Karibu Sana

How to illustrate the past three weeks among the Maasai of Loita Hills?

It’s the grip of a handshake and the warmth of a gap toothed smile.

It’s the layer of dust that your body learns to wear as a second skin.

It’s the white-hot midday sun turning fair skin pink.

It’s that same sun, finding the horizon and painting the sky tangerine.

It’s the boom of an unseasonal afternoon storm and the ding of rain on corrugated metal roofing.

It’s the multiplicity of stars, loud in the silence of the night.

It’s the wrapping of the tongue around a new but ancient language.

It’s the morning chorus of cattle mooing en route to pasture.

It’s the love from a white-socked puppy and the nips of the fleas it gave you.

It's the midnight howl of a hyena stalking a goat and the cacophony of dogs that chase it.

It’s the smell of a charcoal fire in the wind, curling from dim, toasty huts.

It’s the comfort of least three cups of milk-based tea per day, straight from the udders of village cows.

It’s charred maize, balmy chapati, steaming uglai, brackish skukumo wiki, and tender goat.

It’s the bleached bones of cattle who succumbed to the increasing droughts of climate change.

It’s the giggle of a giddy child, relishing a turn with the camera.

It’s a sea of red garments, beautifully beaded necks, beaded ears, beaded ankles, beaded wrists…

It’s the audacious young women who fight against female circumcision and forced early marriage.

It’s the point of a spear, the curve of a club, the support of a walking stick on uneven ground.

It’s the thorns of the bush and the shade of an acacia tree.

It’s the ruts, the rivers, the bumps in the “roads” and the bald truck tires that brave them.

It’s the zebra, the wildebeest, the ostrich, the impala and the gazelle that share the earth with you.

It’s standing alone on a ridge cradled by hills at every compass point.

It’s new friends become old friends and a foreign land become home.

It’s a feeling summed up in a familiar phrase, “Karibu."

You are welcome.

And a response of sincere gratitude, “Ashe oleng."

Thank you, Loita Hills.  So very much.

Love from Loita Hills, Kenya.