Only the combination of curiosity, passion, fearlessness and parents breathing fire down her neck could lead

a sane human being to buy a one-way ticket to Nairobi and face probable death in an effort to become the worlds first female Maasai warrior.
Warrior Princess is the funny and inspirational memoir of Mindy Budgor, a young entrepreneur tired of the corporate world, who decides to make changes in her life. While waiting for her Business School applications to go through, she decides to volunteerfirst in India with Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor), and then in Africa building schools and hospitals in the Maasai Mara. While living and working with the Maasai, Mindy talks to the chief and asks him why there are no women warriors. The chief responds simply and derisively: because women are not strong enough or brave enough. Mindy immediately realises her calling and thus begins her amazing adventure to become the first female Maasai warrior. Mindy is now one of the first female Maasai warriors and an official member of the tribe. As a result of their training and advocacy, law in Africa will be changed in 2016 to allow women the right to become Maasai warriors, and Mindy as a tribe member is ready to return to stand with her fellow warriors against whatever opposition they might facebe it lions, or elephants, or Western influence.

My journey to become the first female Maasai warrior

Cover design: Nada Backovic Cover photographs: Laura Hanifin and Getty Images

memoir

First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2013 First published in the United States in 2013 by skirt!, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press Copyright Mindy Budgor 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Email: info@allenandunwin.com Web: www.allenandunwin.com Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia www.trove.nla.gov.au ISBN 978 1 74331 445 6 Internal design by Sue Murray Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

C009448

The paper in this book is FSC certified. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the worlds forests.

dear reader, The following is a true story about my quest to become the first female Maasai warrior. This is my personal perspective of what happened. Why a nice Jewish girl gets this thought in her head, and has a diehard desire to do this is your story to read. ultimately, i believe this story belongs to all of us who have angst about finding the inner self. names and dates have been altered to protect privacy, and to make the telling of the story comprehensive. Best always, Mindy Budgor

Prologue: Dinosaur!
deep in Kenyas Forest of the Lost Child, 9,799.9 miles from home and at least 50 miles from a toilet or electrical jack, i stared, my eyes bugged and unblinking, as trees toppled to the ground. Trunks fractured in half, leaving spiky shards of wood in their place. A massive white tusk shot into the sky. i screamed. dinosaur! A gray, wrinkled butt appeared through the trees about twenty feet in the air. A tail whipped around angrily. Powerless, i watched the monster take a step backward, closer to camp. Closer to us. This journeyand life itselfwas about to come to a thunderous end. Lanet, the leader of my tribe, grabbed hold of our beaded belts and yanked Becca, my partner in warrior training, and me backward. Jolting us from our paralysis, he tossed over our spears, pushed us out of camp, and ran off to join the other warriors. one of our tribe matesa buns-of-steel body with a sparkling smile and extra-long earlobes that wrapped around the top of each ear in Princess Leiastyle bunswaved for us to follow. The deep, heavy voices of the Maasai echoed through the forest, oooooooooooo!!! ooooooooo!! ooooooooooooo! ooo! ooo! oooo! oooooooooo!! Sorr, Horr oLAG oLAG!!! Sorr!!!! With our thighs pumping and our beaded necklaces jingling, we ran after him, the tops of our spears guiding and protecting us from branches. We hopped over fallen trunks and shrubs and wove in and out like skiers gliding through trees. Ensuring that we were okay, the perfectly molded warrior turned his head every few seconds, giving us a bright,

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encouraging smile. Seconds later, he stopped in front of a mammoth tree. He smiled, nodded his head, and pointed his spear up the trunk. i turned to Becca, panting like a golden retriever. He . . . he . . . wants us to climb the tree. Go! Go! Go! i am not going to die on day damn one! This is noT my time to go! she screamed, as she slapped my butt to get moving. needing no more encouragement, i hustled up the tree as if my ass was on fire.

