Masai warriors garbed in their bright crimson-colored robes, standing in recycled automobile tires that were fashioned into sandals, hooped-earrings dangling heavily from stressed-out ears and leaning on canes that at a moment's glance can be transformed into weapons to fend off marauding lions from killing their hoofed livestock. Huddling under trees from the hot-probing sun, Masai men lazily pass away the day telling stories and joking and shepherd their cattle, while women do the hard work of domestic chores of gathering sticks for heat and to make fire to cook with, gather water miles away from their straw-thatched villages. Their bright red robes sharply contrast to the lion-colored, golden-brown, tawny landscape of the tall grasslands of the African savanna.
In towns and cities, Masai warriors stand in traditional clothes pestering tourists for handouts or try to haggle their artwork, crafts for money. They stand near tourists traps and chase buses with cell phones gripped tightly in their clasping hands. Western people pass by in safari jeeps and snap pictures of a different time. Two worlds collide and crash in the present reality of buses, cars, trucks and semis whizzing by at modern speeds of high velocity compared to the speed of animals, birds or the two feet of a bi-pedal Masai. Telephone lines string and criss cross the landscape connecting the rich villagers to each other but missing the poverty underneath.
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