My Culture, My Life, My Escape......

This my story and how education saved my life.

I was born and raised in Tanzania, Africa and come from a Masai tribe. I grew up with milk and meat so in that sense not much different than Weatherford Texas.

Back home in Tanzania, my father is a polygamist. He has four wives and 20 children. I am the only one who was able to go to school to get an education. I walked six hours to and from school each day through the bush with wild animals.

My mother was forced to be married at the age of 9 years old and according to the Masai culture, she was sold for cattle. When the Masai tribe tried to forced me to get married, like my mother, then I was able to run away to a missionary school known for helping Maasai girls in Tanzania. They rescued me and gave me an education. Through my education I have been able to pay for my younger siblings to be able to go to school and support my family in Tanzania.

I met my husband while he was a missionary in Tanzania. Now we have relocated back to his home here in Texas where we are raising our beautiful daughter.

Coming from a masai culture most women are not allow to own property of any kind, I found myself drawn to the real estate business. Here in America anybody no matter what your race, sex or religion is you have the freedom to own your own property.

I want nothing more than to help people with that freedom and to be able to find them just the right home. It is truly beautiful to connect people to the home of their dreams.

My mission is to be able to build a school in Tanzania for vulnerable girls like I was through donate half of the commission from my home sales to be able to achieve this goals.

A little bit about my culture and why I’m helping this vulnerable girls to go to school?

The masai man is supposed to move around pasturing livestock, a woman is supposed to be incharge of all home chores. These chores include provision of food, clothing and shelter for the family. Today the women are responsible for even provision of formal education expenses for their children.

These needs could be very taxing for a woman with five or more children and especially because the woman has no right to determine or limit the number of children to raise just as she has no right to decide which man to marry

It is for this reason the man has no interest to carry the costs of raising children in any aspect.

But since the status of a man in a masai society is determined by his wealth, hence the size of the cattle herd and the number of children matter. The bigger the size of cattle herd and the number of children, the wealthier the man. This is also why they give out their daughters in marriage in exchange with cattle (dowry).

They will do that as early as a girl reaches puberty (10-13 years of age).They will give out their daughters to a wealthy man (one with a large herd of cattle). Such a man will not be a boy but rather in his late fifties or sixties. This same wealth or status goes hand in hand with number of wives.

The bigger the number of wives, the wealthier the man. So one could have 30, 40 or even 50 wives. In the culture counting children is not acceptable. It is for this reason each wife has to take care of her own children with literally no resources to do it.

This is the main reason why sending them to school and paying for them is an issue especially for girls who will be given out to husbands very early.

Why bother educate them ?

This is the reason why I appeal to well wishers to support these vulnerable girls, changing their lives from being treated as commodities, that they should have the right to live their lives, get education and if they decide to get married then they should do so to men of their choice.

Thank you very much for taking time to read this!!