Kikondo also defended promiscuity. He said it is traditional and therefore proper to let a same-age male visitor sleep with one's wife. "No problem," he said, so long as the visitor does not take the wife away.
The phenomenon of multiple concurrent partners has accelerated AIDS' spread across sub-Saharan Africa. But Kikondo declared himself unconcerned: "AIDS cannot get us because we have medicine," namely herbs that he said prevent infection. Told that any doctor would label that dangerous nonsense, he shrugged.
Porokwa shook his head when he heard about Kikondo's comments. Masai, because they seldom have relationships outside their ethnic group, have not been ravaged by HIV/AIDS. In neighboring Kenya, for instance, the HIV rate among Masai is 2.5 percent, half the national average.
But Porokwa said more and more men are moving to urban areas in search of work and are interacting with non-Masai. "It is a very dangerous environment for the Masai," he said. "Once [AIDS] gets there, everybody will be bombed."
Six hours from Arusha by truck, in the heart of rural Masailand, it seems as if time stands still. In the pre-dawn stillness, cowbells clang softly like wind chimes, heralding the start of a new day at one compound, or boma, where a dozen families live.
Soon there is action everywhere. Girls and women, their heads shaven and ears weighed down by pendulous earrings, milk the cows and goats. Parents dress their babies, and families drink morning tea in the soft light. Before the sun rises far over the ridge, young men are leading several hundred head of livestock out to pasture.
The rhythms are ancient and unchanging. This scene unfolds much as it did yesterday, and the day before. It is how inhabitants, particularly the elders, say it should be. They say they like living in the circular homes made of wood frames coated in mud and cow-dung plaster. They don't covet electricity or running water. They like their picturesque location, near a lake and a smoking volcano Masai call the Mountain of God.
Not everyone appreciates this life. Noosotwa Loshipa, 27, ticked off her long list of daily duties, from child-minding and cooking to milking and fetching water. True, she said, young men and boys herd the animals, but the division of labor is unequal. "The men are just loitering. We're keeping quiet, but it's not fair," she said, giggling nervously.
