It happens every time (and fortunately the times are very few, on the Kenyan media coast every three years), to a terrific news story about our fellow countrymen, are paired with pages of common and excursus on "tragic Kenya", Come Titled a daily newspaper of Belpaese, of this "Violent Africa".
Film titles that capture the eye and have to go to parade in one direction forever: "You who complain about Italy, look at what goes on abroad, especially in those places that sell you as paradises of serenity and security ".
There are several things to argue, losing superficial media, former converted journalists to psychological terrorism and copy-paste associations; First of all, one can not sell anywhere in the world as a "security paradise"; secondly, one should reflect on the modern meaning of the term "serenity", for many seem to have become only a "bourgeois" synonym.
Just as it was once spoken of "adventure" with a positive, enthusiastic and passionate sense, today it seems that "adventure" has become a synonym for "danger" or something that must end badly.
And in the middle, between what was once the serenity and the adventure, we chose the only thing worth to cultivate with decency and naturalness, as Fernando Pessoa said: life.
Yesterday and today, indignation and fear, due to the moody states of the past few years, have focused on the tragic end of the spouses Scassellati in Kikambala.
Victims of an upright robbery in their makuti roofhouse in Africa.
"Even those terrible things happen there," commented someone convinced that Kenya was on Mars.
"Ending up for a robbery is absurd," he echoed another, who perhaps would have liked the passionate motive, or more forgiving a story of drugs or pedophilia.
"A bad hit for tourism," commented finally the most cynical and accustomed.
Tourism.
What does a tourism company do with Kikambala, a village attached to Mwtapa, outskirts of Mombasa?
Virtually nothing.
Here is the last chance missed by the Italian press, and full pages full of the usual banality for distracted minds and lazy memories.
The opportunity to deepen a bit, knowing Kenya, which is two and a half times Big Italy, has 44 tribes (for years have also been added Indians, you know) and over thirty different ecosystems.
Let us figure people's heads, living conditions (from the multi-billionaires of Nairobi we are now dreaming of, to the wretchedness of the Wajir desert or to the slums of the capital) and the viability.
Mtwapa, for example, is one of the smallest hospitals on the Kenya coast.
Perhaps the least hospitable at all.
Just go by car, on the road that connects Mombasa to Malindi, to realize it.
That road we hope soon comes from Italy to Malindi or Watamu will no longer have to do.
Mtwapa is an agglomeration of traffic, dirt and human conditions at the limit.
For years there have been pederast dating, drug dealers, unannounced individuals all over the world.
Today it's a bit less free area than before, but it's always a good place for damned.
Not far away is the poorest neighborhood in Mombasa, Mshomoroni, which leads directly to the landfill that is a real hell.
We went there and it was one of the few areas in Kenya where we could make a photo library, prepare a reportage.
Compared to the Mathare slum in Nairobi, it was a walk.
Life from those parts does not go much, because the parameters with nature, with Africa, are lost with the poor but dignified life that ordinary people have always done.
Then there is the creek, some villa immersed in mangroves and casuarine, some mzungu who also resist because you know how to move well.
Kikambala is not far away and in the nineties she has experienced a great deal thanks to her white beach and to a German hotel.
In the last few decades, however, it looks like a ghost town.
With the expansion of Mombasa and the rise in prices to Nyali, some Italians have well thought of moving to the less chaotic suburb, though much more isolated. Where land costs a tenth in the city.
A Kikambala is not the Watamu tourist industry, there is no mix with the Western Malindi.
And when there is fame, it's true.
Because an account is about two miles in the interior and disconnecting a mango from a tree, another is rubbing hands and head into garbage cages.
It's another Kenya, another coast and probably another life.
Not only because there is less security, let's mean.
Because there is less beauty, less serenity, less adventure.
And perhaps there is more boredom, and more danger.
Certainly there is a thing missing from those parts, a word that fills the pages of newspapers and mouths of the opinion-leaders and journalists: tourism.
So please do not make the whole grass a beam, all of Kenya a drama, and all the Italians abroad an unscientist tourist.
Would not it be better for everyone than those who decided to come to Kenya to be more knowledgeable and informed better?
And should not the media, the network, the television, the newspapers the first to provide this information, instead of casually terrorizing?
If you do not know what you are talking about, you can always write a great truth: what happened in Kikambala can happen everywhere,
And therefore also in Malindi and Watamu, as well as in Catania and Treviso.
Malindi, Kikambala, Treviso, places shared by one thing, the presence of humans.
Other than "Africa Violent".