all photos on this page by Rick Noss
These are some of the people with whom I recorded the CD called:
"Enjolis Olol Sidai o Enkang uNarok Osingolio Which Loosely Translates as Hedgehog Son of Good Sings and Dances with the Village of Narok."
My last name over there is Olol Sidai which means Son of Good. There is no word for Best. Sometimes thay would say Sidai Pii which means "completely good" and that's as close to Best as it gets over there. Osingolio means "to sing and dance." Like space and time they cannot be separated.
Here are two songs off the CD. You can click to listen or right click on windows or control click on mac to download them. If you download please click the add to cart button. You can enter any number you want in the quantity space. All the money will go to the media center which needs a solar panel. Let's say you email one to your mom and another to your brother. That would be a quantity of three
Osingolio Ile dial-up | broadband | Osingolio Onguan dial-up | broadband
As a minority indigenous group that has been left out of the benefits of formal education and the tourism industry, the nearly 300,000 Maasai people in southern Kenya struggle with economic impoverishment and a lack of resources, such as clean water. One of the greatest obstacles they continue to face is difficulty in educating and organizing Maasai people across geographic distances without vehicles, roads or electricity. We believe that access to multi-media communication tools will allow them to organize to protect their traditional land and to create educational models that strengthen their culture while bridging to the outside world.
Maasai people have one of the most widely represented indigenous cultures in the world, yet they have virtually no technical resources to represent themselves on their own terms. They have much of value to share with the outside world, about how to exist sustainably on our planet and how to resolve conflict peacefully through consensus. Our initial plan is to open a media branch at our community center where we can record the views of elders and educators to disseminate ideas between communities and to share ideas with the world. Ultimately we hope to build a radio station.
This media center is one of many projects of the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition, an organization I have been involved with for over ten years. Last summer I went to Kenya to help set up this media center. I brought with me an iMac, a video camera and a microphone plus all the required interfaces to create multimedia. The only thing lacking was electricity to run the equipment. Next summer I hope to raise enough money to buy solar panels, inverters and batteries.
We are seeking high quality video cameras, microphones, recording devices, speakers, amplifiers along with all the necessary media and accessories for recording and disseminating interviews, videos and music.
Click the links to the right to go to MERC's web site or to make a tax deductible donation to the media center of the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition through PayPal.
Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition