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    Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna
    Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna
    Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna

    By Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton and Herman Viola

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    About this ebook

    Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton gives American kids a firsthand look at growing up in Kenya as a member of a tribe of nomads whose livelihood centers on the raising and grazing of cattle. Readers share Lekuton's first encounter with a lion, the epitome of bravery in the warrior tradition. They follow his mischievous antics as a young Maasai cattle herder, coming-of-age initiation, boarding school escapades, soccer success, and journey to America for college. Lekuton's riveting text combines exotic details of nomadic life with the universal experience and emotions of a growing boy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNational Geographic
    Release dateSep 30, 2009
    ISBN9781426306679

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    Reviews for Facing the Lion

    4/5

    56 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It gave me a new insight into the Maasai, and helped satisfy my recurring need to read something, something, anything about Africa.
    • 1/5
      This book is ok but I did not really like it. It is about a boy who has a lot of problems in his life and one day he gets a lot of money and brings his family back up to life.
    • 5/5
      This book is about a 6 year old boy named Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton who is living in a dry village in Kenya. He tells about his life about facing the lion and the circumcision. There was a problem because Lekuton had to go to school but didn't have enough money to send to school. But after Joseph met the president of Kenya he goes to school in America and becomes a teacher and earn money. I like the part when Joseph has this circumcision because he tells how he felt, and what is happening and also he doesn't tell but shows that he is becoming a real man. When I read this part I thought that in Kenya it isn't easy to become a real man.
    • 5/5
      Joseph is a boy from Keny and he is a boy who met a Lion and he ran from it with his brothers and some warriors. Later he goes to a school and then he goes to a boarding school in Nakuru and becomes a key player in their football team they win a great match and the president sees that and lets him later go to work in a bank. He meets a person from St. Lawrence University and later goes there and he becomes a teacher in McLean. I recommen this book for people who likes the wild and some stories of people on the planes.
    • 5/5
      Simple, but very powerful tale of what it means to grow up Masai
    • 5/5
      This is, simply, the story of a boy who grew up as a poor "nomadic kid" in northern Kenya. The Kenyan government required even the nomadic tribal people to send one child from each family to school, and in his family it ended being Joseph who went. He tells of the culture shock he suffered in his own country upon coming into contact with students from other parts of the country, especially the wealthy students from the city. He eventually came to the United States for college and stayed to teach at a private school in Virginia. Each summer, he returns to his home in Kenya, taking groups of American students with him. Several people have commented on the fact that, even as a child, he was expected to walk many miles - sometimes for days - between school and home. And the fact that he was forbidden to wear his traditional tribal clothing while at school - forced, instead, into a Western school uniform and given a Western name. But his familiarity and comfort in both cultures has enabled him to bridge a gap between low status African tribe and educated America. (Even in Kenya, his tribe was of low status.) His main goal seems to be to encourage people to accept others for who they are, not who we expect them to be based on their clothing or appearance or accent. I loved the anecdote in the epilogue about his contact with the American tourists while in traditional dress at home for the summer. In fact, I loved the entire book. It is short and doesn't take long to read - took me only about an hour - and I found myself wishing there was more. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      This is the autobiography of a Maasai man with a Western education. It was written for children, and focuses on Lekuton's childhood experiences. He comes from a family of nomadic cow-herders, but Kenyan law required each family to send one child to elementary school. Lekuton was the one chosen, and he ended up enjoying his studies and excelling at school. Throughout the book, he emphasizes the tensions involved in belonging to two completely separate worlds. He wants to preserve his Maasai heritage while at the same time taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by education, and I found that his situation was incredibly thought-provoking. It's generally taken as a foregone conclusion that education is a good thing that should be available to as many people as possible, but in this story it wasn't so clear-cut. The Maasai are shown as a people capable of surviving on their own, with their own culture and way of life, and I found it a bit disturbing that they were forced to send one of their children off to school run by Christian missionaries, where they were taught Christian values, wore Western-style school uniforms, and were baptized and given Christian names. Lekuton himself fully appreciates his education and the doors that it opened to him, but I still find myself wondering about the changes that are being imposed on traditional cultures. This is a good thing, since I love a book that makes me think.I was also fascinated by the descriptions of Maasai culture itself, something that I had previously known very little about. I only wish that this book had been longer and more detailed--I know, it's for children, but still. This book has left me intrigued, and I'll probably be seeking out more books about the Maasai. I'd strongly recommend this one to just about anyone; the one good thing about its length is that there's no excuse not to read it!
    • 3/5
      Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton is from Northern Kenya. He was born into the Ariaal subgroup of the Maasai, and lived a nomadic lifestyle. This book tells his story from birth, where he immediately began his life as a nomad, till completing university in the U.S.A.A fascinating story filled with lots of insight into the Maasai culture. It was written with a younger reader in mind, and is truly a very easy read. Joseph will not win any literary awards for this book, or at least should not, but he is adept at story telling. I particularly enjoyed his story of meeting President Daniel Arap Moi.This is the first book about Kenya I have read, despite living here for five years now. Perhaps more will be in my future reading list.My biggest complaint is that he did not challenge the deficiencies of his culture. I wish he would have talked more about the inequality that exist between the sexes. He did mention that girls often marry men 15 years older than themselves. However he failed to mention that those girls are very often children when they marry those older men.A good book for the kids, as long as some follow up is added on gender issues, and the rights of children.
    • 3/5
      Facing The Lion is a slim volume of 123 pages and is easily read in an evening. Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton grew up in a Maasai tribe in northern Kenya. He was chosen as his family's token child to attend school. His tenacity, intelligence, and spirit brought him contact with Daniel Arap Moi and opportunities for further education. In Facing the Lion, he tells some wonderful stories of his childhood and time as a student in America which give us a glimpse of how life in a Maasai nomadic group works and what is both difficult and wonderful about that life.This would be an excellent addition to any elementary or middle school library.
    • 5/5
      This is a great easy read for any age. I think it gives a good view of Maasai people and again can be read in one evening.
    • 4/5
       Lekuton, a six year old Maasai boy, lives in the African Savanna with his family. Then one day, he has to go to school. He hates it at first, but then he realizes that you have to be smart to have a good life. He wanted to go to a good college. But he has a tough time at school. Can he survive?
    • 5/5
       This book is not only about Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton facing a lion, but is also about him facing his life. He tells you how he lived, where he lived, his traditions, ex,,ex,,, This is a perfect book for people who like personal memoirs.
    • 5/5
       This book is about a boy called Lekuton who is scared to face a lion. He lives in the savanna and everyone doesnt have any money or clean water and foods. The problem in this story is that he didnt have a job yet. but atlast, he gets a job. He was hired because he played soccer and the president okayed him to get a job.

