Givan's Village

Today we went to Givan's house to learn the ways of the Maasai. A half-Maasai, half-Kikuyu man named Wilson stopped by our house early in the morning to pick us up. Givan was waiting for us along the side of the highway with his piki-piki. Jason and I were initially jealous that Isaac got to ride with him.


Too bad the bike got stuck in the sand. Givan's house was pretty far out there, so I'm glad we didn't do what Givan had initially suggested -- take a mutatu and then walk for a couple hours.


Givan first showed us his goats.


Then we released them for some grazing. It was nice -- ultimate job for chillers. Goats make annoying noises.


Younger brother Matthew, Givan, Isaac and I enjoying a cup of chai made with very fresh goat's milk. Probably not a great medical decision. Givan just got promoted to security manager at RVA, so our visit was his way of celebrating.


This is the kitchen for the families that live here. I'm glad I drank the chai before I looked inside.


Picking out lunch.


Ahh, the poor goat's final moments. We look a little too happy.


The way the guy on the left, one of Givan's friends, slit the goat's throat and bled him was amazing. Surgeon's hands. You can see two colorful bangles on the man's wrists, each of which signifies a wife. He has two -- polygamy is still pretty common among Maasai. That's why Givan doesn't know how many brothers he has (he says over ten).


Cutting out the kidneys for a quick snack. That's where we drew the line -- no raw organs filled with goat urine.


Matthew blowing up the lungs.


Our favorite of the day -- roasted goat ribs, nyama choma. So delicious.


When the meat is ready, one of the guys grabs it and throws it on the ground on top of some leaves. But after the fourth or fifth piece of meat, there are hundreds of flies swarming around the leaves, our food and the Maasai sword they used to cut it up. Sometimes you just can't think about things too much.


The men brought over a metal pot to boil some of the innards.


Organs with frothy green stomach contents -- delicious.


The stomach was definitely the single most disgusting thing we ate. This picture was taken after I had already scooped out most of the mushy green stuff. I felt like Bear Grylls.


Waiting for more meat. Now we understand why slaughtering a goat and eating it is a day-long affair.



Our goat fed around a dozen people. These two schoolboys even came to pick some up for their teacher. I was doubtful at first, but there was a lot of meat on our little goat.


The whole time the men were out in the field eating the goat, the kids and women were back by the houses eating chapati and potatoes.


We returned to Givan's house only to find that his wife Jackie had prepared another meal of chapati, cabbage, potatoes and more goat meat. Surprised none of us exploded in a cloud of goat parts.


The kids liked us. It's interesting -- in Maasai culture, kids have to ask for your blessing before they are allowed in your presence. So kids will walk up to you with their head bowed waiting for you to touch their head, which means that you allow them to be there.


Everywhere we go, the kids can't get enough of seeing themselves on our digital cameras. Note the flies, which were everywhere. They especially love the babies, which is kind of wack cause the babies are wrapped up and can't fight them off.


The one on the far right is one of Givan's twins, Lydia. The others are his younger brother's kids.


Givan laughs while Jason and I suffer from severe food coma on the way home.


What a great day. Tomorrow we go to Nairobi with one of the interns, Michael. We'll be taking a mutatu into Nairobi, so pray for our safety. The power went out fifteen minutes ago so I'm going to sleep.