"If a man goes to buy corn flour, the woman carries it on her head. A man is proud, can't carry anything on his head or back." She said her gentle complaints have made no difference. "They keep pressing us down. We are used to it. There is no alternative. We are living here."
About the only concession to modernity that the boma's octogenarian leader seems inclined to make is on education. Schooling is a fraught proposition for Masai, since those who get it may abandon the old ways. But patriarch Lyangiri Sadira, who has four wives and 18 children, is proud that three boys and a girl are in high school. He insists it is possible - maybe vital - to blend deep-set ways with modern knowledge.
"It's better to remain like this," he said, "but I need to know what is happening in the world. If you have your thousand cattle and you are educated, you will know how to take care of your cattle and look for markets."
Sadira, wearing the red wrap-like garment that is typical of male attire, said he would like to see the current high school students, the girl included, move on to a university. To an extent, women's roles in bomas like this are set once they finish seventh grade, if they get that far: They are married off, sometimes before the legal age of 14, and begin bearing children.
That was the life Neema Laizer wanted none of growing up in another Masai area. Now 18, she has learned English and finished high school at a boarding school paid for by the Emusoi Center for Pastoralists Girls. After two years of "A-level" courses, she plans to study medicine so she can help her fellow Masai, especially women.
The center, formed in 1999, sponsors 450 girls in various schools. Their families are asked to help with the cost, but some cannot and others will not. The center relies on private donors, many of them American.
Neema and about a hundred other girls spent the recent school holidays on the center's quiet grounds because of the risk that they could get pregnant or be married off if they returned home to the rural areas.
Mary Vertucci, a Maryknoll sister who directs the center, said she hopes that as more boys and girls go further in school, Masai culture will evolve without losing its traditional essence. "My hope is to see girls who have professional training - teaching, say - go back to Masailand and make a positive impact."
Neema, an ebullient young woman with a hearty laugh, shares that goal. "Women have no rights," she said. "They just sit with the children and cook." But she sees glimmers of change. Her father beat her mother so badly for helping her flee four years ago that she needed medical care. But even he turned up at her graduation.
While she managed to escape a life she did not want - forced marriage, early child-bearing, genital mutilation - she knows that others have been less fortunate.
"Many men now are being educated; many girls are being educated as well," she said. "When they go home, they must bring changes."
scott.calvert@baltsun.com
