If you know anything about me and my career, you know that I decided that I for sure wanted to be a wildlife ecologist on a study abroad trip to Africa. When I was living in Kenya, I learned a lot about animals and conservation, and I also learned about people and culture, sometimes through my own horribly embarrassing mistakes. I told you about one of those moments last week. This week I’m bringing you miscommunication part two.
Here’s that story.
:: Instead of being kind of curious and interested, my first feeling was a little bit of panic. And then the second feeling I felt was, what the hell is going on? ::
I’m Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, and this is a different kind of nature show. A podcast all about the human drama of saving animals. I want to tell you my story and what it’s actually like to track bears in the Sierras, chase lemurs in Madagascar, live with lions in Tanzania, and do all of that as a Black female scientist. This is “Going Wild.”
Uh, how to even start this story? I don’t know.
And, from what I understood then, and kind of what I still understand now about traditional Maasai culture, marriage is a huge, huge part of the coming-of-age process. And from an American and kind of Western identity, most folks traditionally get married quite young, especially women. And in traditional Masaai culture, someone can have more than one wife, and that is totally normal.
I think just saying it like that, the reaction from, you know, a Western perspective is kind of like, Oh, that’s strange, maybe that’s not very good for the women.
I definitely learned in my experiences with the Masaai not to be judgmental in that way.
I found myself even over the course of the semester getting comfortable with the idea of polygamy, you know, with meeting people and, you know, asking them like, Oh, well, how many wives do you have? How many children do you have? Asking those kinds of questions was totally appropriate. It was completely acceptable to inquire about that. But what wasn’t acceptable is to ask someone, well, how many cows do you have? Because that’s a measure of wealth.
I absolutely learned that from error. Error, error, error. Because there were a number of times when I would just ask like, Oh, you have cows? No way! Well, how many cows do you have? And eventually, you know, a couple of questions in, I remember one of the staff members said, yeah, it’s really not polite to ask people that question. Try not to do that.
So, that’s kind of a good lead-in because there was livestock all over this landscape. You know, so much of the study abroad program was focused on going into national parks, you know, and doing game drives and game counts and studying wild animals outside of the national parks, you know, in the bush where there was the overlap of Masaai communities and wild animals around.
And we were so lucky that one of the communities around us was having a Eunoto ceremony.
And you Eunoto is spelled E U N O T O.
And Eunoto ceremonies are this big coming-of-age ceremony for both men and women.
Around 13 is about the time that you go through the Eunoto ceremony and that is just this beautiful, exciting, wonderful moment full of dancing and full of song and full of feasting, and we were invited.
Let me just be completely honest and say that I got a lot of special attention. If I thought I was getting special attention at camp from the staff members because I was the first Black student, I got so much attention by just being an observer of the Maasai ceremony, because I was a Black person, you know, from far away.
And that’s where a lot of the conversation about me got started.
It was soon after the Eunoto ceremony, probably less than two weeks had gone by, and we were having some downtime in the camp and there is a sound of a motorcycle buzzing up. I should say motor scooter because that’s probably more accurate. That was unusual. We did not get motorcycles or visitors. You know, we would hear the sound of a truck, every couple of days or something, but this was different.
A few minutes later, one of the students came trotting over to where I was sitting and said, “Rae, there’s someone here to see you.” And instead of being kind of curious and interested, my first feeling was a little bit of panic.
Well, that’s impossible. The only reason anyone would be here to see me is if something horrible happened and someone came from the United States all the way here to see me because there’s some horrible, horrible, important emergency news.
I stood up. I remember being kind of in a daze.
And there at the entrance were a couple of staff members that, you know, I knew pretty well, the men, and a guy from the village that I didn’t recognize. I felt way better almost immediately. A guy from the village that I didn’t recognize did not signal an emergency from America. And I was super confused and very, very curious, but the biggest feeling I felt was relief. And then the second feeling I felt was what the hell is going on.
It’s all very blurry because it was all very confusing, but there are some things that I distinctly remember. And one is, I remember that I did not recognize this man, but I remember that he was very attractive. He was a beautiful, beautiful person. He was young, probably my age or a little bit older. He had the smoothest dark Brown skin.
