You are greeted by Maasai women in traditional beaded jewelry, singing and chanting. Eventually the warriors, a group of men who have been initiated into adulthood but who are not yet married, march in, starting a dance that involves jumping and shouting with the Maasai women. The party continues as darkness falls, and slowly, my friends and I join in the dance.

The first few nights we spent at Alais's boma, or fenced-in-compound. Then, one morning, our Maasai host mothers came to pick us up, and greeted us with ngudis—sticks that had been beautifully decorated with beads for us. I set off down a sandy path with my friends Katie and Nicole and our host mothers. They had gotten water at Alais's compound—part of their payment for hosting us—and were carrying 20-pound jugs on their backs with a strap that went around their forehead. Water is a big problem in Arkaria village, because the closest water source is a half-day's walk away, and then women need to carry the heavy jugs of water back to their bomas. The season I was there was a particularly bad dry season, and their livestock were very affected by it—the cattle could not be milked or bled because they were too weak.

My host mother's name was Natasekwo. She lived in an untraditional rectangular-shaped house with a separate kitchen in the more common round hut. Both are made out of a frame of wood covered in a mixture of cow dung that has been burned to ash and water.

Traditionally, the Maasai boma is a fenced-in, circular compound. Within the outer fence are the round huts in which the Maasai live, and at the center of the compound are pens for cattle and goats. Natasekwo's house was more fancy because her husband worked outside of raising livestock, buying and selling Tanzanite, a precious stone found exclusively in Tanzania. I didn't meet her husband until the day I left Maasailand. Most husbands are more present in their homes, taking care of the livestock with the warriors. Husbands can also have more than one wife; Natasekwo was her husband's first wife, so she lived in the fanciest house, while his second wife lived in a more common round hut.

Natasekwo spoke only Maa, the Maasai language; she didn't speak any Swahili, the language spoken by most people in Tanzania, and of which I had picked up a few words. Luckily, Alais had arranged translators, Maasai students who spoke English, to come around to each boma and help facilitate communication. My translators were two warriors, Mdoika and Rikoyan, who were in their early twenties and who would sit around in my boma with me and we'd make fun of each other or shoot questions back and forth about our different lifestyles.

When Mdoika and Rikoyan were at my friends' bomas, translating for them, Natasekwo and I would have to be more experimental in our communication. I gravitated towards her three children, Upendo, a little girl of two, Endida, a twelve-year-old girl, and especially Retenti, Natasekwo's eight-year-old son. I played a lot of hand-clapping games or tag with them, because it was a lot easier to play with kids without relying on direct communication than to try to talk to Natasekwo. Since I spent so much time with her kids, Natasekwo gave me the Maasai name "Naiho," which means one who is ready to deliver children.

I quickly picked up some words of Maa; these were the words that had to do with the daily chores I helped Natasekwo with. For example, irkeek means firewood, and Natasekwo, her kids, and I would go out to gather firewood from brush and trees in the area. When she was cooking in the kitchen, she'd also ask me to get firewood from the pile outside the door for her.

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with Natasekwo and her kids. She would start a fire in the pit at the center of the kitchen hut and we'd sit on stools in the hallway that led to the fire pit. I'd watch her make shai, the traditional Maasai drink, mixing together spices, water, and a little milk, if available, in a pan over the fire. Then she would pour the shai back and forth between two cups to cool it down before offering me and her kids some. While she worked, she'd teach me songs or words or she'd make fun of me by having me repeat the names of her fellow villagers because of my inability to pick up much Maa, and I'd do it until I recognized the names of my friends' host mothers. Smoke would pour out of the door of the boma and I experienced the same problem many of my friends did—we'd have to turn our heads towards the door or go outside in order to keep from flat-out crying from the acridity.

Most of the day was spent with Natasekwo and her kids, getting to know the patterns of their daily lives. For a few hours in the afternoon, Mdoika and Rikoyan would walk my friends Lizzy, Daphne, and I back to Alais's compound for classes. We had guest lecturers who spoke about Maasai culture and traditions, and the challenges that faced them, especially through marginalization by the Tanzanian government. One afternoon, we visited a project that the Maasai were working on—a lake created at the foot of a few hills that would gather enough water during the rainy season to last the village and their livestock through the dry season. This would eliminate the long arduous walk to their current water source and their dependence on the government to help them find an alternative.

I was surprised at how quickly I adjusted to living with my Maasai host family, and was sad to leave a week later. When I said good-bye to Natasekwo and her kids, and walked out of the boma with Mdoika and Rikoyan, Retenti stood in the middle of the compound and watched me leave.

Following the week I spent in a Maasai homestay, my group visited national parks, including the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and Lake Manyara National Park. These are areas where the Maasai used to graze their livestock. They are pastoralists, meaning they live off of the livestock they lead out to graze every day, and cattle are especially important as a symbol of social status as well as a source of food and income. The Maasai used to lead a much more nomadic lifestyle, roaming through the areas that are now national parks seeking out new grazing lands for their animals.

However, they have had to become more sedentary as they were forced off the land when the national parks were formed. The Maasai have been barred completely from the Serengeti, but certain Maasai are allowed to graze their cattle in certain areas of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The reason they were banned is because they are somehow a threat to the ecology of the parks. The visit to the parks was colored by my experience with my Maasai homestay; land rights and the question of who the parks were for weighed heavily on the minds of those in my group.

This is the kind of thought-provoking experience study abroad can offer; it's an experience I had while participating in the International Honors Program: Rethinking Globalization. This was a year-long study abroad program where a group of students travel to England, Tanzania, India, New Zealand, and Mexico, to take classes in economics, social movements, anthropology, ecology, and environmental policy. I learned from in-country coordinators, like Alais, field visits, guest lecturers, and homestays. My homestay with the Maasai was one of the most powerful and one that stays with me every day.