8 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY AUGUST 28-SEPTEMBER 3, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com 831 On a recent afternoon, Mel Mason, a retired social worker and community leader in Seaside, says he’s enjoying life’s slower pace since retiring just over two years ago, and hopes to enjoy it a while longer—he turns 83 next January, and wants to make it to 100. And he sounds full of life as he recounts a trip he took to Ghana in July with a group of 30 people with The Village Project, a Seaside nonprofit Mason and his wife Regina co-founded in 2008. The trip was life-changing, he says, but before he can get into it, he says he must start from the beginning. He has a lot of African friends, and some are Kenyans from the Maasai tribe. From them, Mason learned about Maasai leadership structure, and how future leaders—Maasai warriors, the protectors of the tribe—are chosen in their youth to go to warrior camp. “They talked about how rigorous this warriors camp was, how you have to be studious like a scholar,” Mason says. “They learn the history of the Maasai people, their identity in the broader sense of the African continent’s history, and the tribal nations and societies in Africa.” He adds when they graduate from warriors camp, they become responsible for the well-being of the Maasai people. “They come out of there with a broad consciousness,” he says. Inspired, Mason decided to try a “warriors camp” at The Village Project. In 2016, he and Regina stayed up nearly all night for a month filling out paperwork to apply for state funding. In 2017, the state granted The Village Project’s nascent Emanyatta program (warriors camp, in Maasai) $250,000 annually for five years. It launched that September—about 45 Black kids from kindergarten through fourth grade joined—and right away, Mason says the impact was noticeable. They were learning that Africa was the cradle of civilization, and that a place the Greeks named Egypt was formerly called Kemet—which means “black land”—and was where learning came from, where the great Greek philosophers were schooled. Then just a few months later, in December 2017, a friend of Mason’s, a Maasai artist from Kenya living in Spokane, said that his Maasai warrior friends were visiting from Kenya and were swinging through Monterey to perform. A plan was hatched, and when the young Village Project warriors later arrived on Saturday morning for Emanyatta, the Maasai warriors were there to greet them. Mason says the kids and adults alike were transfixed. “At the end of the day, no one wanted to see them leave,” he says. “I was one of them.” Then Regina got a call from a mother whose son had been at Emanyatta, and said he was crying with joy over meeting the warriors. It was then, Mason says, that Regina said they had to go to Africa. She started organizing a trip and raising funds. And in July 2025, The Village Project was able to send 30 people—15 kids and 15 adults—to Ghana. It was the Masons’ first trip to Africa. Their destination was a tossup between Ghana and Kenya; Ghana was chosen because it was the first African nation to achieve independence from colonial rule, and its founder, Kwame Nkrumah, a leader of the Pan-African movement, was a hero of Mason’s since he was a kid. Ghana was also the resting place of W.E.B. Du Bois, an African American historian who became a Ghanaian citizen in the early 1960s. They visited Du Bois’ house, a national monument, and Nkrumah’s tomb. They also visited dungeons where enslaved Africans were kept in captivity, and saw cell walls with claw marks of fingernails. “That was really emotionally almost devastating for many of us,” Mason says. “It brought up anger in me that our people had to go through that.” And then they walked through the “Door of No Return,” the symbolic passage for those forced to leave home forever as enslaved people. This trip brought the local “warriors” back through that door which, from the other side, is named the “Door of Return.” “They were clear when they went over there,” Mason says. “They were Africans that had come home. They know who they are. They have pride that exudes when they walk somewhere. They have the pride of being someone of African ancestry.” Door of Return For Seaside nonprofit The Village Project, a recent trip to Africa felt like a homecoming. By David Schmalz “They were Africans that had come home.” TALES FROM THE AREA CODE COURTESY OF MARIA ELENA MEJIA CONTRERAS At the end of their tour, The Village Project group posed for a picture—taken by their young guide Prince—in front of “The Door of Return,” a monument built in 2017 commemorating the transatlantic slave trade. SAVE THE DATE Friday, September 12 • Annual Leadership Luncheon presented by California Resources Corporation Portola Hotel & Spa Thursday, October 16 • Monterey Bay Business Expo presented by Rayne Technology Solutions Del Monte Shopping Center SAVE THE DATE UPCOMING EVENTS See the full schedule of events and register today at montereychamber.com REGISTER TODAY!
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==