Massai

Many people outside East Africa have heard about the Massai in countless movies, documentaries and books.

Slim, tall, clothed in red, the Massai – together with wild animals – are now an important asset for the Kenyan tourism industry. Tourists know them as wardens or guides. Everywhere in Kenya Massai art is offered cheaply to international tourists.

But who knows that most Massai themselves benefit very little from the great sale of their culture and heritage? Many scarcely earn enough in the beach hotels to provide for their own and their family’s needs.

Those Massai communities that still live a nomadic lifestyle are pushed further and further into the desert by modern Africa. Other clans have settled down and are now trying to survive as subsistence farmers such as the inhabitants of the Massai village Olereko who have become partners in the network of Chance e.V. Most of them live in extreme poverty and have neither access to education, medical care or paid jobs.

In “modern“ Kenya – its eyes firmly set on the West – the Massai are seen by many as archaic. They are laughed at or feared. Is there still a place for these people in modern African society?

Many young Massai today are losing knowledge of their own language and their culture threatens to dissolve in the “African mainstream.”