The Magic of Kenya

Since my first visit to Kenya in 2013, and recently in 2019, I have been trying to understand why there is something magical about the country.

Samburu Schoolkids

Let me try to explain. When you leave Kenya as a visitor, and also in my case a photographer, there is an emptiness that just cannot be easily understood or put into words. 

I don’t know if it is the diversity of wildlife, the magical light, the vastness of the landscape, or its people. In reality it is probably a combination of all of these things but there is another invisible element that cannot be explained, no matter how hard I think about it. 

Everything you see really plays on your emotions and senses. I can close my eyes and clearly see the five Cheetahs resting on the hill, hundreds of Zebra crossing the Mara River, unbelievable sunrises and sunsets and I can hear the laughter of the people round the evening fires with the milky way clearly seen above.

In a world of technology that is expanding at an aggressive rate, which we take for granted, we tend to forget the places where this is not the case. I will never forget when visiting the Samburu tribe, I got the kids to wave into the video camera. Their faces when I  showed themselves waving on the playback screen were fantastic, as they waved back at the recorded footage. These simple things are memories that never leave you. 

To me, the trips to Kenya have affected me a lot. Far more than I could have imagined. 

A local said to me “You can leave Kenya, but Kenya never leaves you”