Listening Impact

The Maasai Chief (seated) listens to our safari tour members.

I just had the amazing privilege of going on safari to Tanzania. It was a trip of a lifetime for me, and filled with one eye-opener after another.

I’m always on the lookout for lessons in listening and many were gifted to me.

1. The first night we were in the field, in a lovely comfortable tent at Lake Burundi, I fell into a deep sleep and never heard a thing. I was so disappointed in the morning when my fellow travelers asked who heard the hyenas, and I had not. Subsequently, I had to train myself to pay attention to night sounds that were unfamiliar to me. It didn’t take long for my brain to become perfectly capable of getting a good night’s sleep while remaining alert for animals.
2. Our guides with encyclopedic knowledge of flora and fauna, and fluent in several languages including English, spoke with a lilting Tanzanian accent. At first I, with my compromised hearing, could barely understand what they were saying, and I desperately wanted to take in every word. I got better as I accustomed to their accents and tone, but continued to struggle when we were in the field on bumpy, bumpy roads. I ended up establishing a system of translators. My kind fellow travelers would listen to the guides and synthesize their messages. When I was a passenger in a particular vehicle, the guides knew to shorten their comments and also wait for the translator to share his message. I never so appreciated the role of the translator in creating clarity and understanding for both the speaker and the listener.
3. Ah the Maasai. We visited a boma, village, and our tourist-women were paired with a Maasai sister. My partner Anna, not her Maasai name, and I communicated without a common language, other than both being women. I learned that Anna is a second wife, mother of two, pregnant, and beaded jewelry maker. She wrapped me in Maasai cloth, and without words showed me how to dance with her, carry wood on my head, add thatching to the roof of a hut, and patch walls with a mixture of dung and water. By the end of our morning together, we hugged, laughed, and felt a bond. (I’ll gladly send a link to a flickr video of some of our time together—just ask).  The current chief is 89, so on June 1 he’s turning the title over to his son, one of his children from his six wives. This soon-to-be chief is a master of focus. He’s probably about 6’5”, stately and soft-spoken. He stood erect wrapped in slightly different cloth than the rest of the men in the boma, wore the ubiquitous sandals made from tires, and carried a pole like other Maasai men. He spoke to us through our lead guide, smiled, made warm eye-contact and used his growing English language skills to tell us about their lives and that things are changing for Maasai. The children are going to school through seventh grade, he’s against female circumcision, and they are beginning to grow crops to supplement their dependence upon cattle, their primary source of wealth.

He listened so carefully and thoughtfully that we, his audience, were transfixed. But so did his ancient father and mother, so did Anna and the other women, and so did the children in school. Their society seems to be built on collaboration, respect, and paying attention.

Overall, I learned that being open, focused, curious and without an agenda is the ideal way to listen and learn. I’m grateful for the opportunity to experience such wonderful teachers.

I hope the photo allows you to get a glimpse of how a Maasai leader comports himself.