Dom of Redmire visits Irkeepusi in Tanzania

Dom of Redmire visits Irkeepusi, a Maasai village near the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.

Hi Everyone,

I've been having a really exciting time visiting Ponja in Tanzania. He took me to visit his village called Irkeepusi near the Ngorongoro Crater. I met lots of sheep and goats and cattle. I could not speak their language but they were all very friendly to me.

Here I am with some of the children, at the special enclosure in the middle of their village where they keep the animals safe from lions and other predators at night.

Everyone was surprised that I have such a thick wooly fleece. I explained that where I come from on the hills of Northumberland the weather gets very cold in winter and I need my thick fleece to keep me warm when it snows and the bitter wind sweeps across the hills of Otterburn.

Ponja showed me the houses made of sticks and mud which are the traditional homes of the Maasai people. They are easy to construct with local materials and easy to repair. Each family has their own house. There are box beds off the main circular central area. The parents sleep in one bed area and the children in another. Small children sleep with their parents. There is an outer room for the baby sheep and goats. The mother has a fire in the centre on which she cooks. The cattle, sheep and goats supply the Maasai people with nearly everything they need. They can sell them to buy the cloths for clothing, cooking oil, tea, rice and maize.

During the day, the animals lie close to the school room, waiting for the children to finish their lessons so they can take them out onto the plains to find grazing. Much of the land round Ponja's village is very dry and the children have to take the sheep and goats long distances to find enough food.

The Maasai people traditionally wear red woven blankets and over many generations the lions have learned to keep well away from the men in red.

In Tanzania water is precious. The villagers have to carry all their water from streams or wells. When a stream runs dry,

they have to dig down in the stream bed to reach water lower down. It is often very muddy and dirty from having to dig down in the stream beds for it, and because all their cows, sheep, goats and the wild animals such as zebra and gazelles also walk into the mud to get the water. Then the water has to be carried in buckets over very long distances. It is heavy and time consuming work.

Here where it rains a lot, we don't know how lucky we are just being able to turn on a tap.

Rachel Blackmore and her husband have formed a charity called Weston Turville Wells for Tanzania or WTWT for short!

They are working with Ponja and the people in his village to have a new water supply installed nearer to Irkeepusi. Their website is www.wellsfortanzania.org if you want to read more about their work to relieve the poverty of the Maasai people in the area.

I'm off to New Zealand next. I'll be in touch again soon.

Dom x