Today's Song of Kenya, Wednesday 16 December, is a golden song and begins with an 'ooooh' of amazement.
It all happens when on a dirt road between a forest and the clearings that announce a village of mud huts with makuti roofs, an immense flowering of Cassia Fistula, more commonly known as the Golden Shower Tree, appears.
Its flowers create a contrast with the deep blue of the sky so you can't go on, you have to stop, admire and if possible photograph. But a photo, a shot with our now inevitable mobile phone will never do justice to the song: you should add to it the silence interrupted by whistling birds and the bleating of a goat in the distance, the scent carried by the wind that mixes plants, flowers, herbs and fruits and mingles with the acrid smoke of burning brushwood.
Mijikenda herbalists use the golden shower tree as a medicine to regulate the intestines, the berries are laxative and their dried pulp can be used as a mixture to lighten smoking tobacco. I respect the age-old traditions of the peoples of the African coast, but this equally free vision that appears out of nowhere is already an invaluable cure for the soul.