How to be a Maasai warrior

Send a prayer to whomever or whatever you believe in, and if you don’t believe in anything, find something because you are in for a wild ride!

A key to being a warrior is that you can protect.

Persuade a Maasai (preferably a warrior) to take you under his wing. Hopefully soon you will have a choice of male or female as the tribe is working to change the law to allow girls to become warriors.

Leave all of your material possessions behind, including: a roof over your head, a bed to sleep on, electricity and your mobile. If resources are slim, you go hungry.

Go to orpul, a meat-eating ritual deep in the forest, to learn how to use your spear and sword. You will also learn how to kill for food, and survive with the elephants, hippos and leopards. Orpul will teach you that in order to be a warrior, you need to be mentally resilient, physically tenacious and soulfully aligned.

A key responsibility of the warrior is to entertain the community. They constantly sing and dance in times of happiness, sadness and everywhere in between. Don’t worry if you can’t jump seven feet in the air – they will accept you even if you can only jump a few inches off the ground.

To protect the community, a warrior needs to be fearless. The only way you can be free from fear is by acting – never hiding. Warriors are always the first ones to step up to the plate.

The more cattle a Maasai warrior owns, the richer he is considered to be. A warrior who owns around 20 cattle or less is considered poor, while the richest warriors may own 1,000 or more.

Mindy Budgor is author of Warrior Princess: My Quest to Become the First Female Maasai Warrior (Murdoch Books, £12.99), out now.