By LEONARD KORIR

As the tour van speeds past a rough road in Maasai Mara National Game Reserve, a cloud of dust covers all the manyattas in a compound. From the cloud spring out enthusiastic occupants who warmly welcome the guests.

Tourists immediately feel at home and start taking pictures of the colourfully clad Maasai morans who have lined up to perform a welcome dance.

The dancers in traditional red shukas make captivating and energetic moves, making even women with their nursing babies loosely strapped across their chests to join in the dance.

Within no time, the visitors join in the dance.

At first they dance clumsily, but with more moves, they get the rhythm. They jump higher and higher. Although visitors cannot achieve the morans’ height, they are happy to fly.

This is usually the routine of the cultural tours – the driver guides take tourists to villages in the reserve, dance with the villagers, and get a taste of the traditional life such as eating traditional foods, sampling traditional regalia, and admiring curio items. In return, the villagers are supposed to enjoy their generosity.

 

Lion’s share

Before they go to ‘sample’ village life, each tourist pays $20 (Sh1,750) which is supposed to be given to the village elders. The intention is good; the money is for the betterment of the village. But unknown to the generous tourists, the driver guides end up with the lion’s share of the money. These guides usually go behind the tourists’ backs and demand a share of the amount received – astoundingly estimated at 96 per cent of the sum. The locals receive a paltry four per cent.

Though there is no formal agreement between the guides and the village elders on how to share the money, the local residents end up being exploited and benefit least from the visitors.

As far as this aspect of tourism goes, Maasai villagers are just used to benefit greedy guides. It is daylight robbery.

It is estimated that more than $5 million (Sh430 million) is lost every year in several Maasai villages through such ‘leaks’ as tour guides continue laughing all the way to the bank to exchange the foreign currency while the unsuspecting locals languish in abject poverty.

Miserable lives

If the money was fairly shared out, the villagers could enjoy improved facilities such as better equipped schools, clean drinking water and passable roads, among other benefits.

“Despite the multi-billion natural resource in our disposal most of us are still leading miserable lives because of the injustice done to us by the ‘outsiders’. Illiteracy is the major cause of this as our people have remained ignorant about a lot of things happening locally here,” says Paul Kimeleny, a resident.

An investigation by The Standard discovered how the tour guides were employing underhand tactics in their operation to avoid the tourists suspecting their cunning ways of pocketing back the money left for the village’s development.

Such tactics include lying to the tourists that there had been severe anthrax and Ebola outbreaks in some villages, discouraging them from heading there and instead asking them to contribute or visit other remote villages that have never engaged in tourism previously, hence getting the loophole of exploiting the local residents.

Ben Ramet, a resident,  says it is usually when the tourists are busy admiring curios in the villages that the drivers take back the money from the village elders who receive the amount from  visitors.

This exploitation has been ongoing for too long until a UK-based organisation, Tribal Voice Communications Initiative, intervened and in some villages, especially in the Mara Triangle (the western side of Maasai Mara) the theft has gone down. Villagers in other areas still face a lot of exploitation.

In fact, when the tour guides realise a village is enlightened, they take the tourists to a remote one where they continue with their thievery.

Cashless system

Since 2006 when the organisation started working with tour operators, ground handlers and safari lodges, it has managed to slowly but gradually help some villages set up a cashless ticketing system that ensures the money tourists pay to visit Maasai villages is deposited directly into village bank accounts.

Cheryl Mvula, the brain behind the initiative, says since the cashless system was introduced, all villages in the Mara triangle have retained nearly 100 per cent of tourism revenues. This money has been  channelled to community development projects such as schools, health facilities, and water projects.

Tribal Voice is working with more Maasai villages to encourage them to use the system.