Masai Cattle Find Grass Is Greener in Nairobi’s Urban Gardens

As if the threat of being knocked over by a car in this congested capital weren’t enough, these days some residents fear being trampled by a cow.

Masai pastoral herdsmen, tired of watching helplessly as their animals die in a drought that has parched once-lush grazing land in this East African nation, have invaded the city with their cattle in search of greener pastures.

It has become commonplace to see scrawny bovines ambling along median strips on busy highways, bringing traffic to a fuming standstill; or famished cattle feasting on the foliage and flower beds that ring five-star hotels. Carefully manicured golf courses and public parks have become tranquil havens for the ravenous animals.

The Masai, one of Africa’s most well-known ethnic groups, argue that the nationwide water shortage has forced the nomads to turn their beloved herds into “urban dwellers.”

Furthermore, many of the pastoralists consider the territory of the capital to be part of their ancestral lands, lost to British colonialists, and believe that they should have the right to use it as they wish.

Earlier this year, hundreds of armed herdsmen and their cattle invaded commercial farmland in outlying rural areas, indiscriminately settling on private property and sparking protests by landowners.

“We cannot watch our animals dying, so we have to graze any way we can get grass,” said Tukunyakanyu Libei, 19, a Masai herdsman from Kenya’s central highlands whose family lost 100 of its 150-strong herd in the last two years of drought. “Nairobi belongs to everyone now. But long ago it was our home, and that’s why we have come back.”

Although sympathetic to the plight of the pastoralists, many Nairobi residents are tired of watching cattle decimate their vegetable and flower gardens, and they have lost patience with the Masai.

“They are giving our [housing complex] a very bad image,” said banker Robert Katimu, who awakens almost every day to the sight of cattle chewing the grass outside. “They make a mess all around. Our [complex] is not a grazing ground. The government should look for alternative grazing grounds for them.”

In some cases, confrontations between residents and herdsmen have ended in blows, as the nomads resist being evicted from city dwellings.

“They don’t want us to graze our animals around their houses,” Libei acknowledged. “They chase us from their homes and sometimes they beat our animals, so we fight back.”

Katimu said: “They are very violent when you try to talk to them about their animals.”

Officially, a so-called movement permit is required for pastoral herdsmen to migrate with their animals from one district to another, but some politicians, sympathetic to the Masai predicament, believe that this rule should be ignored, at least temporarily.

“The herders should be tolerated on humanitarian grounds until the end of the drought,” William Ole Ntimama, a Masai leader and member of parliament, said earlier this year during the Masai occupation of commercial farms. “Asking them to move out is like pushing the whole community out to sea. They are so desperate they have become blind to any borders or fences.”

Actions Driven by Need, Not Greed

Even Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi has urged his countrymen to be considerate of the Masai troubles, noting that the herdsmen’s actions were driven by need and not greed.

But the occupations of commercial farmland provoked angry protests from ranch owners as they tried to prevent masses of Masai cattle from trampling their food crops.

Armed with bows and arrows, the herdsmen insisted that evicting them from the farms would be tantamount to condemning them to starvation. Clashes followed between ranchers and herdsmen. The farmers eventually agreed to host a few thousand head of cattle on their land, while waiting for some other compromise to be found.

Ignoring the protests of environmentalists, the government decided to allow the nomads to graze their cattle in the forests of the majestic Mt. Kenya--Africa’s second-highest mountain and home to an abundance of exotic wildlife species. But the cooler mountain climate proved unsuitable for the Masai cattle accustomed to hot and dry conditions.

Many of the animals succumbed to sicknesses such as bovine pneumonia, tick-borne East Coast fever and foot-and-mouth disease. The slopes of Mt. Kenya were soon littered with cattle carcasses.

At least one herdsman was known to have committed suicide after losing his entire herd of 70 cattle in the Mt. Kenya forest. Killing oneself is unusual among the Masai, renowned for their bravery and legendary ability to slay lions.

So the Masai herdsmen were forced to trek back to the commercial farmlands and the city, where at the very least sprouts of grass between concrete tenement blocks and vegetable waste around slums could provide food for their animals.

“Wherever there is grass, we just have to bring our animals to graze,” said Longibie LeJohon, 18, whose family recently fled to Nairobi from Kenya’s central Rift Valley province in search of new grazing grounds after 14 of its 78 cattle died of starvation.

Wrapped in a traditional red shuka, or blanket, and armed with bows and arrows and homemade daggers, the herdsmen leave their makeshift homes of cow dung, erected near the city’s international airport, at the crack of dawn each day.

For 10 or more hours they scavenge for food for their animals. At random intersections along busy highways, they attach a red piece of cloth to a staff, hoist it into the air and step out into traffic to flag the cars to a halt. The cattle are slowly ushered into the street as motorists sit and stew.

“The [drivers] are always threatening us on the road,” Libei said. “They don’t understand the problem we have. Some have even knocked down our animals, and they can’t pay.”

In a desperate move to get rid of their dying animals, many herdsmen have been forced to sell cattle for as little as $10 a head. This is a major loss to the Masai, who believe that “Ngai,” their God of Rain, made them responsible for the safekeeping of all cows when the earth and sky split.

Masai rarely eat their cattle but instead tend to hoard them. Owning numerous animals is considered a sign of wealth, and the beasts are exchanged during marriage as the bride’s dowry.

Call for Better Management of Herds

The tendency of Masai herdsmen to value the quantity of their cattle over their quality has sparked some controversy. Critics argue that the herdsmen could themselves help curb the problem of deficient grazing land by reducing the size of their herds and by learning to better conserve their pastures by fencing off areas for use during hard times.

“If they manage their resources better, they would not need to wreak havoc on other people’s land during dry spells,” one disgruntled farmer recently wrote to a local newspaper.

But many Masai resent being prevented from roaming freely across Kenya’s highlands, as they did before British colonization in the 19th century. They insist that, historically, much of Kenya’s territory belongs to them.

In addition to the issue of land, community leaders and elders are also seeking reparations for the thousands of lives lost.

“Our people and their animals have been forced out of their natural habitats through alien land laws they did not understand,” Ntimama, the Masai MP, recently told a local newspaper. “They are these days considered vagabonds and wanderers. . . . We have been rendered landless and strangers in our own land.”

Samuel Hinga Mwangi of The Times’ Nairobi Bureau contributed to this report.