The Maasai speak the Maa language (ɔl Maa), a member of the Nilotic language family that is related to the Dinka, Kalenjin and Nuer languages. Except for some elders living in rural areas, most Maasai people speak the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili and English.
The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 1,189,522 in Kenya in the 2019 census compared to 377,089 in the 1989 census. Many Maasai tribes throughout Tanzania and Kenya welcome visits to their villages to experience their culture, traditions, and lifestyle, in return for a fee.
We visited a village near Talek. Talek is a town at one of the five gates to Kenya's Maasai Mara Game Reserve. The center is teeming with auto repair shops to serve the hundreds of vehicles that go on safari there. The work in one season is enough to carry the town during the low season.
