The modern way of life is gradually taking over in Samwel Ole Naikada’s Maasai village. But he will never let go of the Maasai legacy of protecting forests and wildlife. When he leaves Kenya for global climate negotiations the traditions go with him.

TEXT  Mats Hellmark

This is an English translation of an interview published in the magazine Sveriges Natur #5/14

PDF version here: Fortfarande stolt – porträttintervju med massajen Samwel Naikada

Extended Swedish version here

 

We meet with Samwel Naikada in the small town Kilgoris where he studies. A tall, cool guy who sort of surfs on top of the messy street life. Over lunch the photographer Håkan asks that particular question you should never put to a pastoralist, whether Sami in Sweden or Maasai in Kenya or Tanzania: “How many animals do you own?”

Samwel smiles and explains that this is like asking someone how much money he has in the bank. In fact, it’s far more than that. Even the very word Maasai is connected to the animals, cattle stands for life itself.

After a visit to the grocery store, shopping for European stomachs, Samwel folds his tall self into the car he has borrowed from his children’s school teacher and we head south. The first part is decent dirt road, the rains haven’t started yet. Every now and then we meet donkey carts loaded with charcoal for cooking, a sight that Samwel disapproves of. Charcoal burning threatens forests across Africa, but in Maasai areas this hasn’t been a problem.

– For us it is a taboo, a curse. Whoever does it will turn as black as coal himself, it is said. But now the traditions are dwindling, people care less and less …

The last miles are completely off road, we bump through bush landscape, follow narrow cattle trails and pass a broken fence that was demolished by elephants a few days earlier. A herd of zebras disperse in front of the car just as we are about to enter Samwel’s boma (fenced area for livestock and houses).

– They feel safer close to houses since there is less risk of lions here, Samwel says.

The day before a cheetah killed a small antelope at the closest waterhole, and a few days earlier a jackal stole a baby goat. Samwel’s village Olkirreruki is situated right next to the great forest Nyakweri which in turn adjoins the Maasai Mara National Park. No wonder there is an abundance of wildlife nearby, and that Samwel got hooked on nature conservation already as a child.

– You could say that I was an activist from the start. I hated when trees were felled, and when poachers hunted in the woods.

He reported them regularly to the National Park Rangers, and eventually the boy who was so good at speaking English started to get odd jobs for the conservancy.

Håkan and I move into one of the family’s huts, next to the cow enclosure and the small house for the goats, made with interlaced branches. The hut has walls made of dried cow dung just like the others, but is more modern with its square shape, small window-openings and corrugated tin roofs instead of straw. Since a few weeks back there is also a solar panel on the roof that powers small lamps and a device for charging mobiles (previously the family had to walk eight kilometers to a larger village for charging in shops with electricity).

Samwel shifts quilted jacket and jeans to traditional Shuka (blanket to wrap around the upper body) and long rod. This is the way he feels most comfortable, and the animals are most at ease with people who dresses traditionally.

– Still I rarely wear Shuka when I go to town, everybody keeps asking what we are celebrating…

But for the longer trips, to the large cities where the climate negotiations take place, he always brings it. Even if the weather is a bit too cold, like in Copenhagen 2009. Samwel has represented indigenous people in four global climate negotiations. Clothes that stand out make it easier to get attention.

– We often need to make a lot of fuss to be listened to, to make our views part of the process.

Cooperating with indigenous people from different parts of the world is rewarding, and Samwel sees many similarities in attitude and culture. But the general result of the negotiations is disappointing. Top players like the US push their own agendas and fight to minimize their efforts. The indigenous peoples are among the most vulnerable and affected, but get little sympathy. Samwel has also been working with biodiversity issues under the frame of the Convention for Biological Diversity and he feels the Nagoya Protocol takes better account of the rights of indigenous people.

Samwel specializes in forestry issues. He has presented the local conservancy project Dupoto Forest and Wildlife Association at several workshops, one of them in Copenhagen.

– I was participating in the panel discussion along with Wangari Maathai and several Kenyan parliamentarians. At first the people from the government did not want to cooperate, they saw us almost as rivals. But that has changed, in Durban we negotiated out of a common position.

Our arrival is a big event in Olkirreruki where cars (and white people as well) are rare sights. Samwel’s six children are overjoyed as Håkan takes snapshots and show them on the camera screen. Their grandfather Tubula Ole Naikada comes to greet us. He is in his eighties (year of birth unknown), but is still out herding animals every day.

