Africa. No other place in the world can offer so much, (to those prepared to receive). And yet it is so: in the colours of it’s wild nature, in the fragrance and aromas of it’s markets and in the warmth of people, especially outside the big cities.

I went to Africa for the first time in 2014, to visit the great parks of northern Tanzania.

However it was an unexpected event that offered me the greatest moment of the journey. Our driver, a friend of a village chief, suggested a visit to a tiny Masai village in the middle of the Ngorongoro Crater. Although it was a short visit, I was so deeply impressed, that I couldn’t even take a photo.
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Suddenly, visiting that tiny village, I decided to go back there.
I can still remember the words in my head, getting back to the jeep, "I will return here".
What I wanted was to recount those people’s story, but from the inside, living the savannah. I wanted to know their everyday life.

Once returned in my country, I decided to looking for a suitable place, even though I couldn’t imagine why a Masai village would want to accept the presence of a mzungu (European), a photographer, too. After much research, I discover an interview by a traveller from Costarica, Catarina Jimenez, an incredible woman very close to a Masai community (she was blessed by the Masai and called Nemeyan). Catarina gained respect and trust contributing to the construction of the village school. I contacted her immediately.

She was enthusiastic about my project and offered me her help to introduce me the next time she would visit the Masai village in Kenya.

In May of 2016 I finally took that airplane, destination: the Masai community of Rombo Manyatta, Kenya.

I was hosted by one of the mama of the village in a tiny mud hut.

I can only be grateful to have had this possibility; being able to observe everyday life, I noticed the changes in act. The Masai was fascinated by modern and technological objects (even if there is no electricity in the village).
A slow decline of their traditional way of life is happening. Masai are an antique population which still struggles to keep out the rest of the word, trying to keep their traditions and lifestyle.

During the period in the Masai village, where time seemed dilated, the days are spent only outside and body and soul get used to the rhythms of the earth, I realized that we are missing something from this other part of the world.

reportage