Today is Indigenous Women’s day 2024. I take this opportunity to celebrate and show my gratitude to all the tribeswomen who teach me and inspire me since my first time being back with mama Africa in 1993!
A funny story I wanted to share with you. And a precious moment that holds in it the beauty and depth of African tribal cultures.
What does a needle have to do with an umbrella? Well it’s the box that comes between us and the answer to this question. I mean a mental box. And the thing is, it turns out it’s a Western-kind-of-thinking box. All will make sense I promise, just click and let’s begin the needle story…
Sometimes it feels like a Christmas tree. At the airport in Ethiopia.
Reflections on my return to Mama Africa…
Around East Africa, I’ve met many young people who make their living by creating for the souvenir industry, out of them, I occasionally meet artists. Baraka is just that, an artist in his soul.
A new and wonderful project started when one day I walked into the kitchen just as the chef finished cracking the unique Kilimanjaro oyster nuts for his famous sauce. I looked at the empty shells with their rich texture and immediately knew what I was going to create from them…
Oyster nuts are a tasty and highly nutritious super food, and everything about them fascinates me. Kweme in Swahili, it’s definitely another one of Mother Earth’s wonders and a special gift to the mountain dwellers. The nuts, that grow inside a kind of a giant green gourd, have a unique connection to the heritage of the Chagga tribe among which I live…
The village kids on the slopes of the Kilimanjaro, as many other African kids, are very creative with their games. Without excess of store-bought toys that are imposed on Western kids, nature is their play ground. Childhood games in the safe embrace of the community are a vital and integrated way of learning and maturing into healthy adult life. Hope you’ll get inspired by this…
In this post I share my personal playlists out of Africa. Tribal dances may slowly disappear in some tribes, but Africans never stopped dancing. Popular music is heard everywhere, filling you with joy and happiness. We in the West are totally missing out on amazing African music. Well that’s why I’m here, so that you can enjoy it too! It’s (always a good) time to dance!
Paulo, who sells traditional Maasai medicine door to door, came to our neighborhood the other morning.
