An Elder, Guardian, and Protector

Treats for the children are part of every visit.

October 3, 2012. Today I met an old friend and I was aware we would not have many more meetings. Paulo is a Maasai elder in his upper 80’s living in Kimokouwa. His health is failing. I have known him for more than 14 years. He is the first person I met in 1998 when I visited his boma It's one of the villages area where TEMBO Trust now works.

As I rode out on the back of Lesaloi’s motorbike I was imagining the meeting. I could picture the tree outside Paulo’s boma that I sat under 14 years ago this past July. That day was my introduction to the world of the Maasai. It was startling and it was exciting. TEMBO co-founder, Marian, and I watched Paulo’s sons in the distance come closer and closer, carrying a goat that had been slaughtered and slow roasted all day to celebrate our arrival. We were coming to meet Paulo’s daughter, Kokoyai, a 10 year old girl we were sponsoring. I can see it today as though it was yesterday.

Discovering the mirror on Lesaloi's motor bile.

Time has past. Kokoyai did not continue beyond Standard 7, the final year of Primary School. She is a young woman living a traditional Maasai life, now the mother of three young children. Kokoyai seems happy with her choices. Paulo has since become an advocate, working with TEMBO to promote education as something of great value worth pursuing. He says education is the gift he can give to the girls in his family. He is so right.

With Paulo, his third wife, Kokoyai's mother,
and Kokoyai and her third child.

Kokoyai was there today, too. So was her mother, one of Paulo’s 4 wives. Mama Kokoyai is aging, too. I guess we all are. I am deeply grateful these rich relationships have endured over the years. We are from very different worlds and yet there seem to be no barriers between us. I respect Paulo living a simple endangered lifestyle in rural northern Tanzania. He respects me coming from a world so very different than his own. I am not at all like the women in Paulo’s boma – my customs, my traditions, my lifestyle, and my choices must been confounding sometimes. Yet there he was waiting for me under that tree today, sitting on a blue plastic chair. It’s easier for him to get into and out of now, since traditional Maasai stools are built low to the ground. Paulo and I embraced and shook hands and spoke to each other through Lesaloi, my translator, sharing the news from each of our worlds. A lot has happened in the year since I last saw him. Yet nothing in our past is forgotten. He still has the old photographs of previous meetings and he still asks about certain people Marian and I have spoken of to him.

Paulo's feet: Well travelled feet with so many stories to tell.

And that was it – a 45 minute meeting, a cup of hot sweet chai, then I was on my way. Blessed by Paulo and richer for having connected with him again. Paulo is such a giant in my world: wise, playful, open to change, a true leader, and a guardian to all in his boma.