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Expanding the Maasai horizon

story and photos by Sean Sprague

Maryknoll Sisters' school in Tanzania is haven for young tribal girls escaping forced marriage

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ebecca Leronjo is a bright 15-year-old who just started her second year at a prestigious high school in Tanzania. She hopes to be a doctor one day—if she can avoid being forced into marriage with a man of her Maasai tribe. Famous for their colorful beads and lion-hunting warriors, the Maasai are traditional and marginalized from more progressive social groups in Tanzania, especially in education. Male elders often discourage children from going to school, especially girls, whom they marry off for a dowry of cattle, the measure of wealth among pastoralist East African people. Raised on the Serengeti plains in a cow-dung dwelling called a boma, Rebecca had been promised in marriage and her father had already received his cows as her dowry. But Rebecca wanted to continue studying rather than become a wife. With her mother’s blessing, she was sent to the Emusoi Center for Pastoralist Girls in Arusha, which was started by Maryknoll Sisters to help educate just such girls.

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Maasailand Living near Mount Kilimanjaro, Maasai people maintain their traditional lifestyle while edging into modern world.

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“Pastoralist girls are among the most disadvantaged groups in Tanzania with regard to access to secondary education,” says Maryknoll Sister Mary Vertucci, the school director. “Traditionally, they are married off in arranged marriages as soon as they reach puberty. Their families receive a dowry of cows, which puts them into a position of being a commodity for sale. Without the intervention of Emusoi, these young girls would already be married and probably pregnant.” Rebecca, who is unable to go back to her village for fear her father will marry her off, is one of the school’s most promising students, says Sister Vertucci. After a year at the center, Rebecca won a scholarship to a prestigious local school. Emusoi provides a yearlong program of tutoring to prepare girls for secondary studies and also serves as a safe house for those who have run away from forced marriages. Started in 1999 with six girls, Emusoi now has 650 girls in residence attending secondary school and university. It’s an amazing jump from a Maasai village to the Emusoi campus with its modern buildings, electricity, running water, regular 42

meal times and promise of higher education. The life of girls and women in Maasai society is arduous: making the dung houses, collecting firewood and hauling water from afar, cooking, tending to the children, the sick and elderly. The men are in charge of the cattle and thus the wealth. “Eleven years ago when I started, I think there were only two Maasai women in the whole country who had a university education, out of a Maasai population over

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1 million,” the missioner from Somerset, N.J., says. “At that time there was no Maasai woman doctor and very few secondary teachers or professionals.” Sister Vertucci was asked to participate in an 18-month research project to discern the Maasai problems and come up with recommendations. “It confirmed my feelings that there was need for intervention for the sake of girls in the Maasai community,” she says. During the first year, Emusoi tries to fill the gaps

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in each girl’s knowledge and teaches her English, the language used in secondary schools in Tanzania. Many of the girls also need help with Swahili, the national language, since Maasai is the language that is spoken at home. Emusoi is like a big family that offers support to the girls as they adjust to a new life, says Sister Vertucci. From the beginning, the center’s staff has included several Maasai, and now girls who have been through Emusoi come back

Tribal life In traditional Maasai life education is discouraged for women, who are often married off young in exchange for a dowry of cattle.

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Safe haven Maryknoll Sister Mary Vertucci addresses her students at a school designed to help pastoralist girls such as the Maasai go to high school and university.

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to help. Although most girls remain at the center to escape forced marriage, some live at Emusoi simply because their villages are too far from secondary schools. Maryknoll Sister Maureen Meyer, who teaches English at Emusoi during the preparatory year, notes that the Maryknoll Sisters have always helped empower African women, especially in the field of education. “Mission for us has been to cross boundaries and to help people on the fringe, like the Maasai,” she says.

Maryknoll Sister Jeri Stokes works at Emusoi as its media person, documenting events at the center and working on the Emusoi website. She says her purpose is “to share the life of people here with the people in the States.” Emusoi has an impressive honor roll achieved in its 12year existence. “More than 300 students have already passed through Emusoi and they are lawyers, social workers, accountants, medical personnel, teachers, tour guides, secretaries, tailors

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and hotel personnel,” Sister Vertucci says. “As these young women finish school and move back to their communities and give service, they are and will be agents of developmental change among their own people.” For now, Rebecca’s father has grudgingly accepted the idea of school for his daughter and returned the dowry, says Sister Vertucci. But just to be sure, Rebecca stayed at Emusoi over the last school break, studying computers with Sister Jareen Aquino, a newly professed Maryknoll

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Sister just assigned to the center. “I have been away from my community and this makes me unhappy,” Rebecca says. “But I know that after my studies, I will help them by using the education I have received.” Sean Sprague, a writer and freelance photojournalist from Wales, is a regular contributor to Maryknoll. To see a video related to this article go to: www.maryknollmagazine.org WWW.MARYKNOLLMAGAZINE.ORG

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