During the last week we have been traveling through Ngorongoro District, in northern Tanzania, home to Maasai herders and smaller communities of farmers. The district has suffered years of poor rains/drought, with massive losses of cattle, sheep and goats in 2004 and 2005. But we arrived to find the plains lush with grass, and the hills mantled in cloud. On most days, heavy rainstorms have swept in from the east, filling the seasonal streams and rivers. Though this makes travel difficult, it has brought a tangible atmosphere of relief in the Maasai villages.
One of these villages is Piyaya, where we have spent the last two days. To get there, we drove across the short grass plains which are now dotted with thousands of wildebeest, as they move slowly southwards on their annual migration. Their numbers have increased four or five-fold over the last 40 years, so that they now outnumber livestock in the district, and take much of the grazing that would in the past have been used by cattle.
Piyaya's primary school, dispensary and village office are sited at a small trading centre, which also hosts the weekly market. But the Maasai homesteads are far flung, some as far as 60km from the village centre.
Oxfam is the first development organization to have reached Piyaya. Our guide is Rahab Kenana, herself Maasai, who has worked as Oxfam's livelihoods officer in the district for six years. In villages like Piyaya she is often called 'ntida' - 'favourite wife' - because of the huge impact of Oxfam's work. The Village Chairman, Simon Nairiamu, greeted us and took us to his homestead, set on hillside two kilometres from the trading centre. Simon shares the homestead with two brothers, their mother, and a sister and her family. Simon and his brothers have five wives in total - Maasai men take more than one wife, if they are wealthy enough in cattle to pay the bride-price. Communal life within a single homestead allows the combining of herds so that labour can be used economically. This is especially important now that more and more children are going to school, rather than spending every day caring for livestock.
We were lucky to arrive at the homestead just as the families' sheep and goats were returning from the plains, where they had been grazing around temporary camps since July. As the sun dropped behind the hills that surround the homestead, the animals crossed the river bed and grazed their way slowly up the hillside to the homestead. The youngest kids and lambs were carried by the herders. A scene of organised chaos ensued outside the brushwood fence of the homestead. After living together as a single flock for months, the animals now had to be split before they could be moved into their individual family enclosures. The young herd boys dragged animals from one side to the other, only for them to race back as soon as they saw a chance. Finally the flocks were separated, and the sheep and goats were led group by group into their enclosures within the homestead.
Oxfam has been working in the district for many years, and with the onset of drought in 2003 became involved in providing relief food. Piyaya is in one of the driest areas, and suffered badly in 2004. Oxfam responded with food support, but also trained community animal health workers to provide basic treatments such as de-worming. Livestock were also vaccinated against East Coast Fever, the biggest killer of cattle. As a result, animal losses in 2005 in Piyaya, and the nearby community of Malambo, were much less than in some neighbouring villages. To better enable the communities to respond to droughts in the future, Oxfam has promoted the organization of women and youth groups, and provided funding for the community to build a grain store and develop preschools. The store is almost complete, and Oxfam has provided a start-up supply of 300 sacks of maize, and a supplementary fund to buy more. This will ensure that there is food in the community when milk is not available. The store is managed by the newly-formed women and youth groups. The groups oversee the sale of the maize, and the purchase of new supplies from towns in the agricultural areas outside Ngorongoro District.
Yohana Olesonjoi is a member of the youth groups, and acts as book-keeper for the women's group members who sell the maize. He is clear about the advantages that Oxfam has brought to the community. 'As youth we work hand in hand with the women. In Maasai communities, women have always been disregarded. But since Oxfam came and brought us together to work in these groups, it has brought equality. Before we thought women did not know anything. But we have come to see that women know some things that we do not know, and can advise us.
What we also think we can do to safeguard our community is to go for education. We want to ensure that as many children as possible are taken to school. We need our own teachers, and doctors and lawyers, if we are to protect our own future.'
