Living life in a mud hut in a remote Maasai village, without power or running water, I should have felt like a fish out of water but if anything I felt completely at home. Leaving my comfortable life as a Town Planner behind at twenty five I headed to Kenya to volunteer at a school in a Maasai village. I wasn't to find out where I was to be placed until I landed in Nairobi and met with the volunteer organisation, Fadhili. Fadhili asking hesitantly whether I would mind being the only volunteer at a placement in the remote village of Olmororoi. I wasn't there to spend time with foreign volunteers, I was there to immerse myself in another culture so told them I wouldn't mind in the slightest.

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Leaving the city behind and travelling ever so slowly on a rough washed out dirt road, passing herds of goats, giraffe and impala, I was dropped off at Olmororoi and introduced to my new Maasai family. Living with a father, his three wives and their children in their manyatta comprising of three simple mud hut homes. No power or running water, no bathroom just a hole in the ground toilet a hundred meters away outside the safety of the manyatta; the goats and cows living in amongst us as well. I instantly felt at home. The family was so incredibly warm and accepting of me almost immediately and having only been there a few hours I was given the Maasai name of Naisula, meaning 'the good one' and would be known as that from there on. 

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I started teaching at the local school the following day but upon seeing the state of the classrooms with rocky dirt floors knew there must be something that could be done. That week organising and helping to concrete the junior classroom floors with a couple of local men. 

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I was given year six to teach and my first lesson was maths; my worst subject or you could say my worst nightmare and it was long division. I panicked. How on earth was I to teach them something I couldn't for the life of me do? So while the students 

were doing exercises from their textbooks, I was madly trying to work out just how to do long division so not to look like a fool when up at the blackboard. Getting the kids to show their working on the board and they teaching me instead of me teaching them, seemed like the best idea. I still to this day don't understand it nor never will. 

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While it was a year six class I was teaching, my students ranged in age from twelve years old to twenty three years, as boys would only go to school once there was another younger sibling, old enough to take over shepherding the goats and sheep. I loved my year six class so much. All so incredibly cheeky but such hard workers with a thirst to learn. I had a fancy handshake I had to remember for each boy. The students were fond of me too and my arm hair of which one girl announced while holding my hand and affectionately stroking my arm hair that my hair was like the savanna grass. Quite the complement. Me and my savanna grass hair were forever being invited to visit students homes and meet their parents and families.

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I was not the first volunteer to be placed in this community and I'm not sure what they saw in me that was different from the other volunteers but the head teacher, Mr Winfred asked me whether I would be interested in forming and running a Maasai womens educational group in Olmororoi. Feeling incredibly out of my depth and under qualified, the following week I had over thirty Maasai women turn up on foot to our first meeting. After discussions in the community the women then agreed to merge three groups and join mine as they were all so thankful for the love and care that I showed their children in school and so trusted me and valued my advice. 

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My school volunteering now second to this unexpected womens group which now had over one hundred women involved. I would attempt to teach them basic English starting with the alphabet and numbers one through to ten. Learning the basic English conversational cues. In following weeks meetings, I would also teach them stretches and exercises to help relieve their back pain, one week organised for a team of volunteers to come and visit and educate the women on sanitary items as well as having a tailor come and teach basic sewing skills on a very old rusty singer sewing machine. Bust mostly the weekly meetings were just about gathering together as a community of Christian women, chatting and getting stuck into making traditional beaded jewellery and brainstorming ways to market their handmade products. Most of their income being used to support the communities widows and orphans.

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Going for weeks without showering didn't bother me in the slightest and it was an odd feeling being completely comfortable in an environment so far removed from your norm. Weekends were spent singing and dancing at incredibly long church services sometimes going right through the night until morning. Around church meetings, walking the dusty dirt roads for miles visiting other families manyattas spread out across the valley. I was taken aback by how hospitable these people were. Often having nothing more than a freshly laid egg that they would boil up and offer me along with a deliciously sweet cup of boiling hot chai. Not even fazed that they wouldn't be able to converse with me but what I realised fast in Olmororoi, a smile speaks a thousand words. The children were so proud to show off their goats and their very modest small mud hut homes. Life was so basic but these peoples lives were so full. 

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I participated in ceremonial goat slaughters where I ate liver, throat and freshly cooked meat skewered on sticks over a fire in the bush with all the men. Politely refusing the raw kidney which I discovered to be the most prized part of the goat. All rushing to eat it like it was a sweet. Not a single part of the goat goes to waste. The remaining raw meat then sitting unrefrigerated in the hot, smokey hut for days on end covered with flies but we still cooked it up and ate it most nights until it was gone. 

