Labour relations: Kamba herders among the Maasai

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contract and demanded more money in the course of the construction...you can‟t trust them”

(Tuteti, Kibini, 15/08/2000). Apart from the accusations about theft, charging more money in the course of the construction appeared to be legitimate as the cost of materials keep on escalating. The Kikuyu masons being referred to here were also found to be a bit more

„professional‟ and they would charge their labour as per the „market rates‟.

Apart from the two sets of houses above, there were also some medium level or “improved”

houses. These would be mud walled, then plastered with cement and have a corrugated iron sheets roof. As expected these ones were cheaper to construct and the Kamba „masons‟ hired for the job were not necessarily trained but those who „hands on‟ experience. Labour charges for two-roomed house would be in the region of Ksh 20,000 (EUR 260). In most of the cases, the Kamba masons would have a „Maasai rate‟ (usually higher) and a „Kamba rate‟. One of them told me that this was not aimed at exploiting the Maasai but that “the Maasai just pay, they don‟t complain”. It was established that on average, a Maasai seeking to have his house

„improved‟ will have, ordinarily, a lot more money at his disposal than a Kamba opting to do the same.

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time of this study, his payments were even irregular and were given now as rewards rather than wages. He had undergone various rites of passage like circumcision (initiation into murranhood) and junior elder after taking up a Maasai wife. His „father‟ even paid for the bridewealth.

In other cases however, like Mutua, who seek herding jobs when they are much older, tend to resist assimilation preferring to maintain „worker-employer‟ relations. In any case, the Maasai families are also less keen on adopting circumcised boys. I would like to discuss the case of Mutua in some detail since it is more typical.

Mr Mutua, who comes from Masumba in Nguu division (Makueni) was born in 1975 and joined school in 1982. He dropped out in 1991 when, in Form 2, his father “refused” to pay school fees. He explained that his father had neglected his mother and her siblings after marrying a second wife in 1980. Although his father had a shop, traded in livestock as well as cereals, Mutua and his sister had to drop out of school for apparent lack of school fees.

However, their step brothers and sisters were not affected. The mother‟s attempt to obtain assistance from her brother (Mutua‟s maternal uncle) whom Mutua said was “very rich” failed as he said that Mutua‟s father was capable of raising the fees. His mother had six children while the step mother had seven. He is the third born in his family and was 5 when his father took a second wife in 1980.

After Mutua dropped out of school, he stayed home doing odd jobs, helping in the farm, hanging around in the trading centre where he did menial jobs like loading or unloading lorries and assisting masons in the construction activities. He resisted the idea of going to Nairobi or Mombasa since he felt that he was not skilled enough to make a living.

In 1995, he was lured by his friend to join him in Maasailand. He had never imagined that he could work in a Maasai homestead as a cattle herder, he asserted. His explanation was that they had never appeared to him as potential employers, taking them as poorer than the Kamba and that “because the boys don‟t go to school, I thought there would be no need of external (household) labour.”²³⁸

I had met Mutua in January 2000 near Mashuru. He was on the roadside looking after a big herd of cattle. He said that the cattle were about 65 “excluding heifers which graze near home.” He started with a salary of Ksh 2,000 and was being paid Ksh 2,500 (EUR 33) per month when I met him. Out of this, he sends Ksh 500 to his mother, and spends the rest on his clothes, cigarettes and saves about Ksh 200 which he used to buy goats. He claimed that Kamba families “even those that are rich” would not have paid him that kind of money, the

238 A common Kamba stereotype of the Maasai.

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claim that he would not have taken up such a job “near home” notwithstanding. I asked him a few questions regarding these claims.

Q: Why do you say that a Kamba could not pay you that kind of money?

A: The Kamba are just mean and it is even worse if they knew you before...they don‟t want you to make any money...they even make sure that they pay you in bits so that you end up saving nothing (cf. chapter seven).

Q: How about the Maasai?

A: They are very good employers...they have no problem with money and they are proud so they wouldn‟t want to argue over amounts like Ksh 2,500.

Staying with the Maasai had not led to the deconstruction Kamba-Maasai stereotypes. Mutua told me that the Maasai were “friendly” but “ignorant” arguing that was the reason why they were paying herders “a lot of money.” He also thought that they could have been trying to

“show off” by paying a little bit more. He was even telling me that they do not send children to school,²³⁹ but he was „positive‟ on other issues, arguing that the Maasai cattle economy was a better land-use practice than crop farming in the harsh climatic conditions. He was so pleased with the Maasai that he „assisted‟ two other young men from his village to get herding jobs among the Maasai.

Mutua sees the Maasai as a cushion for the Kamba in terms of farming land, “employment opportunities” and milk. He did not think that the Kamba were reciprocating „enough‟. But the Maasai who had Kamba herders or farm labourers tended to present it like a „favour;‟ that all they did was to „help‟ their neighbours. The Kamba workers however said they were doing jobs that the Maasai „could‟ not do or did not want to do. The Kamba depiction of the Maasai as people of lower status makes this cross-ethnic labour engagements different from the Hutu-Tutsi relationship where “lower status” Hutu looked after Hutu-Tutsi cows (Peil and Oyeneye, 1998:

58). And the Kamba were not just herding. Other engagements included being recruited by Maasai cattle traders as burunkuai (“transporters” or “escorters”), who accompany animals from one market to the next at an agreed fee.

