My Land Cruiser plates are Ugandan. It provides me with a nice false backstory driving through ramshakle towns and splendid camp entrance gates. Animals on the Kenyan plain can see so far that they have confidence and feed very differently from browsing animals' long staring vigilence in the woods.
My countenance made no difference to the Masai at the Ololainutiek Village, sixteen hundred meters above the Indiana Ocean and some five hundred kilometers west, but lifetimes of tradition away from my experiences. This enk'ang village, a collection of huts fashioned from cow dung and mud surrounded by a strong and tight thorn bush, rests in a flat saucer of trampled soil rising into a timbered bowl-like valley with a small stream down the middle.
Three hundred and fifty nomadic Masai, in red Shuka, all bothers and sisters and aunts and uncles live here as men take wives from distant enk'ang by payment of cattle - sacred to the Masai as the god Enkai gave all cattle in the world to the Masai. Masai are nourished by the blood and milk of cattle.
Without pretense the Mesai demonstrate ceremonial and warrior dance, invite me into their huts, and finally parade me before endless stalls of crafted merchandise to select. I resist feebly as each joyful artist stands behind me. I find I do like many pieces and am invited to negotiate price. One man speaks for all and etches the lot price with a soft stone on his arm. Too high. He hands me the stone to mark his arm. Too low. He marks, still too high, and my counter too low. I propose taking some selections off the table but am refused as there is a system of sharing this revenue among the artist's family and the village. We strike a price for the lot.
I had a long career where a successful negotiation is said to make no one happy. I'm happy I paid too much and now have a ready supply of gifts for later this December
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