He was not wearing a shirt. So he was wearing, yeah, the many Masaai people drape themselves in these beautiful, beautiful cloth garments.
At the time, it was very attractive as well. And so this man had his sarong tied, and no shirt on, but a lot of beads, very beautiful, beautiful beads around his waist and around his neck. And then he had on sunglasses. So kind of like this little, you know, Western, you know, modern element is these sunglasses, and a big, bright, beautiful white-toothed smile.
And he was smiling, not at me, he was smiling at the other staff members who he seemed to know. It seemed like they were buddies and one of the staff members said “Solatai would like to meet you. He is from the nearest village.” And I said, “Okay, hi, nice to meet you. My name is Rae.”
He spoke great English and said, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Solatai. And then it was silent.
And it was awkward and it just lasted and it just lasted and lasted and lasted.
And then the two staff members exchanged some words with Solatai in the Masaai language, so not even Swahili, where I could maybe pick up a word or two that I understood, but in the Kimaa language. And, you know, again, this was just part of the way into my self-confidence journey, so the Rae of today would have piped in and said, “Excuse me, what’s going on?” But the Rae back then, late teenage, you know, college student Rae just sat there awkwardly kind of half-smiling, trying to figure out what was happening. And before I got any sense, I was excused.
I turned around and I walked back into my classroom and two of my friends that I had made on my trip were eavesdropping the entire time. So I walked back into the classroom and I saw them and they said, Oh my God, what’s going on? Oh my God, what? It looks like, what was that? And I had no answer. I couldn’t answer except, well, I don’t know. There’s this guy from the village. Did you see him? He’s cute. And he wanted to meet me. And so he met me. And that was it.
My friends kind of hyped me up. They said, you know, maybe he wants to date you. Maybe he heard about you and heard you are beautiful and wanted to come to see for himself.
So that was a fantasy that I was very happy to accept and start believing in. And so I did, but that wasn’t a part of what I expected for this trip. So it was really fun to kind of spend a little bit of time thinking to myself, Hey, maybe that’s what’s going on. Am I going to get a Kenyan boyfriend? Like, this is really cool.
As exciting and confusing as this interaction had been, nothing else seemed to come from it.
And months went by. Months. I never saw this guy. Months went by. I didn’t hear about this guy. Months went by. No one said a single thing to me about this guy.
And honestly, I thought about him sometimes because I did not find myself attracted in the same way to anyone else that I met over the course of the semester, but I never saw him again for a very, very, very long time.
A lot of great things happened during those months that went by and I was distracted and having a great time and learning and growing and transforming. And before we knew it, it was the end of the semester. It was the end of December.
So there was one day that was arranged for all of the staff members to drive us from the camp to Nairobi. And most students were flying out of Nairobi that night, so it was a lot of evening flights, overnight from Nairobi to Europe and then Europe to the United States.
And on the morning that we were getting ready to leave, a motorcycle sound came again.
And there was Solatai. And there was a seriousness that was going on. So, there was one staff member, who I will not name on purpose because I do remember that he got into some trouble, but the staff member said to me, “Rae, you’re going to be staying here.”
And I didn’t really know what that meant, but I said, “Oh, I wish I could. I really wish I could, but I have to go back. I promise I’ll return. I can’t wait to come back to Kenya.”
And the staff member said, “No Rae, you’re going to be staying here. You’re going to go with Solatai.” And I didn’t understand. And he said, “Solatai would like you to be his wife.”
And, there it was again, that feeling of the pit of my stomach, absolutely shooting down into my body.
And I said, “Excuse me, what?!” And the staff member said, “This is a really big honor. He is the son of the chief of the community. He has never married before. You will be the first wife, which is the biggest deal. And the biggest honor.” And the staff member didn’t spend much time trying to convince me, he just told me.
To them, there is nothing better. This man was wealthy. He had acres and acres and acres, I mean, acres of land, so many cattle, he was prominent. He was, you know, like the English translation for his title was a Prince. And I also realized that it was a high compliment to me. You know, I was considered someone worthy of being with him.
