Among the Maasai and Hadza: Kinship in Tanzania with David Grober

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Academy Award and Emmy Award–winning Adventurers’ Club member David Grober recently returned from northern Tanzania, where he lived among Maasai and Hadza communities while documenting their traditions and supporting local initiatives.

Working on a documentary project focused on the Hadza, an almost extinct Hunter-Gatherer tribe near Lake Eyasi, David lived alongside the Hadza. Hunting and foraging are central to daily life. He witnessed a young boy return with his first wild hog, shot with bow and arrow, a rite of passage linking the present to past. David, with others, has built a small solar-powered media center for the Hadza to document their language and oral history as modernization advances. With a baobab tree now named in his honor by the Hadza, David reflects on cultural continuity and the responsibility that follows when one is invited inside a living tradition.

When not with the Hadza, David lived in Arusha and embraced the local dirt-roads community. Families live in 12’ x 12’ rooms and are lucky to have two meals a day. David saw he could help.  With a new road nearby taking visitors to Tanzania’s famous game parks, the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, David designed and, with the community, built a cultural and education center called “The Farmhouse”.  It opens in 2026 to attract visitors and provide local jobs and education.

David was also involved with the Maasai about an hour from Arusha where a brick building serves as both a school and a Boma meeting place.  David was welcomed by the motorcycle riding Maasai chief as they spoke through interpreters, and the exchange grew into mutual trust. The chief wished to honor him at a traditional two-goat feast and asked him to conduct the ritual preparation of the goats himself, shifting him from observer to participant in the ceremonial life of the community.

David Grober is an Academy Award and Emmy Award–winning inventor, engineer, and filmmaker whose work has reshaped how motion pictures are captured at sea.  Founder and President of Motion Picture Marine, he coordinated ocean-based productions over four decades and 1,400 films, television series, and commercials.  In 2000, he created the Perfect Horizon camera stabilization system, earning Scientific and Engineering honors from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an Emmy Award, and the Society of Camera Operators Award for Technical Achievement. The Perfect Horizon has been used on major films including multiple James Bond features, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and The Bourne Identity. He is also the founder of PORPOISE Nautical STEM Robotics and a collaborating engineer with the University of Notre Dame.

The evening’s conversation with David will be led by Adventurers’ Club member and Infinite Safari founder Alan Feldstein.

This program was organized by Reymundo Perez #1219.