Kalenjin

Here you can read what wikipedia writes about Kalenjin people. I will not repeat it.. at least not much. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalenjin_people

I came to an idea to introduce some tribes with whom we had some contacts in Kenya. I also have idea to make paintings about every same tribe, but this is for the future. I am sure that in these writings I will have a lot of stereotypes and generalization (that is not the whole truth), but together with my own observations it will have some truth in it. And after all to people who want to know how is people in Kenya, how are they different from Europeans and Americans, then I guess these chapters will have justification as the only way to give at least some idea without visiting the place yourself. Just bear in mind that in many ways people are like people everywhere. There are lots of different personalities, etc, but some things I just felt that can be told about groups of people who are living in different parts of Kenya.

Ah yeah, tribes in Kenya, mostly these are just to count the descendancy and know the local languages, maybe some surviving traditions too. Most of the people are modernized, pretty much united Kenyan people. But there are also some tribes that more or less try to hold their traditional living styles and some even can be really called tribal people.

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Kalenjin is actually fairly new name for tribal union or tribes with similar languages and traditional background. There is about ten or so tribes that are said to be Kalenjin. They inhabit most of the highlands area in western Kenya. As Eldoret, where we were most of our time, is in center of that area, then we naturally had mostly to do with Kalenjin people.

Ok, these tribes still have some differences in their languages. Mostly differences in pronounciacion, but sometimes also some different words. And Pokot seemed to have actually very different language and they also called it Pokot language, yet they are still called Kalenjin too. At the same time it was rare that someone would say that they are speaking Keiyo.. they spoke Kalenjin. Only time when I heared people saying anything about speaking Nandi, was when elders were surprised that I know some Kalenjin words (btw. they said that I pronounce very well). But as wikipedia says, before 50-s these all were called Nandi languages, therefore it is understandable why elderly people say so. Young always called it Kalenjin language.

Kalenjin are Nilotes (look from wikipedia what it means) like much more known and more traditional tribes of Maasai, Turkana and Samburu, and like most other Nilotic people, also Kalenjin are traditionally pastoralists. Well, this of course you can also read from wiki, but it doesn't actually say anything about contemporary reality. Even these days cattle is important to them both culturally and for main source of food. It is so even though many Kalenjin have settled from rural areas to more dense areas - towns and slums around these, where living style and ways of economics are already much different from village life. Many Kalenjin would still like to live in countryside, they would prefer simple life there (when compared to modern complexity and bureucracy), but they just don't manage with this life. Times have changed and most of them understand that they can't stay the same forever either.

Ok, they are slowly modernizing, but still many of them try to hold their traditions. Not only songs and dances, also commons, how they relate to others, etc. Initiation ceremony is still widespread and one of the initiation traditions is circumcision. It was said to us that Kalenjin still do more circumcisions to both boys and girls than most other people there. Cattle for dowery is perhaps not so big and not anymore so important as for example in Maasai communities, but this tradition is still held and taking a wife without negotiating with her family and giving them dowery may offend or even anger them. Many of them still have one missing frontal teeth - also knocking out one tooth was one of the common initiation tradition in many tribes in this part of the world, although yes, it seems this tradition is now disappearing. Some elders also have big earholes where they once wore small wooden sticks (at first I thought that these were earplates, but finally I saw a picture some Kalenjin having short but about 5cm diameter wooden sticks through these earholes.. if I can find a picture from internet, then I add here), but this tradition is now for some reason abandoned. And I was said that many Kalenjin men don't want to give up their supremacy over women (actually I even noticed myself.. sometimes it seems that woman are more slaves to them than anything else) and there were supposed to be more men among Kalenjin who beat their women than in other tribes. It is too bad that well surviving are especially that kind of unhumane traditions, but national dresses and really old songs and dances, even these earsticks, are disappearing. They lose basically everything that was special about them and are turning to modern society with lots of problems.

But for some reason I somehow started liking Kalenjin right away, when to many other tribes I had lots of reservations and some I didn't like very much even to the end. I even came to identify myself almost as half Kalenjin. Even when I had some problems with some of them, even if I didn't like how some of them acted towards us (volunteers from Europe) or towards women, or just acted weird, even then in general I liked this people. Their past was fascinating, their old traditions amazing (too bad that I can't show you photos or videos of traditional Kalenjin dancers or even proper videos of more contemporary Kalenjin folk songs.. these are really something special), their language is so beautiful (I loved it much more than Swahili, their official national language). I liked the beauty of their people (of course there is much diversity, but over all I find that Kalenjin have prettiest girls) - their slim body that often finds proper application in sports, their bronze-like dark skin, their interesting facial features and sweet, little bit modest personality, I truelly fancy these. And when I say that they are modest, then at the same time they are very much social. They are cheerful (most other people seemed also bit reserved toward us, then Kalenjin basically embraced us from the first moments.. sometimes it even felt that we would require more peace and more privacy, but this is their way of culture, their way of hospitality. And when we are finding something in their culture disturbing or when we found us exploited (you know, practically everyone there thinks that white people are powerful and rich), then basically it is not their fault. They have been grown up in this culture. It is us who have to grow a tougher skin and learn the local ways. But yes, generally Kalenjin are very hospitable and good people.. especially in countryside.

Nge tuye goi! See you later!