Thursday, June 7, 2007

Sutton's Gift

This is my new friend Andrew in Kenya. He is a Maasai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai warrior that I met while at Amboseli National Park on our Kenya Pilgrimage. They still live off the land and keep very closely to their tribal traditions as a way of life. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip because we were able to take a tour of their village, go inside their homes which are made of cow dung, and watch them show us how they make fire from using the hand drill method http://www.primitiveways.com/pt-fire.html . I was in my own little part of paradise. It gave me great joy to know there are still people in this world who live so close to the earth by their own choice. I wish I knew the wisdom they posses. At the end of the village tour they took us to an area behind their huts where they sell many crafts and items to make money…apparently they also understand marketing and business. I was not impressed with the tourist junk but asked Andrew to sell me his own knife, which I am holding in this picture. At first he said he could not…after some more talking and bonding though he agreed to sell it to me. When Sutton is older my boy will have his own Maasai knife that was hand made and used as a great tool for over 10 years by my friend Andrew. I also talked them into selling me the hand drill they use to make fires. They thought it was so funny that I wanted those things.

2 comments:

Josh said...

Sweet blade, dude...Sutton will LOVE IT!

That's awesome that you were able to meet one of the Maasai!

Robby and Lynsey said...

You just took these people's way of making fire and killing/carving different things away from them. You should be ashamed of yourself...

Don't you know that people who live like that don't have a lot of possessions in this world????

:)