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I drank warm cows blood, as the Maasai do, straight from the neck of a cow but once you've tried it, you probably won't be back for seconds. The warm, metallic iron taste not the most appealing, but I was there to give it a go. I lives as the Maasai did and loved it. Their lives totally community orientated and based on so many old traditions. 

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I helped my Nini (mother) and sisters cook ugali and chapati in the dark on the floor of the smoke filled kitchen until my eyes burnt and watered so much I had to head outside into the fresh air. Our home was constantly full of people dropping in for chai or ladies just dropping by for a chat. Some of the best times were spent learning to bead with the ladies under the shade of the acacia trees while they tried teaching me to speak Kimaasai. Or helping to do hand washing with Kokoo (grandma), after we walked for kilometers to collect water from the villages wells and carry it home. Kokoo taking great delight in getting me to repeat a similar version of heads and shoulders, knees and toes. Except eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, chest, stomach, arms and fingers. It would just end in fits of laughter at my expense as I'm unable to roll my r's and r being such a common letter in Kimaasai.

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My highlight every day was when I could hear the cowbells in the distance and it would be my brothers returning home from their day shepherding. I would always head out to help them round up and bring them in to the compound and help tie up the cows so that Nini could milk them. I could never turn my back on the goats though as there was one goat in the herd who had a strong dislike or like, I couldn't tell, towards me. Of course it had to be the most mangy goat of all who just looked demonic with its far set eyes facing opposite ways. No matter where he was in the herd, he would find me and make a bee line straight for me bleating as he charged; while I quickly made a run for it, yelling to my brothers that this one has to be the one to go next. 

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On my last day at Olmororoi Primary School I treated my year six class to a party outdoors at a location of their choosing; a cliff ledge overlooking the plains so that we could try and spot the giraffes and baboons. The day before I asked them what food they would like at the party as I would head off on a motorbike for the two hour journey to a shop that afternoon. Bless the kids because all they wanted was fresh bread and jam, bananas and corn. I printed them all a photo and made up a little stationery pack for them as a parting gift and then jumped in the back of a very packed ute with twenty five other women for one heck of a journey home. 

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The ute tray had canopy bars over the top so that just made it harder to squish in as you had to fit around the bars. I was jammed in the back corner with only space to stand on my tippy toes on one foot while my other leg and the rest of my body was hanging out the back of the ute. We couldn't move an inch. We waited another half hour to fit more people in. By this time my leg was going to break and i was pretty much hanging all out the tray. A lady told me I would be better sitting up on top of the bars and so after mass confusion with everyone instructing me in Kimaasai, I was pulled out of the tray by some men and told to get up on top. So I was now sitting above thirty people and then as we finally start to move another eight men jump up on top with me. I was amazed the ute had any clearance it was so weighed down. We finally were on our way on the bumpy dirt road and so began the longest journey home in the dark and freezing cold. Normally it would take forty minutes but this night it took three hours. Many stops, cramps, pain, dead bum, and frustration at the amount of women grabbing my backside from below and rubbing my hairy white legs out of intrigue. You just had to laugh.

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At school the next day, the kids all shrieking with delight as they received their packs, while in return I was equally spoilt being given so much traditional jewellery as thankyou gifts. We had the best afternoon with our bananas and jam sandwiches on a rock ledge celebrating the time we had together and taking hundreds of photos.

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For my final womens meeting, I had organised and purchased a new singer sewing machine for the ladies as a parting gift. Hoping that the younger girls would be able to learn to sew and something might come of it. It was very emotional saying goodbye to all these women who had become my dear friends. 

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After saying goodbye to my Maasai family I tearfully left and cried the long journey in the ute back to Nairobi. I sat there savouring the journey. The smells, the sounds of cowbells in the distance, the Maasai boys in their colourful Maasai blankets walking down the dirt roads, the raw beauty of the landscape. Nini came with me on this journey and as she saw me off on the bus said to me 'ohh Naisula, miss, you, kanyor oleng (I love you), good bye'. A note from my sister telling me Nini had started to learn English a week ago so she could say goodbye. 

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While i headed to Kenya to volunteer, I was the one who was left with their life completely changed. Changed by the love this community showed me, the gratitude of people with absolutely nothing and also the pride of oneself in their identity as Maasai and as Christians. That little village, just a small dot on a map on the edge of the Great Rift Valley, will always hold such fond special memories. That family who openly took me, Naisula, in as one of their own, I could never thank enough for the experience.

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