9/11 and the Maasai
From Lamin Sanneh’s Whose Religion is Christianity?, pages 64-65:
News of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, did not reach the tribe until a Maasai student returned from the United States to his people with the story some eight months after the fact. Using Maasai narrative form, the student carefully recounted the scale and details of the attacks, including people jumping from windows to escape the fires, and the thousands who perished. This so moved the Maasai that they staged a solemn ceremony in an open field where they blessed fourteen cows as a gift in sympathy to the people of the United States, pledging with their bows and arrows to hunt down the terrorists in question. A bemused senior U.S. embassy official in Nairobi made the trek through the bush to receive the cows. The heart, the sages say, is the toughest part of the body. Tenderness is in the hands. A public acknowledgment of the gift was subsequently broadcast on National Public Radio (June 8, 2002). It spoke of the gratitude of the American people for the generosity and thoughtfulness of the Maasai. You cannot put a price on such gestures of hands extended in friendship, nor count in number their interpersonal effect.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Having lived near the Pentagon and feeling the aftershock of the explosion I was moved by this excerpt. The gesture of the Maasai is priceless.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Very moving, even this many years later.
March 29th, 2007 at 4:58 am
Thanks for sharing their response. I would of probably never knew about that. Brady, are you in Africa or just got back from there? You are starting a theme with your blogs. Either that or you ran out of computer stories. I do like it when you share stories of faith from other cultures outside of Switzerland.