Reaction Paper #2 The White Massai

Last Thursday, our professor from the “Culture” course, Nuria, brought a movie to class. The movie is called “The White Massai”. It is a very interesting movie because you can see the reality of being with someone from a different culture, having totally different rituals, traditions, behaviors and so on. Of course, there are many differences between them and many miscommunication problems as well. The movie was about a girl named Carola who is from Switzerland and a Massai warrior called Lemalian who fall in love. 

What is amazing is the fact that the movie is based on real life. It really happened! Everything starts when Carola and her boyfriend Stephan go to Kenya, they meet Lemalian and Carola falls in love with him. When Carola and her boyfriend are at the airport, she decides to stay and look for Lemalian. She does but he is already home. So she goes to Samburu and stays at the house of an European girl. To get there, it takes her 13 hours by bus. She finds Lemalian and they start living together, eventually they get married and have a baby girl named Sarai. 

Carola opens a shop in Lemalian’s village but it is not successful because Lemalian gives too much credit to the mini chief. Time passes by and because Carola is friendly with her customer, Lemalian thinks that she has a boyfriend and calls her a whore. 

She gets sick of being treated that way for no reason, so she decides to tell Lemalian that she is going to Switzerland because her mother wants to meet her daughter, so Lemalian signs a document giving Carola consent to take Sarai out of the country. Carola never goes back to Kenya.

For me, this movie shows a lot about two such different cultures that anyone would believe one is right and the other one strange (Is this what you wanted to say?). Many things were shocking to me. For example, the first time when Carola and Lemalian were alone, Lemalian made love to her but it was without passion and it was really quick. Carola was confused but for Lemalian that is the way they do it, but luckily Carola taught him how to do it in a better way for her.  Besides that, when girls are fifteen they are ready to get married and they cut their clitoris. That is so dangerous, they can even die and their sexual organ might get an infection.  Something interesting is that women are not allowed to show affection for their significant other in public nor can see other men directly to the eyes nor be friendly because that means you have something with them, like if they were your lovers.

That is my point of view; some people may believe that is right, some may agree with me. We are all different and we have to accept our differences. Let´s try to get along and that way we will have a better world.