Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [122]
The spring, when we reach it, is a pool of dark water behind some rocks, surrounded by a crescent of mud that's been churned up by the paws and hooves of a dozen other, not altogether friendly, species. It takes just a few minutes for the women to fill their plastic bottles to the brim. Instantly, each one becomes a dead weight that they must strap to their head and carry home.
“What happens,” I ask squeamishly, because, like Jay, I slipped a disc once and can't look at these women staggering laden across the plain without remembering the horrific pain I was in for six months or more, “if you're out here and you get a back injury?”
Wilson doesn't miss a beat. “That's why we marry more than one wife,” he replies cheerily.
“You mean, you just dump her and get another one?”
“Yes.”
As predicted, by the time we reach the village again, Wilson's new house is well on its way to completion. A team of women swarms busily all over it, threading twigs together to bolster up the roof, then slapping on handfuls of a bright brown squishy substance to seal it. This primitive cement dries extra quickly in the noonday sun, forming a solid crust that, while it may crack and blister, is well up to code, strong enough to withstand heavy storms during the rainy season and keep the interior dry.
Just one thing: that stuff they're slapping on, which I assumed at first glance to be mud—it's not mud.
“This is a house of cow dung,” Wilson announces with the same pride he uses for telling people that his “wifes” do all the work. “Drawn from a cow, today. You see, it's quite wet.”
I see only too well. The women's arms and legs are plastered in it.
“So how long does it take a cow to poo a house?” I ask.
“One day.”
“One day??? That's all?”
“Yes.”
No wonder the cattle are so thin. They're practically hollow.
One of the most remarkable things about the tribespeople, I notice, is how relaxed they are in front of the cameras. While the crew and I squeeze ourselves uncomfortably into their dangerous world, balking at the prospect of being eaten and refusing point-blank to hold a handful of wet feces up to our noses, Wilson seems incredibly at ease in ours. He takes direction like a professional, delivering information on cue, standing patiently on his mark during technical discussions, and if necessary—if the microphone misses a word, say, or there's a problem with the background that needs sorting out—going back to the beginning and repeating everything he's just said with the studied skill of someone who's appeared in way too many documentaries over the years to be fazed by retakes, cutaways, or the dozens of other minutiae that go into making pictures move.
Whenever the camera's off, the rest of the Masai relax even more, becoming a little less last-century about everything, less “tribey,” and even letting us hug them—something they're obviously not used to; happily posing for photographs with the crew, especially the kids, who gather around in a large group, laughing and roughhousing, craving attention the way kids do everywhere.
After a while, possibly because they're tired of being hugged, Lunch and Breakfast and some of the other warriors parade to a meadow, where they start to dance.
Actually, it's less of a dance, more a raucous display of yelping and leaping up and down on the spot, but quite mesmerizing. I can't take my eyes off it.
Despite all of their achievements over the years—staying alive being the main one, evidently—this is what the morani have come to be best known for: their dancing.
Visitors and wildlife film crews puzzle endlessly about how these warriors manage to be so athletic and leap so high, sometimes three or four feet at a time; whereas to me, quite honestly, it's hardly a puzzle at all. I mean, am I really the only person over all these decades to figure out that it's because the dancers are wearing rubber sandals made from motorcycle tires? Come