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Masai Mara - tribe from Africa

"Masai Mara is one of the very ancient tribes of Africa with history dating back to thousand of years.  They live in the grasslands of Kenya and Tanzania.  Cattle rearing is their main occupation and they would do all to protect their cattle.  Masai dance is a very famous dance and they dance for every occasion, be it birth, marriage or death.  They are nomadic tribe and keep moving from one place to the another.

Off late, they are finding it very difficult to lead a peaceful live due to constant intrusion of their lives by the tourists.  Their traditional lands have been taken over the Governments of Kenya and Tanzania to create wildlife parks.  The most famous of them is the Masai Mara Wildlife park. 

Masai Mara tribe has it own traditions and customs.  The men of their tribe wear the feathers of the animals they hunt.  Wearing a Lion's mane is the highest symbol of valour and strength. "

Wondering what happened to me! This is what I learned about this Masai Mara tribe when my son participated in the Fancy Dress competition last week.  It is a very elaborate exercise to prepare one for a fancy dress competition.  In this case, you have to dress him like an African tribe, so it involved additional effort of sourcing the dress, beads, headgear, spear and shield. 

I found out that there are shops who rent dresses for fancy dress competition and school/college dramas.  One among them is Costume Centre, below the Kodambakkam bridge.  I am surprised to see the amount of collection of dresses they have as well as how neatly they maintain them.  They don't lend dresses for cinmea shooting!!

It involved days of practice of the script, the masai dance and the song.  On the day of the competition, we were at the school to do the make-up and make him look like an African Masai.  The credit should go to my wife, who painstakingly collected all the details and the required dress materials.

All the kids, numbering 30, who performed on the stage on that day, did phenomenally well for their age.  They have collected so much of information about their tribe they were dressed like.  Rest of the students who didn't participate were the audience for this.  When each and every participant talked about their tribe, there were so much to know and learn and that is exactly the objective of the school as well.  The audience were very participative and the whole show was a good education and entertainment.  I loved being at the school on that day, for a change!!

2 comments:

Sudhar said...

In my previous company one guy worked from that community (M.E graduate). Very nice people.

More than anything, u must heard about Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT) shoes. (search in Google)

To read move about this http://uk.mbt.com/Default.aspx?lang=en-GB

I bought that Sandles (in 50%) and its good but I don't see any big result, may be not using religiously.

Venkysdiary said...

@Sudhar: True, people from tribal community are exploring modern life as well.
Haven't heard about MBT shoes!! Will check that out!