More on MGLSS

I mentioned that I'd mis-named MGLSS – the first word is not Massai, but MASSAE – an acronym for Maa Speakers Advanced Education.  The school was founded in the early 90s on a Coffee Plantation outside Monduli. Most of the buildings have been built in the last 5-10 years, and the campus is laid out in a beautiful circle.  Massai Villages (called Bomas) are built in a circle, with the most precious stuff in the very center (their cattle), and the houses/huts arranged around the cattle corral.  MGLSS has a chapel in its center, with the dorms and classrooms around the circle.  I've heard and read the plantation sized at anywhere between 375 and 750 acres.  I attribute this to confusion between the acres we use in the US and the european Hectare.

 

The whole property is on a gentle sloping hill, which is very peaceful for some reason.  There are coffee trees all around the outside perimeter of the campus. The original plan was to have the coffee pay for the whole school; it looks to me like that is still ramping up.  I suspect that resource were directed at more important things first, like getting good instructors, meeting the needs of the girls and finishing all the buildings needed to be a Secondary School in Tanzania.

 

Another reason that the first word of MGLSS is MASSAE and not Massai is that there is a government mandate that no institution can be 100% from one tribe.  The Maa language is spoken by dozens of tribes in the plains of Tanzania and Kenya, so there is no problem recruiting girls from other tribes.  Currently, the school population is about 75% Massai.

 

I hope to make time to wander thru the coffee trees before we have to depart for our next destination.