I remember that I actually backed away. No, no, thank you. I have to go back home to the United States and I will return to Kenya, but I’m not going to get married.
But he became upset and said, “You don’t understand, you have to get married. He’s chosen you. You’re not going to Nairobi. You’re going to go with him.”
I felt, at that moment, very afraid. I felt I was being told what to do. I felt that I couldn’t escape. And I also felt that everyone around me was a part of this culture and this tradition. And again, I’m just such a different person today. Today I’m a grownup and I would have rung the alarm and gotten the help I needed from whoever was at the camp. I don’t know, maybe my professors or someone, you know, to help say, like, this isn’t appropriate and it’s not going to happen. But I was embarrassed and I felt ashamed. Perhaps I had brought this on, perhaps I had been too fun and congenial and flirtatious, or, did this to myself. I was blaming myself for this misunderstanding and that’s so complicated and just absolutely not right.
I just said, “No.” I said, “I’m not doing this. I’m not going, I’m going to Nairobi. And I’m flying home.”
I went back and I didn’t really tell anyone because I thought, okay, you know what? This is over. I’d said, no, it’s going to be over. I’m just going to keep this to myself because I’m so mortified. And I walked back and finished packing up my things. While I was doing that, a staff member who I really trusted came to check on me, and he was able to explain to me a lot of what had happened.
In the last several months there had been a number of back-and-forth negotiations. The staff members had gotten together and figured out that, although I did have a father who was in the United States, He was not able to be reached. We couldn’t call on the phone. We couldn’t send an email. We couldn’t fly him there. And because the father is the one who ultimately gives permission and then arranges the exchange of a dowry to the Prince, I needed someone to essentially be the proxy of my dad. And so the staff member who was there, who was speaking to me at that moment, had taken on the role of my father. And for months had negotiated the price of my marriage.
There are parameters around how a young man chooses to marry. It is deeply rooted in tradition and I, first of all, was ignorant about Masaai culture and traditional practice, and also I wasn’t seeing it properly. I wasn’t realizing that this wasn’t a cute little flirtation. This was a very, very formal proposal that was happening.
I felt like honestly, one of those princesses in a Disney movie who, you know, whose life is being planned for her and she’s kind of fighting back saying, wait a second. I have my own mind and my own ideas, but it was really happening to me in real life. There were all of these men for months and months who were talking about me, were deciding things for me, and were creating this idea of what would be best for me and for Solatai. And there was this weird tension that to this day remains where part of it is a huge honor and part of it is super offensive.
Hours went by. No one bothered me. I gathered my stuff. I threw it in the truck.
And I took that six-hour drive and I thought about this experience a lot. I was still, like, steeped in that shame. I was still really upset and bothered and just so confused and also upset with myself that I was having this cultural misunderstanding. We got to Nairobi and I shook it off and tried to enjoy my last few moments with my classmates. And we found a restaurant and that was kind of fun. And as we were sitting there, I kid you not, on a motorcycle up drove Solatai.
And things were a little bit different. So he was not wearing his traditional Maasai garb. He was dressed in a way that I had never seen him dressed. And that was wearing jeans, wearing a t-shirt. I think he even had a leather jacket. He was dressed like a city guy on his motorcycle.
For us women and girls, I feel like we’re socialized, at least in the United States, we’re socialized to think of gestures like that as super romantic, right? A man, you know, travels a great distance and this grand gesture, you know, in order to, like, win your hand in marriage. Something like that is like something out of a fairy tale. And yet in practice, in my one experience in real life where that happened, it was frightening. It was so uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t explained to any of my friends in the program what was going on.
