For the past two years, Friends of Kenya has funded a group that helps Maasai girls become leaders and role models in their communities. An emphasis on education and economic independence for young Kenyan women has emerged as a theme of FOK’s grant making, so the grants for Maasai girls seemed appropriate.

Then in January FOK heard that a troupe of Maasai performers was touring the Washington, DC area with a similar goal—raising money to educate Maasai girls. To welcome the troupe, FOK hosted a party on February 19 to bring the two groups together for good food and conviviality along with traditional Maasai song and dance.

FOK members prepared foods that they thought the Maasai would enjoy, including stew, roast beef, ugali, and sukumu wiki (greens); Kenya chai was the beverage of choice for most of the Maasai. The Friends of Sironka African Dance Troupe, as the nine Maasai performers are known, reciprocated with joyful songs and dances involving acrobatic leaps that shook the rafters in the northwest Washington home where the party was held.

The troupe’s leader, Nicholas Sironka, a Maasai himself, painter, master batik artist and Fullbright Scholar, auditions young adults from Maasai villages. The criteria are a talent for song and dance as well as a pressing need for employment. Troupe members come from families with no other source of income. “There is no point in getting somebody who has 100 cows to sing for you. You need those who don’t have other avenues of earning a living,” he said. Sironka has had numerous solo exhibitions and has applied his artistic talents in places ranging from the Somali refugee camps in northern Kenya, where he worked with displaced children, to the International School in Vermont, where he worked with young Americans.

While Troupe members focus on educational opportunities for Maasai girls, they also support Maasai communities by purchasing cattle, building wells, and improving health and living conditions. The funds are derived from minimal charges for the school and community performances plus the sale of the beautiful beadwork for which the Maasai are known.

However, sharing Maasai culture with Americans is also an important goal. Westerners have long been intrigued by the Maasai, an ethnic group of Kenya and Tanzania, who preserved their traditional pastoralist ways as the world changed around them. “Children will benefit from learning about our culture before it is gone,” Sironka said. “Outside influences are entering into the tribe and changing the ways.” During the U.S. tour, January-April, the troupe brought Maasai culture to tens of thousands of Americans. Batik art, bead making, storytelling, and hair braiding were incorporated into the troupe’s performances. (For more on the troupe, go to www.enkishonnataana.com.)

Among the nearly 60 guests who crowded into the living room to dance and sing were Maasai residents of the Washington area, including Simon Ole Meeli, consular officer at the Embassy of Kenya; Joseph Lekuton, teacher and author of Facing the Lion, a National Geographic book about the Maasai; and Kakenya Ntaiya, a Maasai student featured in a three-part Washington Post article in 2003. Filming the evening for a documentary on the troupe was Ashina Kibibi, Kenya actress and Fullbright Scholar. Also present were Joan Burns, executive director of Class Acts, the arts outreach nonprofit that sponsored the troupe’s U.S. tour; and Debbie Rooney, president of Beads for Education, the grantee through which FOK channels money to Maasai girls. FOK members who hosted the gathering ranged from recent returnees to 1960s volunteers. The event was held at the home of FOK vice president Paula Hirschoff and her husband Chuck Ludlam.

Hosting Kenyan visitors to the U.S. has been a key activity for FOK since its founding in 1986; usually the guest is an individual who gives an after-dinner speech, not an entire troupe that performs. Among the Kenyans FOK has invited to dinner in the past are Wangari Maathai, the environmentalist who last year won the Nobel Peace Prize; Maina Kiai, founder of the Kenya Human Rights Commission; and Chachu Ganya, head of the Pastoralist Integrated Support Program headquartered in Marsabit that helps northern tribes.

Another important FOK function is to provide education and information about Kenya for its members. To this end, FOK published an award-winning newsletter called motomoto (hot hot) and is now upgrading its website to make it more interactive and connected to news from Kenya. Panel discussions held at the annual NPCA conferences also help keep members current on Kenyan affairs.

Photo Credits

All photos taken by Chuck Ludlam