On June 25, I celebrated five years in Kenya.
I started writing these lines back then, but I had to put them aside and wait until September to pick them up again and reorganize them.
I came to this country for work and then stayed here after resigning, albeit for reasons that were very fragile at the time.
 
At that moment, any place had the same flavor of risk and possibility, but I decided to stay here, to start over in Diani, because I always knew that, at some point, I would want to live by the sea.
I lived with curiosity and fear. Uncertain of what tomorrow would bring, confident that one day I would understand where to put down roots.
I fell in love, even with nature, which I could no longer give up.
 
I loved becoming aware of the tides to make the most of my time, I rejoiced in the coolness of July and the incessant rains, and I became fond of the simplicity and predictability of my existence.
I trembled at the announcements from the Msambweni hospital morgue, which was looking for someone to identify dozens of unnamed dead.
 
I suffered when I lost my friend Hassani and when my tuktuk driver left because of a minor illness.
I cursed the universe when I found Barilla pesto at the supermarket after months, but at double the price, so I patted myself on the back when I started making it myself, with cashews instead of pine nuts.
 
I loved every step on the endless beach, on days with and without seaweed, when it was cloudy and the sky was ultramarine blue.
I felt good when I managed to move the tent to see behind the scenes of the coast, well hidden by the LED signs of the resorts.
 
There I saw hunger, medieval diseases, infuriating stubbornness, and breathtaking savannahs.
I am proud to have learned Kiswahili and to have found a very cheap espresso machine in a maze of Nairobi CBD.
Five years are nothing, and they are long, and in them I have certainly lived many lives.
 
Sometimes Italians have asked me for tips on how to move here.
All of them were enthralled by their first encounter with Kenya's boundless ocean.
I usually limited myself to logistical and organizational answers, but in the last year and a half, I have started to say out loud that to live here, you have to embrace loneliness.
 
At this point, the intrepid interlocutor usually smiles—I think to hide their discomfort.
Those who changed the subject spared themselves the reasons, while those who tried to minimize it listened to every word.
No one ever asked me for explanations on their own initiative. 
There are two things I have loved learning over the past five years and two, which are projects and solutions, that I have not yet been able to impose on myself.
I have learned the beauty of solitude.
I live in a guesthouse with a large family of all backgrounds and ages, where we speak four languages. Guests from sixty countries have stayed here. I have no reason to feel lonely, and in fact, I am rarely lonely.
 
But the solitude I have learned is beyond space and time. It is a present, tangible, enveloping, and overwhelming condition.
Italians are all busy, cultural differences are so profound that making friends with Kenyans is complicated, and tourists come and go. In this country, I have often felt alone in a crowd.
 
Free to engage in long conversations with strangers but also able to sit in a corner and observe what is happening.
Recognized by that Carrefour cashier we always chat with, who calls me to her checkout and whom I look for before queuing elsewhere.
Unknown to Italians who have seen me at dinner countless evenings.
 
Free, in short, to get bored, to write, to meditate—cigarette in mouth—on all the things I could have done instead of lazing around: what a privilege! I have learned to feel secure in the predictability of time and space.
I live on a single road, 10km of asphalt and a few dirt side roads.
 
You can't get lost here. The sun always rises and sets at 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., of course.
I look back at myself eight years ago and see myself going crazy for a life like this.
But today I am grateful for it: I have gained weight, my hair has thickened, I have moments of infinite and disruptive creativity.
 
I thought I needed chaos to feel alive by dominating it, but instead monotony has given me an unknown peace.
I reproach myself, rather, for not being able to make commitments to myself.
I wonder if Kenya will ever teach me that, and if this is the right place to explain it to me.
 
I accumulate used books, but I struggle to commit to reading them. I would like to walk by the sea every morning (to control my weight before it gets out of hand), but no morning is ever the right one.
I would like to see at least one good movie a week.
I would like to. And finally, I feel the need for art and art-making in this land.
And in five years, I still haven't figured out how.
 
I would like to do theater, influence the development of this land so that there are gathering spaces for young people and communities, I would like to create something that tells the story hidden among the palm trees and buried under the foundations of the resorts.
I would like to.
Happy birthday Michele, without even realizing it or wanting to, you have behaved just like a baobab tree!
 
You have put at least one of your roots deep into the earth. Who knows how you will grow from there! 

••• Michele Senici, 1993. Educator, teacher, project coordinator. I opened Casa Hera in Diani because I didn't know where to continue my life. Do I understand now? Certainly not, but that's okay, at least I observe, think, and write.