Posted on 04/02/2010 8:15:19 PM PDT by cycle of discernment
Colette Armand believes she was hit by a coup de foudre when she first saw her future husband. 'The attraction was instant,' she says.
Meitkini's tribe have no possessions and no running water, and their food is either plucked from the ground or killed with a spear.
Nonetheless, after a courtship of three years, Colette, 24, is preparing to abandon all the comforts of her western lifestyle to join her life permanently with his - even though, to date, she hasn't shared so much as a kiss with her 23-year-old fiance, as Masai rules forbid physical contact between men and women who aren't married.
'The only water came from a small muddy tributary that's home to snakes and crocodiles,' says Colette.
'I was too scared to bathe, so I had to resort to having a makeshift wash in water boiled on the fire -
... after two weeks Colette was told the community had decided to sacrifice a goat as a welcoming gift - a huge honour.
'They slaughtered it in front of me, which was horrible, then put its warm blood in a cup for me to drink. It tasted disgusting, but I had to do it as I would have hugely offended them otherwise. I just closed my eyes and tried not to be sick.'
In the future, she may have to share her husband with other women, as Masai tradition permits any number of wives.
The daughter of a nurse and a businessman, her father's job, took the family all over the world.
Academically gifted, at 17 she was studying in Paris. At 21, disillusioned with her studies and with a failed romance behind her- 'I realised I needed to have an adventure and try and find myself.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I would like to see her succeed. I think some folks are being a bit rough on her, but hey...isn’t her capacity to do as she pleases the epitome of a very important conservative tenet...personal freedom?
Of course, with that freedom comes responsibility...the responsibility to avoid having others bail you out. Up here in New England, they occasionally get folks up in the White Mountains who get into trouble in the middle of the winter and have to be rescued because they weren’t prepared or didn’t exercise sound judgement. I always feel a touch of anger, even if I am glad they got rescued.
“Crazy as a loon...”
Heard it regularly while growing up - one of my faves ;-)
When you read this, did anyone else think of that girl who was killed blocking Israeli bulldozers? You know after being told a million times to get the hell out of the way? Rachel Corrie I believe?
It really sounds idyllic. After getting up at dawn and working in the fields all day planting grain and harvesting coffee beans, then trying to find a tree to squat against but finding a black mamba instead, nothing beats kicking back in front of the fire with a cup of warm cow blood.
If she is so “Academically gifted” then she might know that the life of an average african tribal wife one that places her lower than whale shit. If she is black she will find out what it is like to be a “real” african. Good luck with your new life twit.
Guilty
Check this out, so this pretty blonde beat her to it! (pics at the link)
The White Masai
July 22, 2006
Just how much comfort and modernity would you give up for love?
Corinne Hofmann spent four years living in the arid bush of northern Kenya as wife to a Samburu warrior named Lketinga.
She lived in a mud hut, had a baby, got sick, spent all her money, argued with her husband and then returned to Switzerland with her daughter to write a book about it.
It became a bestseller in Europe and has now been published in 16 languages. She has also written two sequels, one about raising her daughter in Switzerland, another about returning to visit the Kenyan village of Barsaloi, where her ex-husband has now remarried (several times).
All in all, Hofmann has done well out of her spur-of-the-moment decision, while on holiday in Mombasa, to dump her then boyfriend and follow a man she didn’t know and couldn’t talk to (he spoke only Masai, she didn’t know English or Masai).
Is it impolite to wonder what the Samburu got out of her adventure? I mean, what’s the difference between her mining of experience and the older, more recognised forms of colonial plunder?
Their little bastard might grow up to be POTUS
I don’t think you understand the criticism.
Nobody is criticizing her for making a free choice. They are criticizing her for probably making a rather stupid choice that is based on unrealistic assumptions and expectations.
If she makes it all the more power to her. I just don’t see any evidence it’s based on any sound logic, as others here also believe, and have said so. Her own quotes tell you how she arrived at her decision, and they are all feelings based. Tell me that’s a conservative principle, to base major life altering decisions totally on feeling.
And as conservatives we also have the freedom to comment on others when we believe they are doing good things, or stupid things, or evil things.
Just like you just did.
Perhaps she mistakingly thopught he belonged to the Ubangi Tribe...
Good gosh...not the life for me, that is for sure.
Elaine: The Massai bushmen wear these great sandals and we’re gonna. knock them off. Not the Massai, the sandals.
Doctor: I’ll need a urine sample.
Elaine: Right.
No retirement plan, onset of old age (past birthing ability) and he’ll ditch her for a younger woman, about 10 years from now.
Wait’ll she sees how ‘sensitive’ he is in bed.
Wait’ll she gets pregnant and discovers the joy of birth in the bush.
Wait’ll it occurs to her the children will be raised without an education. Her roots will harken back to her out of motherhood.
She’ll come out of this all ready for Gloria Allred.
Better yet, the old Stewart Whitman movie where he becomes the leader of a Baboon colony. Can’t remember the name though.
Well, if it works out for her and she’s happy, more power to her.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.