Where else would we go?

By Kisuma Mapunda

It is among the few places that men and wild animals have been living together, sharing the same eco-system for centuries. The world has marked it as the eighth wonder.

The place attracts millions of people from all over the world to visit and see how men have been living together with wild animals. They pay millions of dollars.  Recently there have been arrangements to shift these men to another area, the methods used for doing so have been harsh to these people living in the crater of Ngorongoro. They are called Maasai.

Over 300 homes were burnt down, 1,800 people were made homeless and over 100,000 livestock were left without water and pasture. This happened between July–December 2009. Kooya Timani, a member of a pastoral women’s group was not happy with the whole situation.

This kind of parcelling out of land among local and foreign investors and interests is common, and the village councils face a daunting task trying to reclaim lands, or negotiating user rights on behalf of local herders and farmers.

The Maasai spiritual leaders the Laibon are almost entirely excluded from any engagement on behalf of their communities. And the women, needless to say, are voiceless in these matters.

“I was there as soon as I heard about the incident, that some boma (huts) were burnt and one child was lost. As a Maasai woman and a mother it really  touched me to see those women crying for their loss. Some women had miscarriages since they were running for their lives,” narrates Kooya.

For a while she was thinking what else she could do to get people especially women to stand up so that their voices could be heard all over the country. Therefore, she decided to do something about it.

“The first thing I did was to talk to Ndangari Nchanwee. I met her at the scene  we were there together. I told her that if we kept quite the women will be the victims, because our husbands  are usually out there searching for pasture sites for herds of cattle. We are the one staying home with the kids. If this continues where else would we go,” explain Kooya.

In Maasai culture women are the ones staying at home watching over children and the general domestic welfares of their families.

That was the starting point for her, she then organised other women around Loliondo to speak up for themselves. This included Noriteti who lost her daughter during the evections as people were running all over the place to rescue their lives. They don’t know where she is to date not sure if she is dead or alive.

They formed a group of eight (8) people; three (3) women and five (5) men and went to Loliondo to meet with NGONET (NGO Network)  one of the major partners of Oxfam in Loliondo.

“Because we had no means of organizing ourselves, I communicated with an Oxfam partner called Ngonet in Loliondo. They facilitated us with bus fare and other expenses to Arusha. We went there to sue the District Commissioner over the matter, because he was the one approving the operation” says Kooya.

Not only they do that, but they went to president’s office and handed him a letter concerning their problem, but still nothing was done.

Kooya has been organizing women meetings in the villages of Ololosokwani and Saistambu. The main agenda is education for women, land rights and drought effects. So far about 500 women are aware of their problems.

“We need major campaigns to hold our government accountable, we have been marginalized by the whole community. Together we can and for sure we will continue to create more awareness to all women so that our voice can heard at all levels,” explain the mother of six Kooya Timan.

Kooya Timam from Ololosokwani village in Ngorongoro