ABSTRACT
Samburu women’s anxiety over their fertility was expressed in their dancing, and this is a theme that has been reported more widely in the region and other parts of Africa. Turning to the Maasai, decision-making follows a similar pattern to the Samburu, but on a grander scale. Maasai moran are encouraged to adopt a debating discipline as a key to their ‘warrior’ organization and as a training for consensual action when they become elders. Historically the Chamus have experienced a string of changes in their social organization associated with in-migrations and an increasingly mixed economy, spanning an indefinite period. Participatory Rural Appraisal is clearly in tune with upbringings that seek to restrict our very basic self-centred instincts in order to participate as social beings in problems that are ultimately social.
