time for anythung else.

It is taking me on a journey to reconnect with old friends and to also go beyond my comfort zone to ask people for support, but it has so far been an AMAZING experience and one that is leaving my heart full of love every day!

We have also had a very sad week as we lost a young warrior in a tragic accident but the amount of love and support that has and is being shown to his family is just overwhelming and is leaving everything else in its shadow.

I am wrapped in a blanket of love, in the mood for sharing this beautiful emotion with the world and this is why I would like to tell you a love story - my very personal one. The story of how I met my husband Sokoine:

Sokoine taking a break while herding our cattle

I had met him on Mafia Island. A magical place. Paradise. A haven of peace, blue seas and the most amazing diving. Mafia to me was Zanzibar’s little sister. Just as beautiful and cultured but more herself. Less altered by the hordes of tourists that befall Zanzibar so frequently.

The day I set foot on Mafia was the day I met Sokoine.

I was with a group of volunteers, exploring the village of Utende, when we bumped into some Maasai. I was enthralled at first sight. He was taller and bigger than the others, but what drew me in were his eyes. Dark and fiery, yet infinitely kind and patient.

Our wedding day.

I tried to keep him there, on the dusty road in the midst of the village, with my year’s worth of Swahili I had picked up working in Ifakara, close to the Selous Game Reserve in the south of Tanzania. I did not want this moment to end. Another one of those moments that made me feel so intensely at one with the dust under my feet and the sun caressing my skin; at one with the country I had come to love, with the Swahili flowing freely off my tongue, with the immensely beautiful and fascinatingly exotic people standing in front of me.

He worked as security for one of the hotels by the beach and everyday, when we walked past, I tried to make myself as noticeable as possible, pushing our dive cart, laughing, talking; and should I glimpse him watching me, my heart would beat a little faster.

Five weeks passed and I became more and more attached to Mafia, its people and Sokoine. I knew I would not go back to Germany.

And when my friend Michael, whose shop down by the beach was right next to Sokoine’s, told me one day that Sokoine liked me, it seemed I had even more of a reason to stay.

That this beautiful, proud, mysterious human being that comes from a world I cannot even begin to envision, should like me, this ordinary white chick, was too much for me to comprehend. But it was true and we got together and spent the most amazing three weeks under the sun and the stars of Mafia Island…

…a year later we married and moved to his traditional Masai home in the Masai Steppe of Tanzania.

Our son Yannik, Sokoine and I. 

Six years later, and I am still here with him, his parents, his grandmother and more recently with our son. I am as in love with the beautiful country as I have always been and have recently launched a campaign to bring environmental education to our Masai community to make a stand against the ongoing environmental destruction of their homelands.

If you would like to support me in saving the Masai culture along with the wilderness they live in and depend on to feed their cattle, click on this link.

A New Year's wish

The holidays are over and we have started a new year.

Well not so much us - the universe really. So, what are you going to make of it?

2017 for me was the year, where I have finally woken up. It only took me 31 years.

What I mean by that? Well, I feel that I have finally come to understand what is wrong with our planet, for one, and how everything is connected, for another.

Celebrating New Year's Day with friends and family

I have always been passionate about saving our planet - I have always had a huge amount of compassion in me, which is what made me aim towards becoming someone who would make a difference in this world.

I studied Conservation and came to Africa full of enthusiasm and my green-eyed view of our planet's issues. But I did not really SEE.

Now, 8 years later I am finally doing that. And I think what opened my eyes and my soul to the essence of things is my son Yannik, who was born beginning of 2016.

Myself, my husband's Sokoine and our son Yannik 

The biggest problem our planet faces, is human overpopulation.

I see it here on a daily basis, here in the Masai Steppe of Tanzania where I live with a tribe that tries to hold to the way they used to live hundreds of years ago.
And the struggle they face doing so mirrors everything that is going wrong with mother earth.

They used to live off the land of which there used to be so much in Africa, only a century ago. They depend on it for pasture lands for their cattle. Nowadays, there is no land left for them to herd their cattle, because the Masai themselves have become so many, as have their neighbouring tribe, the Zigua.

Here in rural Africa, people live as subsistence farmers and any one soul being born in this place wants to have a farm, a shamba on which to grow his corn which is the staple diet of most Africans. To establish farmland trees are being felled.

Huge areas of the Masai Steppe have already been deforested to make room for farmland and this deforestation is ongoing and uncontrolled. My guess is that in ten years time, there will not be any woodlands left.

The Masai Steppe - deforested farmland up close with views of untouched wilderness in the distance 

The Masai struggle to keep their cattle alive who have become so abundant that they do not even get enough grass in the rainy season. In the dry season there are repeated conflicts over grazing and farmland between the Masai and the Zigua, one wanting to graze their cattle, the other reluctant to tolerate livestock that eats their crops.
Nature is being destroyed, wild animals becoming extinct and conflicts over land becoming more frequent. And it all has one common cause: there are too many people for the land to support.