h
Becca and i had been escorted to our bush home only that morning. We were quickly assigned our first task: Chop branches until you cant chop anymore. And then chop some more. Given that this was day one, Task one, and i was surrounded by a tribe of men with spears and swords, i decided for the first time in my life to follow directions now, ask questions later. After three hours of nonstop chopping, i sat on the cold dirt for a much-needed rest. i surveyed the scene. rays of light seeped through breaks in the dense canopy of leaves, babbling calls of colobus monkeys echoed in the trees, and Beccas curly bob bounced as her sword hacked at the joint of a branch. i glanced at the palms of my burning hands. Blisters the size of half-dollarsthe result of a two-foot metal sword with a wooden handle furiously chafing my once-flawless skinhad already sprouted. My red dragon nail polish, however, was intact. When selecting the luxury items i would tow into the forest with me, the precious bottle of polish was nonnegotiable. The shiny red lacquer combined with fresh blisters gave my paw the ferocity of a lions. And if i didnt yet feel like the badass warrior princess i planned to become, the one who would show the Maasai tribesmen that women have a voice and power to match (nobodys ever accused me of aiming low!), at least i looked like her.

P rologue

Fake it till you make it Becca sidled up to me, her arms piled with branches Of course youre inspecting your nail polish What are you going to do when an ape eats one of those treasured thumbs? When Becca and I finally returned to camp (a generous term for the small patch of land that made up our communal living quarters), we were greeted by a three-foot fence surrounding it, made of a thousand crisscrossed branches I guess this is supposed to protect us from animals, Becca said Good luck to us, I said An elephant could tear down this piece-of-shit fence with a pinky toe As Becca studied our new security system, I glimpsed a patch of leaves wiggling softly about a yard in front of us Becca shook the fence lightly, causing the entire thing to wobble Yeah This is a piece of shit But when its your time to go, its your time to go I didnt subscribe to Beccas hippy-dippy cest la vie attitude My own worldview was much more aggressive When death comes knocking, open the door, kick it in the nuts, and run for your life And thats when I saw it Another movement in the trees This time the leaves didnt just jiggle An entire cluster of trees swayed like windshield wipers, right to left Only one day in the bush, and we were face-to-face with the enemy

h
Now, from our perch in the tree, we could see three elephants chilling just outside the piece-of-shit fence Becca punched me in the arm Dude, you thought the elephant was a dinosaur! Look at the size of them, I said Theyre five times bigger than any elephant Ive ever seen The tusks are the size of airplanes!

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She huffed, yeah, its like a trippy version of Jurassic Park. But the good news is that the piece-of-shit fence is holding up quite well. i laughed, doesnt it look like theyre waiting to be invited inside or something? its like the elephants have etiquette! The top of the fence doesnt even reach their ankles, but its working! We watched Lanet and the rest of our new family scurry to build a fire. Within minutes, a low flame was burning. Three men ignited two sticks each and hid behind big, thick trees, taking turns making the deep, throaty oooOOOooo calls intended to scare off our guests. one by one, the warriors threw their torches at the elephants. The monsters didnt budge. From the relative safety of my branch, i tried to remember why id decided to become a warrior. There was a purpose outside of myself, which was to help give Maasai women a muchdeserved voice in their tribe, but the purpose within me was to develop and listen to my own voice. Before i took this major leap of faith into the forest, i had come to the realization that the life i was living was not mine. i was existing in other peoples shadows. i knew what was important to me, but i wasnt staying true to myself. i felt that by being stripped of basic needs such as a roof, toilet, and electricity and left alone with my thoughts and nature, i would be forced to stop hiding in anyones shadow. Becoming a warrior was important culturally, but i went on this journey because i needed to learn that casting my own shadow mattered, not standing in the ones cast by my parents, my peers, or their expectations of me. But death by elephant on day damn one was not part of the plan. Suddenly, i flashed back three months in time to my home in Chicago, where all this bush business began.

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