Maasai Water Project
My name is Beverley Cameron and I work at Orbost Secondary College in Victoria, Australia.
I am also a trained ambulance paramedic with the Rural Ambulance Service.
I was very lucky to be given 12 months leave in 2003 to work in a voluntary capacity in twelve different
countries throughout Africa and Egypt, performing duties as a medical officer and teaching. I undertook
this travel at my own experience.
During my travels I was very lucky to meet the "Mighty Maasai" of Arusha, Tanzania, Maasailand. After
spending a month with this very proud race of people on Zanzibar Island, they came to trust me and so
grant my wish to live with them in Maasailand. I was granted unprecedented access to the Maasai and was
able to film their every day lives, initiations, circumcisions (male and female), as well as learn about
Bush Medicines.
I lived with this precious tribe for 3 months in very unfamiliar and some times harsh conditions for
Mzungu (white people). I witnessed the killing of goats where the Moran Warriors (men) ate the raw,
still warm organs and drank the blood of the animals. I also had to eat and drink this for Bush Medicine.
While there, I am very proud to say I was initiated into the huge Maasai family as one true "Maasai
Mama" (woman) belonging to the whole of Maasailand.
With the permission of hundreds of Tribal Elders I filmed many hours of the most unprecedented,
interesting, informative and excellent footage I know, has never been filmed, or disclosed on film
before.
I know how very lucky I was to be invited, and to film the lives of these amazing people, while living
with them for 3 months. No white people are invited into Maasailand. While I was the there I was the
only white person in the whole area of Maasailand, Tanzania. What an absolute honour this was for me.
I now would like to give something back to this proud race of people, since we in Australia are so
blessed and have so much.
Water is a precious commodity, which we in the western world take for granted. It is hard to imagine
trekking through the African landscape in searing temperatures for 7 hours a day, just to collect water.
This is reality for the Maasai people of Tanzania.
I am now asking for financial help to construct a water well in my village Losunyai, 6 hour drive south
of Arush in MAASAILAND, TANZANIA, to service hundreds of Maasai people.
I am heading back to my family, the Maasai, this June school holidays to film the construction $10,000.
The Tanzanian Government will not fund this project and the Maasai people do not have any acquired
wealth. They are a subsistence people, selling their hand-made traditional jewellery in order to purchase
grains, vegetables and some meat to feed their people, with nothing left over.
Our school is hoping to raise the $10,000 to pay the Tanzanian Government. My students are fund raising
at the moment, putting on many activities to raise the much needed money. They want to help the Maasai so
that the women do not have to walk 7 hours in the hot sun to a drying up, diseased, dirty river with hard
to access water. The health of hundreds of Maasai people is at risk. Whilst I was living with the Maasai,
I almost died twice because I could not drink this dirty and unhygienic water. As a result, the Maasai
Maron (warriors) had to walk 5 hours to another village to find bottled water for me to drink.
We are all working very hard here in my school but I know it will be difficult to raise such a large sum
of money in such a small community. It will take at least $10,000 to make this dream a reality.
I would appreciate any financial assistance or help that you could give our community here in Orbost,
Victoria, Australia, to aid the MAASAI of Tanzania, Africa.
Yours faithfully
Beverley Ann Cameron.
You can contact me at the following:
bcafrica@hotmail.com or ring Orbost Secondary College on 03 51 541 084 to speak to me.
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