In 2017 I have finally understood how all this is connected and in 2018 I aim to do something about it.
On 21st December 2017 I launched a campaign to educate four Masai from our villge in conservation and land management to put a stop to the environmental destruction of their lands. For this, we need to travel to Kenya, to a centre for holistic management that offers courses to local community stakeholders and pastoralists.

I hope this education will encourage our community to once again care for their land and to prosecute people who fell woodlands and poach animals. I also believe it will give them the tools needed to manage their land more sustainably, introduce grazing rotas and reduce cattle numbers.

This education is meant to be an eye-opener for the Masai of the Masai Steppe. To make them see that the health of the ecosystem they live in and depend on, is in their hands, that they have the power to save it and guard it.

I believe that if we are successful in provoking change in our community,  others will follow suit.

A kudu that had died in our arms on Christmas Day, having been shot in the jaw and starved to death.

If you believe in fate and destiny then this is mine. I have never been more passionate about anything other than our planet and conservation and I know that with this project, I can finally act on what I believe in.

It is a new year, but the state of our planet is just the same as ever. It needs our help.

You might think, this has nothing to do with me, but IT DOES! We are all in this together and it is everyone's responsibility. Maybe many of you do not have the means to do something for the planet, so I am giving you the chance to DO GOOD THROUGH MY PROJECT! If you care about ours and our children's future and if you have even 5 $ to spare, donate it to my cause.

I promise you these will be 5$ well spent. I am running this project for no personal gain, but for the sake of our wildlife and wild spaces. If you care even a little bit, show it to the world - support us!

My dear readers and followers, I hope you do not mind me being so straight and honest with you - I am desperate to provoke positive change in our community but I cannot do it alone. I am relying on you to help me and my husband Sokoine to start changing the way Africans see their role in conservation.

Follow this link to see my campaign.

Watch my campaign video here.

Thank you!

Christmas Masai style

Christmas to me is about love, compassion and gratitude and I would like, on this Boxing Day, to say thank you to all of you lovely people who show so much interest and support for my blog!

Masai girls from our local choir performing on Christmas Day.

The highlight of our Christmas here in the Masai Steppe of Tanzania was the annual Christmas choir competition in our local village of Lesoit.

Choirs from nearby villages come together to sing and dance and to celebrate this Christian holiday.

It is amazing how our entire community comes together to watch the show and to enjoy a festive meal of rice and goat stew.

Traditionally, the Masai used to cherish 'Enkai', a higher spirit who gave them their cows and the keeper of balance who would make the heavens open after the dry season to bring life back to the savannah.

Missionaries invited the Masai to cherish their 'God' and although this has been met by skepticism by most of the Masai men, the women are quite taken by it and go to church regularly.

On Christmas Day, they dress up in their nicest clothes and go to church to celebrate.

Watch here a Video of our choir  run by my father-in-law's second wife.

Please also check out my community education campaign, Stephanie's Masai Education Fund, which I am currently running to raise funds to train four Masai from our village in conservation and land management in response to the ongoing environmental destruction of our village.

Thank you and Merry Christmas my Dear Readers and Followers!

A culture under threat

My husband's younger brother enjoying the views while herding our cattle.

The Masai are one of only a few tribes left in this world that try to hold on to their traditional way of life.

These days, however, it is proving increasingly difficult for them to do so.
This is mainly due to an increasing human population that encroaches into formerly wild land and thereby also into Masai territory.

Neighbouring tribes' influences take hold of the Masai's cultural heritage and threaten their identity.

Even though the Masai used to be a warring tribe (therefore the term 'moran' or warrior to describe adult, circumcised men) they are incredibly peace-loving people who are too modest to defend their culture against swahili influences and lack the confidence to value their traditions.

Their cattle suffer from a decrease in pasture lands due to deforestation for the sake of farmland. Many cows die of starvation in the dry season and the land is showing signs of desertification.

Little is being done to educate the Masai about the effects this ongoing destruction of their land will have on their culture and they themselves take little action against it.

It saddens me to hear how abundant wildlife used to be here only 20 years ago - today hardly any is left.

My background in conservation and the love and respect I have gained for the Masai make me want to do something about the destruction of their homelands.

In my opinion, the ancient cultures of this world, are worth preserving as much as Africa's unique wildlife. There is so much beauty in the diversity of the human race and often preserving them, is also the key to saving the wildlife that lives on their doorsteps.

Please watch below a video taken as part of my campaign 'Stephanie's Masai Education Fund' soon to be launched in the name of cultural and environmental conservation in the Masai Steppe of Tanzania.

My campaign is now live and open to contributions! 

Please click on this link to help me make a difference:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/stephanie-s-masai-education-fund-africa/x/17779290#/