An african love story

I have not shared stories with you for a while as I am so involved in my Masai community education campaign which is leaving little time for anythung else.

It is taking me on a journey to reconnect with old friends and to also go beyond my comfort zone to ask people for support, but it has so far been an AMAZING experience and one that is leaving my heart full of love every day!

We have also had a very sad week as we lost a young warrior in a tragic accident but the amount of love and support that has and is being shown to his family is just overwhelming and is leaving everything else in its shadow.

I am wrapped in a blanket of love, in the mood for sharing this beautiful emotion with the world and this is why I would like to tell you a love story - my very personal one. The story of how I met my husband Sokoine:

Sokoine taking a break while herding our cattle

I had met him on Mafia Island. A magical place. Paradise. A haven of peace, blue seas and the most amazing diving. Mafia to me was Zanzibar’s little sister. Just as beautiful and cultured but more herself. Less altered by the hordes of tourists that befall Zanzibar so frequently.

The day I set foot on Mafia was the day I met Sokoine.

I was with a group of volunteers, exploring the village of Utende, when we bumped into some Maasai. I was enthralled at first sight. He was taller and bigger than the others, but what drew me in were his eyes. Dark and fiery, yet infinitely kind and patient.

Our wedding day.

I tried to keep him there, on the dusty road in the midst of the village, with my year’s worth of Swahili I had picked up working in Ifakara, close to the Selous Game Reserve in the south of Tanzania. I did not want this moment to end. Another one of those moments that made me feel so intensely at one with the dust under my feet and the sun caressing my skin; at one with the country I had come to love, with the Swahili flowing freely off my tongue, with the immensely beautiful and fascinatingly exotic people standing in front of me.

He worked as security for one of the hotels by the beach and everyday, when we walked past, I tried to make myself as noticeable as possible, pushing our dive cart, laughing, talking; and should I glimpse him watching me, my heart would beat a little faster.

Five weeks passed and I became more and more attached to Mafia, its people and Sokoine. I knew I would not go back to Germany.

And when my friend Michael, whose shop down by the beach was right next to Sokoine’s, told me one day that Sokoine liked me, it seemed I had even more of a reason to stay.

That this beautiful, proud, mysterious human being that comes from a world I cannot even begin to envision, should like me, this ordinary white chick, was too much for me to comprehend. But it was true and we got together and spent the most amazing three weeks under the sun and the stars of Mafia Island…

…a year later we married and moved to his traditional Masai home in the Masai Steppe of Tanzania.

Our son Yannik, Sokoine and I. 

Six years later, and I am still here with him, his parents, his grandmother and more recently with our son. I am as in love with the beautiful country as I have always been and have recently launched a campaign to bring environmental education to our Masai community to make a stand against the ongoing environmental destruction of their homelands.

If you would like to support me in saving the Masai culture along with the wilderness they live in and depend on to feed their cattle, click on this link.

The land I love

There was a Land I loved so much

And my Heart would bleed 

With its Suffering 

Caused by Greed

Our Children growing up 

Without a Future

Why fail to read the Signs?

Why live as if 

Tomorrow is guaranteed?

Let us move 

Be open

Be free

Do not hold back

See

Open your Eyes

The World needs Healing

Come my Friends 

Let us act

Let us be good

There is still Time

Move

Our children

I have to admit that before I came to Tanzania, I had never wanted to have children.
As a matter of fact, I never wanted to get married either.

Now that I have been married for nearly 6 years and have a son of 20 months, I take a step back and ask myself what happened?

And the answer is, Africa happened!

I found so much love here, in the beauty of the country and my amazing husband and in the children without whom, Africa would only be half as heart-warming.

The children here come towards you here so fearlessly, so full of trust and curiosity - it melts your heart and makes you so much softer.

Children in Africa often grow up under difficult conditions, their parents struggling everyday to provide for them, yet they are always cheerful, running around playing with the simplest things like sand and sticks.

You do not need to encourage them to play or engage with their neighbours, they do so all by themselves and they watch and learn from their parents every day mimicking the chores they do.

They seem to grow up here so much quicker yet never losing their smiles and their playfulness.

From my earliest days here in Africa I have loved engaging with kids, finding they would pick me up even from the darkest mood and inspiring me to be a more open, kinder and softer person.

Here are some pictures of the amazing kids I live with these days.

My husband's cousin's daughter carrying her baby sister.

My husband's cousin herding our cattle. 

Our son carrying his favourite baby sheep

Some of the kids from our boma posing for the camera.

A love letter to Africa

I have never shared with you the story of how I came to stay in Tanzania - so here it is: 

I came here as a volunteer for a conservation NGO. I was meant to stay for a mere five months, but I knew even before I boarded the plane, that I would stay longer.

Our research crew at a camp close to Selous Game Reserve. 

It is hard to put into words how Africa puts a spell on you, how it draws you in, warm and welcoming and beautifully exotic and how it

touches your soul with a force that turns you into a completely different person.

During my earliest days in Tanzania: enjoying the view with my fellow volunteers.

And what is it that moves you so much? 

Is it the street vendor making a living selling fruits on the dusty streets of Dar es Salaam, who presses an orange into your hand just because she liked the way you smiled at her?

Is it the farmer you visit whose children only get one meal a day, but who insists on cooking a meal for you out of hospitality?

Is it the children who run up to you touching your hair and your skin amazed by the strangeness of it? 

Is it the women carrying their babies on their back, plowing fields in the searing sun with such strength and endurance? 

Is it the fact that nothing ever seems to work yet it always works out? 

Is it that you feel humbled by people who live in what we think of as povery, yet who complain less about their lives than we do in the First World? 

It is the strength, the warmth and the generosity of the people I have met here, that made me fall in love.

My husband and I when we met on Mafia Island. 

So when after a year of volunteering close to the Selous Game Reserve, I moved to Mafia Island and met a Masai warrior whose beauty confirmed that I had not seen anything yet, I had even more of a reason to stay.

 Eight years later I am still here and as in love with this beautiful continent as I have always been.