    Book preview

    Facing the Lion - Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton

    Afterword

    Chapter One

    A Lion Hunt

    My sweet mother,

    Don’t call me a baby.

    I stopped being a baby when I was initiated.

    I’M GOING TO TELL you the lion story.

    Where I live in northern Kenya, the lion is a symbol of bravery and pride. Lions have a special presence. If you kill a lion, you are respected by everyone. Other warriors even make up songs about how brave you are. So it is every warrior’s dream to kill a lion at one point or another. Growing up, I’d had a lot of interaction with wild animals—elephants, rhinos, cape buffalo, hyenas. But at the time of this story—when I was about 14—I’d never come face-to-face with a lion, ever. I’d heard stories from all the young warriors who told me, Wow, you know yesterday we chased this lion— bragging about it. And I always said, Big deal. What’s the big deal about a lion? It’s just an animal. If I can defend myself against elephants or rhinos, I thought, why not a lion?

    I WAS JUST BACK from school for vacation. It was December, and there was enough rain. It was green and beautiful everywhere. The cows were giving plenty of milk. In order to get them away from ticks, the cattle had been taken down to the lowlands. There’s good grass there, though it’s drier than in the high country, with some rocks here and there. There are no ticks, so you don’t have to worry about the health of the cattle, but the area is known for its fierce lions. They roam freely there, as if they own the land.

    I spent two days in the village with my mom, then my brother Ngoliong came home to have his hair braided and asked me to go to the cattle camp along with an elder who was on his way there. I’d say the cattle camp was 18 to 24 miles away, depending on the route, through some rocky areas and a lot of shrubs. My spear was broken, so I left it at home. I carried a small stick and a small club. I wore my nanga, which is a red cloth, tied around my waist.