He beckoned to me. He motioned for me to come over, to speak to him. And I walked over to him and it was almost a repeat of the same conversation, except this time, he was speaking directly to me, something that had not happened yet in the entire semester. Like this entire entanglement that we had gotten ourselves in, we had never actually said more than our introductions to each other. And I could tell that he was confused. He didn’t seem angry and he seemed a little bit desperate. And so my guard was able to come down a little bit at this moment, although I didn’t have the words to say anything different than what I’d already said. “No, I’m, I’m not going to get married. I can’t get married.” He asked me, “Why? Why not?” You know, he’s done all the things. There’s a specific protocol that a male fiance has to go through in order to get approval, to set everything up for, you know, him to ask for a hand in marriage. And he had done those things. All the things that he knew of to do, he had done them.
And I found myself searching for reasons that maybe he would be able to understand. And what I landed on was something that isn’t entirely my truth, but I felt that it would make sense to him. And so I explained that, like, I actually need to ask my father. That’s what I said. I said, “I do have a father and he has not been contacted and so I need to ask my father if this is okay.”
And these days I’m not proud of myself. I really wish that I had been able to be strong enough to say, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t know you. This isn’t how it’s going to work for me.”
But I didn’t, and I fell back on, basically, what’s an excuse. And it seemed to be acceptable, and he was disappointed. He was essentially kind of resigned, like his shoulders hunched over. I could tell that he felt like he had lost so much.
You know, my only regret at this point was that I left him essentially in limbo. I left him wondering if the answer was eventually going to be yes. If somehow I was going to come back and be able to let him know. I gave him my mailing address so that if he wanted to send mail, he could. I gave him my email address so that if he found himself somehow in Nairobi at an internet cafe or something, he could message me.
And the honest truth is that I never heard from him again. And I don’t know if it’s because he figured out that I was never coming back or if he wasn’t able to access ways to contact me.
I said goodbye to him at that moment. And he hopped on his motorcycle and sped away.
It felt a little bit like, like a part of my future, you know, like this big opportunity for me to become Kenyan, to fully commit to sinking into this place and these cultures and this life, that that option was also driving away along with him.
And I guess that’s kind of the case. And yet, at the same time, I had this feeling in my body, like, no, I will be back. And I’m going to be back here on my own terms and the way that I want to.
And as it turns out, it wasn’t much later that I returned.
I’m so lucky that I have continued to do conservation work in East Africa for many, many, many years, since, mostly as a student, but sometimes as a professional outside of school. And I have come back and worked with Masaai communities and studied wild animals and lived in many, many different camps outside of many, many different Masaai villages in Kenya and also Tanzania.
I guess it’s dawning on me actually right now, at this moment, that the ways that my mind was pushed, you know, in these several months in Kenya, really set the stage for me to be so open, so available to so many other experiences and perspectives ever since.
Being the new girl, being the fish out of water, necessitates humility, a sense of respect that allows me to just absorb and be told and taught. That was really important for me to learn. And yet it was only months later that I also learned that my own personal boundaries are the most important, always. And that balance and that nuance, whoa. I mean, it probably, like, catapulted me into a maturity level that I don’t think I would have gotten, you know, had I not been stretched so far out of my comfort zone. And yes, like, some things were a little scary. But at the end of the day, I have probably enjoyed my career so much more because of that. I’ve been agile. I’ve been flexible. I’ve been understanding. I’ve been compassionate with people and not just with wild animals. I’m super grateful.
And that’s what I want to say. I want to say a really big thank you to the Masaai people that I lived with down in Southern Kenya for many months. And to myself for being so open and being so willing to really dive right in and do my best to integrate myself as firmly as I did in the community.
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This episode of “Going Wild” was hosted and written by me, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. Production by Rachel Aronoff, Danielle Broza, Nathan Tobey, and Great Feeling Studios. Editing by Jakob Lewis. Sound design by Cariad Harmon.
Danielle Broza is the Digital Lead and Fred Kaufman is the Executive Producer for Nature.
Art for this podcast was created by Arianna Bollers and Karen Brazell.
Special thanks to Amanda Schmidt, Blanche Robertson, Jayne Lisi, Chelsey Saatkamp, Natasha Padilla, and Karen Ho.
“Going Wild” is a new podcast by PBS Nature. Nature is an award-winning series created by the WNET Group and made possible by all of you. Funding for this podcast was provided by grants from the Anderson Family Charitable Fund and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