When he was young the local Maasai still lived as nomads. The animals could graze where the grass was greenest. The rains were also longer, the drought periods shorter.

– After independence 1963 the land was subdivided, agriculture became more frequent and national parks formed closed areas. We could not move as we used to. Life became more difficult, says Tubula.

The traditional diet is almost entirely based on milk. Meat is uncommon, Tubula ate it almost only during the period when he was a warrior, Moran. The Morans also prepared and ate herbs that made them brave. Hunting dangerous animals were part of the rites. Tubula has killed two lions and one elephant. And several men.

– I liked to fight …

His son Samwel has undergone the rituals that mark the end of the warrior period and initiate for life as an elder, but just as ceremony. He has never lived the warrior’s life, which lasts for several years.

– To get a good life today young people need education and jobs. There is neither time nor possibilities for pursuing the old way of living all the way.

For his own part, he broke the traditional bonds by eloping from the wedding his father had negotiated for him in order to continue studying in town. He became the first in the area with high school exams (today it is common) and the last few years he has taken up studies again at university level in Kilgoris.

His wife Diana (who is actually the sister of the girl he ran away from) takes responsibility for livestock and family when he is in Kilgoris.

– It works out fine. There are mobile phones…

Nevertheless, preserving the culture is important to Samwel. One suggestion he has put forward is creating a local training center where elders can pass on knowledge to the young Maasai.

– Maasai pastoralism is in harmony with nature, as long as there is enough land for the grazing. The hunting is generally not done for meat but regarded as rites of initiation. The clans have totem animals, a factor that contributes to the will to protect nature. And forests have always been important, for medicine, for the holy sites and for water supply.

The forests are used, but sustainably. When roots or branches are harvested it is important to cover bare areas to ensure survival of the trees. For firewood only dry branches are used.

Early next day Samwel and two young guides accompany us into Nyakweri forest. We are a bit tired as the dogs have been chasing hyenas around the huts during the night, but it is a great experience to walk under the canopy of trees and listen to all the stories. A glade has just been visited by elephant mothers who gather particularly nutritious roots for their kids.

Walking safaris are a way to raise money for the Dupoto organization that Samwel heads. The word Dupoto means benefit: income from ecotourism will ensure the survival of the forest. A large dam has been built (the village can now manage two years of drought without shortage of water), 40 beehives have been set up and Dupoto pays for expansion of the local school.

Dupoto has given the villagers a positive view of protected areas. This has not always been the case. Although the national park Maasai Mara attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, the revenue only marginally benefits local communities. Instead the possibility for grazing is limited and wildlife from the park cause property damage and human injuries and deaths every year.

– The parks protect wildlife but are not helpful to the locals. There are provisions for compensation, but they do not function as they are supposed to, Samwel says.

The Dupoto project has also had conflicts. A British-owned tobacco company was starting up large plantations adjacent to the forest six years ago. Bribery and harassments fragmented the local society for some time.

– I called around to authorities and made a row about it. It took six months of struggle, but finally the Kenyan Environmental Protection Agency said no to the farms. The company really hated me and tried to get at me personally.

But threats do not discourage a Maasai, Samwel concludes.

– We don’t give in, we are still a proud people …

Samwel’s milestones

1993 Samwel escapes from the wedding to be able to study for a high school exam (the first in the area). It takes several months before he comes home to meet his father again.

1997 Forming Dupoto Wildlife and Forest Association to protect the Nyakweri forest with its rich flora and fauna.

1998 Moves to Nairobi for tourism education. He works there for a few years but is longing to go back home.

2004 Working on conservation projects in Kilgoris and the areas surrounding Nyakweri forest.

2008 First time Samwel participates in global climate negotiations (Póznan). He has also been to Copenhagen in 2009, Cancún in 2010 and Durban in 2011. “For indigenous people it is important to make a lot of fuss if you are to be heard”, he says.

2012 Begins to study at university level again to gain formal qualification for higher conservation jobs.

Indigenous Information Network is the Kenyan NGO Samwel collaborates with to build a climatically sustainable community in Narok District. IIN has also made it possible for him to participate in the climate negotiations, in part supported by Swedish aid money.

Read more about Dupoto Wildlife & Forestry Association and guided walks in the Nyakweri forest here