Apart from Kamba men who take up jobs in Maasai homesteads, there were also Kamba working in „formal‟ institutions that were run by Maasai. I would like to present a case of a Kamba woman employed by a Maasai chief as his clerk. Being near the border and serving both Maasai and Kamba populations, this was a deliberate move to symbolise what the chief called “good neighbourliness”. It should be seen as a concession or sacrifice to boost relations for the move had been resisted by Maasai elders on two grounds: That it was a woman, and

239 As we were talking, some Maasai children were passing by in school uniform.

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two, that she was Kamba. The older Maasai did not like the idea of going to their chief and having to speak Swahili “at home, as if we are in Nairobi”, as one of them put it. Instead of the chief justifying his position by telling the elders that he had done this to improve interethnic relations, he told them that Maasai men did not want to do clerical jobs and Maasai women did not meet the educational qualifications. Having been educated in Ukambani, the youthful chief of Kenyewa location had wanted to reach out to the Kamba. It was easier, he noted, for Maasai men to deal with a woman from another ethnic group than one from their group. He noted: “They know that in other places, women work in offices”. The Maasai chief had to „annoy‟ some of his people to do what he said was for “their own good”. He insisted that it was to the “benefit” of the Maasai to make the Kamba feel at home in Simba (where his office is based) than “treat them like aliens”.

5.2.6 “Kamba schools” and “Maasai pupils”: A symbiotic relationship

Disparities in the distribution of educational facilities had created what superficially looked like a dependant relationship. A closer look revealed a complex form of exchange. Owing to earlier missionary activity and colonial support, Ukambani has some of the oldest formal schools in Kenya. Entry of Christian missionaries into Maasailand had been hindered not by Maasai resistance but the general colonial hostility and indifference to development in Maasailand. A former history lecturer at the University of Nairobi, B.K. ole Kantai, notes that until 1952, there was only one intermediate school in the entire Maasailand including Samburu (Sankan, 1971: xxviii). A 1959 map (below) showing the distribution of educational facilities in Kenya is a clear testimony of how Maasai districts of Kajiado and Narok had been marginalised by the colonial administration. Although much has been done to bridge the gap after independence, the discrepancies are still stark. This has translated into certain readjustments where some Maasai pupils have to attend school outside their home districts. In this regard, boarding schools in particular have been more convenient. Some of the Maasai parents keen on schooling are often concerned about the demotivating environment in the Maasai villages where still a big number of children are not send to school even where the facilities are available in the neighbourhood. Moreover, transhumance is another limiting factor.

Along the Makueni-Kajiado border, one of the boarding primary schools where Maasai send their children is called Mwailu Academy. Although actual „ethnic‟ statistics were unavailable as this was said to be a “sensitive matter”, I was told that about 20% of the pupils in the school were Maasai. One of the reasons why the matter was regarded sensitive was that in recent times, the distribution of „crucial‟ facilities regionally has assumed enormous political

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importance in Kenya. Promises of roads, educational facilities and hospitals have become major tools around which ethnic groups are mobilised. Although the unequal distribution of schooling facilities between Ukambani and Maasailand is often taken as the continuation of the colonial lopsided policies, there are certain realities in Maasailand that would limit the setting up of many schools. Since the population is scattered, building schools within reasonable distance where pupils can commute on foot has been problematic. Besides, since the 1980‟s much of the responsibility of building schools has been transferred to „local communities,‟ with the state assisting with staffing. And the Maasai have done a lot in this regard too as their district development plans indicate. Much of political activity in Maasailand has revolved around building of schools as the groups also seeks other

„opportunities‟ elsewhere.

Interviews with the school headmaster revealed that schools were not only a means of exchange but also arenas where ethnic differences and depictions are deconstructed as both Maasai and Kamba pupils interact in class and share dormitories. The parents meet too during parents‟ days while the teaching staff occasionally has one or two Maasai teachers. But how is a school a form of exchange? Ethnic groups in Kenya have been socialised to claim that schools in their territory „belong‟ to them irrespective of whether these facilities have been funded by the state or non-governmental organisations. Admitting Maasai children in Mwailu therefore is seen as a „favour‟ or a gesture of „good will‟ and as reciprocation of past or future

„favours.‟ Seen from this dimension, the Kamba would have a lot to „thank‟ the „Maasai‟ for, considering the thousands of Kamba residing in Maasailand. Nevertheless, whether in reference to primary schools or those Maasai attending secondary schools in schools in Ngoto, Enguli, Thome Andu, Kikuumini and Kasikeu in Makueni district,²⁴⁰ the Maasai claimed they paid their fees more promptly than the Kamba, an assertion upheld by the school authorities.

On the basis of this claim, and on the grounds that education was not “free”, the Maasai argued that they “sustain” some of these schools and that the Kamba were “happy” to admit Maasai children since that guaranteed the flow of funds. Although this had been used to justify the hypothesis that the Maasai were „richer‟ than the Kamba, the explanation rather was that those Maasai who send their children to school tended to be of a higher social and economic status while for the Kamba sending children to school was a „must‟ irrespective of ones level of income.

After all the ethnic talk and jostling, the Maasai recognise the fact that they have fewer schools in their territory, forcing them to seek opportunities elsewhere. Cross-border

240 The Kamba likewise also seek enrollment in „Maasai schools‟ e.g. in Mashuru and Selenkei.

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schooling overtime has made the so-called Kamba schools equally depended on the flow of Maasai children which augmented school finances. The need for interdependence had made both groups to ignore state guidelines regarding the number of pupils within a certain district that may be admitted to schools in another district.

Below is a map showing the distribution of educational facilities between Maasailand and Ukambani in 1959.

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Map 3: Distribution of educational facilities between Ukambani and Maasailand in 1959

Source: Kenya Atlas, 1959 (Kenya National Archives). The lack of educational facilities in Maasailand in comparison with other surrounding areas is glaring.

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