All Maasai, All Swahili, All Day!

Yesterday I spent the entire day, 9am - 5:30pm, in a Maasai meeting solely in Swahili. Fortunately I had some interpretation...
It was a stakeholders meeting for an organization called Monduli Pastoralist Development Initiative. There were over 40 Maasai leaders from 8 villages in the Sepeko Ward, to discuss the importance of Early Childhood Development. It was more or less a training session and a reminder to consider ECD in their budgetary planning. Thesse are important issues as the Maasai community is reluctant to educate their children and budget planning tends to be more of a shopping list than a detailed plan. Our hope is that the leaders will now implement some of the things they have learned and commitments they've made. I'm afriad it is part of the human condition that people talk big but do little.
It was interesting to see how the meeting was conducted. The presenters were very particular about audience participation and stretching breaks. Everytime they wanted to applaud a presentation the moderator created a new way for us all to clap. It was quite fun and it kept everyone's attention. Even so, by the end of the day people were falling asleep!
I must say I throughly enjoyed spending the day with them. It was great to be welcomed into such a meeting where I obviously didn't belong.