Welcome to Kenya's
Maasai Mara and a Maasai homestay!
The Maasai tribe of Kenya's famed Maasai Mara. I'd visited before and fell in love, and my fiancee had always wanted to go ... so we decided that somehow we would figure out to have a wedding ceremony there. The more we researched, though, the more it seemed not only impossible to have an authentic Maasai tribal ceremony ... it seemed impossible to even have a real experience or a homestay with the Maasai people.
By sheer luck (and with the help of many friends), we met Sekerot, an educated Maasai warrior who is working to save the Maasai culture by providing ecologically and culturally sustainable facilities ... a place in the Mara where the Maasai people can retain their culture and still have a place to live as the national parks push them out of their traditional lands.
So in February of 2011, April (my fiancee) and I travelled to Kenya's famed Mara. En route to Leganishu -- Sekerot's "village" -- we saw a lioness, giraffes, elephants, and more wildlife than you can imagine if you haven't been there. We were scared, though, of what we would encounter at the village: would we end up in a manyatta that wasn't "Western-friendly"? Would the food be okay for us? Would we be gently roughing it ... or fiercely worried about our survival?
It turns out that Sekerot has created a wonderful Maasai village -- not luxurious, mind you, yet authentic, safe, warm, and fairly comfortable. (We even had hot water!) His family adopted us, and we had the most amazing traditional Maasai wedding ceremony you could ever imagine. (We hear it was the first outsider wedding in the Mara in 15 years!) They even renamed us -- I am now Saruni, and April is Nasieku.
We fell in love with the people, with the lifestyle, with the culture, and with our new family. When we came back we felt it was our responsibility to share this with the world ... with YOU, actually, if you're reading this. As a web designer I chose to do what I know: to create a website for this tribe that seems as far from civilization as you could get.
So this is April and my website to say GO! Go to Kenya and the Maasai Mara!! If you want just about the ONLY authentic Maasai cultural experience available on the planet ... if you are an adventurer who wants to experience a part of life and the planet that has been mostly off-limits to outsiders for thousands of years ... if you want to experience wildlife as it was 5,000 years ago ... if you want to meet and know more incredible people ... then please, GO see our new family, Sekerot, Treza, Baba and the Leganishu Maasai tribe. Will it be a long journey, with ups and downs? Yes! Will it be the most amazing thing you've ever done ... a story of your Maasai homestay in Kenya to tell your children's children in many years? YES!
To make visiting the Maasai in Kenya even easier, please just call us and we can help you any way we can. This truly is our family now, and we want what's best for them (meaning that we will be screening visitors before they go to see if they are a good fit), and we want you to have the most incredible time possible so that you tell everyone about it.
Please contact me or April with any questions...
-Jason "Saruni Ole Mpetti" Niedle