A Samburu Wedding
If you want to help a community, educate a woman.
For the past month 100% of all online sales profits and donations have been dedicated to wildlife conservation efforts in Kenya. I’m excited to report that Heartfelt Endeavours has raised $290.00 to pay a month’s salary for one of the women keepers at Reteti Elephant Sanctuary. Reteti is unique because it hires women as care givers for the elephant orphans. Empowering women with meaningful roles in the workplace, has a ripple effect within families providing funding for education, daily living and healthcare. Samburu girls have new options as they learn to integrate the wisdom and pride in their traditional culture into positive new roles in their communities outside the home. The safari travel industry has been devasted by the COVID pandemic – all travel stopped which meant all income from tourists stopped too. Conservation work goes on, the orphans need to be fed, the keepers need their jobs to feed their families. I am extending this Heartfelt Endeavours Campaign this month in the hope we can raise another month’s salary for one of the caregivers at Reteti Elephant Sanctuary.
A Samburu Wedding
“Would you like to go to a wedding? I will take you if you'd like to go,” says Robert, my Samburu guide. A Samburu wedding? “I’d be delighted! I'd be honored!” I respond enthusiastically. I can’t believe my good luck. “You can't take your camera,” he says. “I understand,” I say heart sinking, knowing that my iPhone will have to suffice enroute and my memory of the event will have to do the rest.
Next step, what does one wear to a Samburu wedding? Off to the gift shop at the lodge where local Samburu women have beautiful beadwork for sale. I buy myself a necklace and beaded earrings. And a dress—I need a dress—wait, no problem, I have a dress—so, check. Excited, I put on my dress and Samburu beads.
A young American woman doing an internship at the lodge and an English woman who arrived that day join us. We pose for photos before we pile into the land cruiser. We’re accompanied by two other Samburu warriors and a ranger with a rifle in the spotter seat on the roof.
I have no idea what to expect; there will be singing and dancing of course, but I don’t know what the wedding ceremony will be like.
After a few kilometers, in the distance I see bright flashes of red and yellow skirts and black-skinned warriors shooting like brilliant arrows high into the air. Their singing reaches us before we arrive at the gathering place. When Maasai and Samburu warriors dance, the men gather in a circle and leap, straight up into the air from a complete standstill. It's a competition, a show of strength and athletic ability. The higher the dancer can jump the more prestige he has.
As I fight off my longing for my camera, I remind myself to be in the moment. Robert is grinning from ear to ear, he's so proud and delighted to be introducing us to his culture. We approach the group of dancers mesmerized by their voices and action. I hear a counter song coming from a circle of manyattas, traditional homes. Out of the corner of my eye I see the women making their way towards us, a long line four abreast. They are adorned with stacks of necklaces, like massive beaded collars. Their undulating movement makes the collars bounce up and down in variegated circles of colour that frame their joyful faces. Their song blends beautifully with the men’s voices.
As the group passes us, we are pulled into the dance. A Samburu man grabs my left hand and a Samburu woman takes my right. We dance around the perimeter fence of thorn branches that encircles the village compound, called a boma. In the evening when the men return from grazing their animals, the animals are brought inside so everyone is protected for the night. We dance through the gate into the boma and around the individual manyattas: step, hop, step, hop, step, hop. I try to mimic the undulating motion of head and back movement of the dance. My dancing partners grin approval of my clumsy effort.
Gasping for air, I do my best to keep pace with the community. Everyone else looks like they can do this for the rest of the night. Robert takes my hand and steers me over to one of the manyattas. “Would you like to meet the bride’s parents?” He introduces us to an elderly looking man and his tiny little wife. We nod politely at each other. There's an open fire with a big pot of stew cooking outside their home. They killed a cow for the wedding celebration. The wedding feast of blood, milk, fat, and meat is a special delicacy. My inside voice whispers anxiously, “I hope I don't get invited to taste this meal. What will I do? It would be a terrible faux pas to decline such a gracious offer.” Robert interrupts my worrying, “Come on, I want to show you inside.”
We duck to pass through the low door into the family home. The head of the sacrificed cow greets us inside the doorway. I nod to the head bending in half as we go further inside the low structure. The interior is sectioned off by rudimentary dividing walls of woven sticks. A small child watches us from the shadows. Robert leads us to the back to a riser where we sit. Strips of meat that I assume have been smoked and are drying hang above our heads. I feel like I've been taken right into the larder.
Robert waves his arm as he shows us around. “This is where the parents sleep,” he points to one corner. “This is where the children sleep,” he points to another corner. “And this is where the bride and the groom sleep,” he points to another space directly in front of us, “where the groom will exercise his conjugal rights.” “Oh.” I say dumbfounded, imagining the honeymoon night and the lack of privacy.
We go back outside to rejoin the dancing. “Would you like to meet the bride and the groom?” asks Robert. The groom is a tall, handsome, Samburu man dressed in traditional finery with an extraordinary headdress. The bride is young, she looks like a teenager. She has layers of beaded necklaces that wrap around her shoulders and down her arms. She wears a skirt of bands of green, red and white fabric tightly bound around her narrow figure. She looks miserable and in pain. She is not a happy bride. My heart sinks as Robert explains: that morning she went through the traditional female rite of genital mutilation. This involves partial or total removal of her external female genitalia. I see another side of this event in her eyes.
The bride’s wedding day is very different from the groom’s. She endured an excruciatingly painful process in the morning. A couple of days after the wedding she will leave her family, her friends, and her community to live with her husband’s family in his village. She knows no one there. She met her husband for the first time that morning. It was an arranged marriage. I try to imagine what she is going through, the woman in me agonizes for the bride. I know from talking to some young women the previous day, that I need to be mindful of assumptions. Their culture is a source of pride and belonging for these women. They do not know of other options. Yet, I could see the pain in the bride's eyes, physical pain for sure. But what else? Maybe it’s the pain of leaving her family. Maybe it’s leaving her community. Maybe it is fear of her future. I pray for her and hope her husband is a good man.
I look at Robert, “Is this how your wedding was?” “Yes” he says with pride. I know he has two kids and is very proud of his wife. Who am I to judge an arranged marriage? I feel blessed to have witnessed the wedding but come away feeling unsettled. I long to sit with the women to learn their stories and their perspectives.
“Is this what your home is like, do you live in a manyatta like this?” I ask Robert. “Yes,” he replies. Robert was recently promoted to manager of a new lodge a few kilometers away. The lodge is built for foreign tourists with running water, spacious tents and luxurious accommodations. As we climb back into the land cruiser I say thoughtfully, “You live in two worlds don't you Robert? You go back and forth between two worlds.” Robert smiles at me, “Yes, I do,” he says.
Support for the for Samburu women who are role models for young girls in their communities will continue until the end of August. No donation is too small, every contribution supports Samburu women and girls who are empowering themselves while working to protect their environment and the animals that co-exist with them.