Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup metatuning Masai tribesmen sending aid to US

This is really a beautiful story.
Bet you can't read it without crying!

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WHERE 9/11 NEWS IS LATE, BUT AID IS SWIFT
By Marc Lacey
New York Times
June 2, 2002

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/03/international/africa/03KENY.
html

NOOSAEN, Kenya, June 2 -- Skyscrapers are a foreign concept to
the Masai who live in this corner of Kenya, where the tallest
things on the vast horizon are the acacia trees and giraffes
that feed on them.

So when Kimeli Naiyomah returned recently to this tiny village
from his studies in the United States, he found only the
vaguest understanding among his fellow Masai of what had
happened in that far-away place called New York on Sept. 11.

Some in this nomadic community of cattle raisers had missed
the story entirely. "I never knew about Sept. 9," said William
Oltetia, chief of the young warriors known here as morans, who
was still confused as to the date. "I just never heard about
it."

Most Masai had learned of the attacks from the radio soon
after they occurred. But the horrible television images passed
by many Masai, who got electricity in their village only
shortly before the attacks. In the oral tradition they rely
on, Mr. Naiyomah sat them down and told them stories that
stunned them.

Through his tales, Sept. 11 became real. The Masai felt
sadness. They felt relief that Mr. Naiyomah was unscathed.
They wanted to do something.

Today, in a solemn ceremony in a grassy clearing, they did,
blessing 14 cows being given to the people of the United
States. Elders chanted in Maa as they walked around the cows,
animals held sacred by the Masai (often spelled Maasai). After
the blessing, the cows were handed over to William Brancick,
the deputy chief of mission of the United States Embassy in
Nairobi.

To reach Enoosaen, Mr. Brancick had flown to the Masai Mara
Game Preserve, then driven two hours along the most rugged of
roads. At the ceremony, he seemed tentative as he held a rope
given to him by a Maasai elder that was attached to a
rambunctious bull. He thanked the people who had given cows
from their herds. But, he said, transporting them would be
difficult so he will probably sell the cows and buy Masai
jewelry to give to America.

Mr. Naiyomah, a student at Stanford University, helped to
arrange the gift after seeing his people's reaction to his
account. He used his connections to plan the roundup and
contact embassy officials. His rise from Masai land to Palo
Alto had enabled him to rub shoulders with everyone from
President Daniel arap Moi to Chelsea Clinton, who met Mr.
Naiyomah with her parents last year when she graduated from
Stanford.

Mr. Naiyomah, who is taking pre-medical courses, is to
graduate next spring. After medical school, he plans to return
to his village.

He had been visiting Manhattan on Sept. 11 and came home last
month with first-hand accounts of the horror of that faraway
event. Now a young elder in the community, Mr. Naiyomah, 25,
told the others of huge fires in buildings that stretched high
into the clouds, and of men with special gear who entered the
structures to save lives.

"They couldn't believe that people could jump from a building
so high that they would die when they reached the ground," he
said.

In the ceremony today, Mr. Brancick was given 14 cows, a
sizable herd for the Masai.

"We're out with our cattle every day so we're not always up to
date on the news," said Vincent Konchellah, 22, who donated
one of his 12 cows. "We had heard about a disaster in America
but we didn't know much about it. Now we feel the same way we
would feel if we lost one of our own."

There are three most cherished things that a Masai can offer
as a gift -- a child, a plot of land and a cow, which is far
more than a source of meat and milk.

The Masai, who wear bright red tunics and elaborate
multicolored jewelry, stand out among Kenya's 40 tribes for
the high leaps of their traditional dances. During ceremonies,
they drink the blood of the cow, mixing it with honey beer,
and they use every last inch of the animal for clothing and
decorations. A groom pays the father of a girl he wants to
marry in cows, and even dung is put to use, as a lacquer to
protect the outside of huts.

"The cow is almost the center of life for us," said Mr.
Naiyomah. "It's sacred. It's more than property. You give it a
name. You talk to it. You perform rituals with it. I don't
know if you have any sacred food in America, something that
has a supernatural feel as you eat it. That's the cow for us."

The Masai have a reputation as warriors, which developed in
the colonial days when they fought those who trod on their
range land. The tribe still teaches young men to fight, but it
is now torn between its traditional ways and life in a modern
world.

It is now illegal for Masai to hunt lions, which had been a
rite of passage for young men. Increasingly, youngsters are
staying in school, dreaming of lives away from the range land.
Television sets are appearing in huts, with images from a very
different world.

Most Masai are still not up to speed on the intricacies of the
Qaeda terrorist network. But they understand what it means for
around 3,000 people to die at once. In Enoosaen, a disaster
that grave would wipe out all of them.

"That guy -- surely we would have to kill him," Mr. Oltetia,
the village's chief warrior, said of Osama bin Laden. "We as
the Masai have ways to kill, just using a spear and bows and
arrows."

When pressed about his tactics, Mr. Oltetia said: "He's a
strong man so we couldn't do it directly. We would surround
him in the bush."

Masai tribesmen sending aid to US

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