Contributed by: Jon Racek
On a playground building trip to Arusha Tanzania, we partnered with the Michigan State University Tanzania Partnership Program where we worked with several Maasai communities. Maasai are an indigenous ethnic group in Africa of semi-nomadic people situation in Kenya and northern Tanzania. After work one day, we met this boy who was going through the Emuratta “coming of age” circumcision ceremony. Boys paint their faces mimicking bird patters and must remain in black clothes for the duration of the healing process which can take many months to fully recover.
During this project we build several playgrounds using metal poles instead of wood because the local termite problem necessitated it.