    It took us all day to get there, but at sunset we were walking through the gap in the acacia-branch fence that surrounded our camp. There were several cattle camps scattered over a five-mile radius. At night we could see fires in the distance, so we knew that we were not alone. As soon as we got there my brother Lmatarion told us that two lions had been terrorizing the camps. But lions are smart. Like thieves, they go somewhere, they look, they take, but they don’t go back to the same place again.

    Well, that was our unlucky day. That evening when the cows got back from grazing, we had a lot of milk to drink, so we were well fed. We sat together around the fire and sang songs—songs about our girlfriends, bravery songs. We swapped stories, and I told stories about school. The others were always curious to understand school. There were four families in the camp, but most of the older warriors were back at the village seeing their girlfriends and getting their hair braided. So there were only three experienced warriors who could fight a lion, plus the one elder who had come down with me. The rest of us were younger.

    We went to bed around 11:30 or 12. We all slept out under the stars in the cattle camp—no bed, just a cowhide spread on bare soil. And at night it gets cold in those desert areas. For a cover I used the nanga that I had worn during the day. The piece of cloth barely covered my body, and I kept trying to make it longer and pull it close around me, but it wouldn’t stretch. I curled myself underneath it trying to stay warm.

    Everything was silent. The sky was clear. There was no sign of clouds. The fire was just out. The stars were like millions of diamonds in the sky. One by one everybody fell asleep. Although I was tired, I was the last to sleep. I was so excited about taking the cows out the following morning.

    During the middle of the night, I woke to this huge sound—like rain, but not really like rain. I looked up. The starlight was gone, clouds were everywhere, and there was a drizzle falling. But that wasn’t the sound. The sound was all of the cows starting to pee. All of them, in every direction. And that is the sign of a lion. A hyena doesn’t make them do that. An elephant doesn’t make them do that. A person doesn’t. Only the lion. We knew right away that a lion was about to attack us.

    The other warriors started making a lot of noise, and I got up with them, but I couldn’t find my shoes. I’d taken them off before I went to sleep, and now it was pitch black. Some warriors, when they know there’s danger, sleep with their shoes in their hands and their spears right next to them. But I couldn’t find my shoes, and I didn’t even have a spear. Then the lion made just one noise: bhwuuuu! One huge roar. We started running toward the noise. Right then we heard a cow making a rasping, guttural sound, and we knew that the lion had her by the throat.

    Cows were everywhere. They ran into one another and into us, too. We could hear noises from all directions—people shouting, cows running—but we couldn’t see a thing. My brother heard the lion right next to him and threw his spear. He missed the lion—and lucky for the rest of us, he missed us, too. Eventually, we began to get used to the darkness, but it was still difficult to tell a lion from a cow. My brother was the first to arrive where the cow had been killed.

    The way we figured it was this: Two lions had attacked the camp. Lions are very intelligent. They had split up. One had stayed at the southern end of the camp where we were sleeping, while the other had gone to the northern end. The wind was blowing from south to north. The cows smelled the lion at the southern end and stampeded to the north—toward the other waiting lion.

    When I asked my brother, Hey, what’s going on? he said, The lion killed Ngoneya. Ngoneya was my mother’s favorite cow and Ngoneya’s family was the best one in the herd. My mother depended on her to produce more milk than any other cow. She loved Ngoneya, really. At night she would get up to pet her.

    I was very angry. I said, I wish to see this lion right now. He’s going to see a man he’s never seen before.

    Just as we were talking, a second death cry came from the other end of the camp. Again we ran, but as we got closer, I told everyone to stop. He’s going to kill all the cows! I told my brother. And I think this is where school thinking comes in. I told him, Look. If we keep on chasing this lion, he’s going to kill more and more. So why don’t we let him eat what he has now, and tomorrow morning we will go hunting for him.

    My brother said, Yes, that’s a good idea, and it was agreed. For the first time I felt like I was part of the brotherhood of warriors. I had just made a decision I was proud of.

    It was muddy, it was

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