The Yaaku people long ago assimilated with the majority Maasai, and few still speak Yaakunte, but there is a new determination to save their culture – and their forest – before it disappears

• Words and photographs by Gioia Shah in Kori Kori

In a community centre made of glass bottles, Juliana Loshiro stands before her pupils, a group of village elders. Sitting in a semi-circle, they listen and repeat simple words and greetings in Yaakunte (also called Yaaku), the language of their tribe.

Though it might seem strange that even older people cannot speak the language, one of the pupils stands up and explains why he is in the class: his grandparents died before they could teach him Yaakunte, he says, and his mother, a Maasai, did not know the language. “So we got lost.”