©Africa Focus.2000
	Animals of the Savanna	Back to the Savanna Page

As the cities grow in Africa and more of the people move to them, the traditional ways are forgotten. The kids in the picture above look like they could be living in the United States! There are still people in Africa living the traditional way. The most famous of the savanna people of Kenya and Tanzania are the Maasai tribe.

The Maasai people are just one of the many groups that live on the savanna of Africa. The Maasai tribe have lived in Africa for hundreds of years. They were known as warriors long ago. Now they raise cattle. Several families live together in a group of ten to twenty huts. Their houses are made of branches, twigs, grass and mud. Women build the houses and go for water. Sometimes they have to walk many miles to find water. Their main food is milk. They raise sheep and goats for meat.

	As in other parts of Africa, people build their homes from materials they find on the land. In this picture, the roof is made of grass. That is certainly easy to find in the grassland! ©Africa Focus.2000
Other people live in homes that look more like the ones we live in. This is a picture of one couple and their children. The man worked for the city council as a driver and now owns the house. You can see that the woman wear a more traditional dress than the man! ©Africa Focus.2000

Women tend to dress more traditionally than the men. They stay in the villages and take care of the homes and the children, while the men sometimes go outside of the villages to work. Often, women carry their baskets and containers on their heads so their hands are free to do other things. Pictures ©Africa Focus.2000

Jambo! That means hello! People that live in Kenya and in other eastern Africa countries speak two languages: English and Swahili. Other common Swahili words are tafadhali, which means please, and kwaheri, which means goodbye. Click here to learn some more words in Swahili.

Swahili lesson

Learn more Swahili words.

This is a school in Kenya called Kipsigis School. The children are wearing uniforms. The young man is a university student who once taught in this school. He was the first person from this area of Kericho, Kenya to enter the university. ©Africa Focus.2000 Read about the Canon Kituri Secondary School in Kenya

Jackstones is a game that kids play in Kenya. It sounds just like the way we play jacks with a ball! In South Africa kids play a form of handball.

Mancala is probably one of the oldest games in the world. It is played all over Africa. Sometimes people play it in the dirt with rocks! There is a game board with small bowls on each side. Pebbles and beads are placed in the bowls and move around the board. The player with the most beads at the end is the winner. Click here to learn more about Mancala. Click here to play Mancala online, (but it's more fun in real life!)

Click here to see pictures of money in Kenya. Does it look like the money we use every day?

 Home | Africa Trip | Desert | Savanna | Rainforest | Links/Credits | Journal