Although a new language is considered a great addition to a person's skillset in an increasingly connected world, going for one that isn't very popular can be tricky. But a polyglot named Ari Smith aced the language of the people in the Maasai Mara region of Kenya. Smith, who already has conversational capabilities in 62 languages, took it as a challenge to take a trip to a region in Kenya where the Maasai people dwell.
Representative Image Source: Maasai tribe men jumping during a ceremony | Eric Lafforgue - Getty Images
The tribal community speaks a language that is not known by the majority of polyglots either. Smith documented his interaction with the people from the Maasai tribe on his YouTube channel Xiaomanyc. In the YouTube video, Smith enters the Maasai village area with a translator from the Maasai tribe. The spear and stick welding men welcome Smith with open arms and smiles on their faces. Smith witnesses a bunch of rituals of the Maasai people that he had never seen before. It all starts with the Maasai warriors dancing and jumping high, pulling in Smith to join the fun. "The warriors prove their manhood by how high they can jump and as you can see I was clearly not up to the task," Smith says in his voiceover as he tries to keep up with them. "But one thing I am good at is languages and finally I decided it was time to say something in Maasai."
Representative Image Source: Maasai warriors, known as Morani, in the Malambo district of Ngorongoro. | Tom Stoddart - Getty Images
As soon as Smith started speaking their language, the men of the tribe looked at him with warm smiles on their faces, thrilled to see a foreigner conversing with them in their native tongue. They kept pulling Smith in for handshakes and hugs as he conversed with them further. He revealed to his hosts that he had arrived in Kenya a day before filming the video and he was leaving the country the very next day. Smith also revealed how he had assistance from a Maasai friend who helped him learn the language over the phone. The translator who shows Smith around the village also informs that although many houses do not have running water or electricity, the Maasai people have smartphones.
Representative Image Source: Sonyanga Ole Ng'ais captain of the Maasai Cricket Warriors poses for a portrait at Endana on August 25, 2017 in Laikipia, Kenya. | Francois Nell - Getty Images
Soon after this, Smith is taken on an interesting tour around the Maasai community's village where he finds livestock and huts made of mud. He also briefly interacts with the women of the village and meets the elders of the community. One elder stuns Smith by claiming that he had killed a lion once and has five wives with whom he has 30 children. The next part proves to be a bit too much for Smith and his cameraman where the Maasai warriors drink raw blood drained from a goat since it is treated as a delicacy in the community. They later skin the goat and roast it for a meal. Smith also gets to witness a bonfire and naming ceremony before departing.
In a separate post that Smith shared on his Instagram account, he posed with the Maasai warriors, wearing their traditional garb and jewelry for a picture. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience surprising Kenya’s hardcore Maasai people by speaking their language and then becoming an honorary member of their tribe. These are some of the most fearless but also the nicest people on the planet and I will remember my time with them always," he wrote in the caption of the post.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.