Reading: Facing the Lion

Joseph Lekuton’s book, Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna (National Geographic, 2003), serves as an engaging complement to his words at the 2009 ESHA conference and whets the appetite for our travel. A moving autobiography of his life bridging two cultures, the book is listed by the American Library Association Booklist as appropriate for grades 5-12. Most fifth graders will find the reading level very manageable but may benefit from discussion of the subject matter with an adult.

Highlights of the book that will open the eyes of both children and adults include Joseph’s descriptions of:

• the traditional gender roles of his tribe, in which women tend the village, men tend the cattle, and young children (ages five to seven) of both genders play together while grazing the young cattle a mile or so from the village
• a diet rich in milk, occasionally mixed with cow’s blood
• the village member responsible for disciplining children, known as “the pinching man”
• managing the distances between a nomadic family and his boarding school – including searching for his family during grammar school vacations, once for as much as two weeks, visits from his mother who walked as much as a 20-mile distance to his grammar school to bring him milk and, in high school, making his way from Nakuru to Marsabit in northern Kenya by hitching a ride on a truck in Isiolo, often requiring a period of time living on the street
• the circumcision ritual that occurs approximately every ten years in a tribal village, in which all males from approximately ages 12 to 22 are circumcised marking the transition to manhood and defining the group as a generation
• the dawning realization that education and time away from his culture were changing him fundamentally. In Joseph's words, “...gradually I was coming home to people who were not the same as I was anymore.” (p. 55)

Reading about Joseph Lekuton's experiences gives us a sense of the power of cross-cultural understanding and global education. We anticipate that this may become more real and even more compelling in our visit to his homeland.

Claudia Daggett