John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series AFRICAN HABITATS : FOREST, GRASSLAND AND SLUM Studies of the Maasai, the Luhya, and Nairobi's Urban Fringe |
|
|
|
|
|
John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series AFRICAN HABITATS : FOREST, GRASSLAND AND SLUM Studies of the Maasai, the Luhya, and Nairobi's Urban Fringe |
|
|
|
|
 |
| 469. What Anna was able to accomplish in a few years is obvious.
In addition to fencing off her corn patch and vegetable garden, she was
also the first person to enclose portions of common grazing land adjacent
to her shamba as hay meadows for use in emergencies. A traditional
Samburu village, in contrast, would have neither crops nor fenced pasture.
Key to numbers: 1=her house; 2=her chicken coop; 3=her old house (now used for sheep and goats); 4=her hay meadow; 5=her corn patch; 6=her vegetable garden; 7=vegetable garden of her son Patrick; and 8=her watchman's hut. |
 |
| 470. Anna also worried about her children’s eyesight because, with a roof that was low and flat like that of her neighbours, her house was often full of smoke. |
 |
| 471. It made the kids’ eyes run and flies would settle in the corners of their eyes. With a fireplace for cooking but no chimney and just this one small window, she saw the need for changes in traditional architecture also. |
 |
| 472. So she arranged for the Mission to supply her village with ready-made windows and chimneys, which women could buy cheaply and incorporate into existing and new homes. |
 |
| 473. This woman could not afford a proper chimney but she did leave a hole over her fire. |
 |
| 474. Other women saved money by building a thatched, cone-shaped roof --similar to those built by forest tribes in the west of Kenya (but not, in this case, to shed heavy rain). |
 |
| 475. The smoke, or at least some of it, rises above the level occupied by the children and finds its own way out through the roof. |
 |
| 476. Anna’s sister tried something different. She scoured the district in search of timber and built a large gable-shaped home with a much higher roof than normal. |
 |
| 477. This, then, reflects the influence of women like Anna ... a village with corn patches, vegetable gardens and a variety of roofing styles. |
 |
| 478. Women like Anna also wanted to increase the productivity of their pastoral operations. At the time I visited her she had only 5 cows and two calves but had owned many more the year before, losing most of them to East Coast Fever. At the Rural Development Centre (alias “ the Mission”), established in 1972, they raised good quality livestock like these for sale cheaply to Samburu families. |
 |
| 479. Because of tick fever they sprayed them regularly while they were at the Mission. The problem was, when they were sold their new owners usually failed to do this. Herders soon stopped buying bulls from the Mission because, having been sprayed all their lives at the mission they were likely to die within a few months of their arrival in the manyatta. They preferred to hang on to their own bulls, all of them, -- just in case -- and this led to further overgrazing. |
 |
| 480. The store at the Mission ordered in sprays and medicines for the herders to use, but many men considered it beneath their dignity to bother with white man’s medicine. |
 |
| 481. So the women came and bought them. They had children to feed and cattle to look after, and they were willing to try anything. |
 |
| 482. They also took home blocks of mineral salt. When cattle were free to roam over large areas they found salt naturally: now it must be provided.. |
Text, photos and recordings
by John Tyman
Intended for Educational Use
Only.
Contact Dr. John Tyman at johntyman2@gmail.com
for more information regarding
licensing.
www.hillmanweb.com
Photo processing, Web page layout,
formatting and hosting by
William
Hillman ~ Brandon, Manitoba ~ Canada