The first time, like everyone else, was on vacation.
I knew no one, it was normal a reservation for two weeks at the hotel.
The offer was tempting, 1200 Euros all inclusive.
So many Italians will approach this world that way.
To me, to be honest, i was not interested in making holiday, the sea is beautiful even in my homeland, Gallipoli.
I wanted to understand why some acquaintance had left and had not returned, because many, including the author of this wonderful and very useful site, glorifying life in Kenya, without promising the moon.
It is not the moon that I found, indeed! For a sensitive spirit like mine, in Malindi, I found many paradoxes, so close to put a mixture of anger and compassion. Even so real that makes you want to roll up their sleeves and take action. Yes, because in Italy we do not see poverty next to wealth, maybe the smell it but the two companies, the reeling and the one that defends its interests, if they are away from each other and the maximum meet in television, where the beautiful showgirl ass are just before the family tragedy in a suburban apartment. Here we have mud huts a few meters from the beautiful villas with pool, but in the huts there are kids smiling and just want a bit 'of your time. Yes, of course, also they are asking for candies, notebooks, pens. But just a pencil, a piece of chewing gum to befriend them, and you can spend an afternoon to get you tell their story. Then comes the mother, and she has something to tell. If you hold back with them, end to them, the poor, to ask you if you want to stay for dinner. What do you want to be a plate of polenta in more? And what do you want it to be, for me, a sack of flour or rice, to wear the next day and eat together? I think in this world has lost patience and desire to be together, even among different people, to remind us that we are all men, regardless of our needs and the desire to ask or to get something from others. I'm happy to still have this patience, so I went back three more times in Malindi and I think I'll move there, even though I know they are not all rosy. I have many friends that do not promise anything more than what I can give them, and, after an understandable initial bewilderment, they understood. There are tourists "hit and run", and there are those who will do everything possible, little by little, constantly. And if I'm lucky that this brings me happiness, it is a dream to have met on my way to Africa.