William H.A. Willbond MSM, CD
PAUL OSE LASOIS
(Maasai Elder)
July 2004: The Maasai ladies are camera shy and sort of lurk in the background whilst Paul Ose Lasois (in western clothes) and the Lorngoswo Headman get their photo taken by Billy outside a medical clinic in the Kajiado DistrictI’ve an African friend, his name is Lasois
He has a large family of 10 girls and boys
Lasois is a teacher amongst the Maasai
He’s a wonderful, carefree, loving old guy
He has a herd of goats, thirty cows, many sheep
To provide his family with fresh milk and meat
We sat in the sun and crows with white breasts
high up in a tree, they were building a nest
Readers are needed by Ose Lasois
for teaching his classes of girls and boys
Geographies, notebooks, pencils and pens
which I will gather from Canadian friends
Last trip to Maasailand I promised him a knife
For skinning of cattle to make an easier life
An Eskimo Ooloo I brought o’er with me
from Taloyoak Nunavut on our northern sea
©Copyright July 2004 by Billy Willbond
Author’s Note: Ooloo’s are used to skin Caribou, Seals, and Arctic Whales and are a working tool amongst our Northern Natives. My sister-in-law, Anne, teaches in Canada’s most Northern School and she acquired the Ooloo, which I took to Africa for Paul Lasois