East African Odyssey

27th August 1988

In the late summer of 1988, I was lucky enough to join an extraordinary expedition: a 500-mile trek across Northern Kenya with a group of homeless children, soldiers, camels, and just enough water to keep the whole affair marginally sane.

I was the expedition photographer, which meant that while everyone else walked the route, I often had to leg it up hills, double back on foot, or clamber up whatever ridge offered a halfway decent view of the camel train winding its way below. I was young, relatively fit, and foolish enough to think this sounded like fun.

Thankfully, Mvoa – my long-suffering camel – shouldered the weight of most of my gear. Nestled among the lenses and film canisters was my father’s old Rolleiflex. He’d dropped it into the harbour at Aden back in the ’30s, so its focus plane was best described as… interpretive. But I brought it anyway, and I’m glad I did. The shots I captured with it have a dreamy, almost painterly softness – whether a flaw or a gift, I’m undecided.

We passed through Samburu and Turkana lands, meeting some of the most graceful, warm-hearted and resourceful people I’ve ever encountered. Their style, their humour, their patience – all humbling. I still remember the young warriors who, having never seen a camera before, took to it instantly. One moment they were standing proud with spears, the next they were borrowing my Nikon and experimenting with angles like old pros.

It wasn’t all romance and wide skies, of course. There was the morning I disturbed a sleepy scorpion under my backpack and received a stinging rebuke. The expedition doctor had morphine, thank heavens. Less dramatic, but possibly more painful, was the moment I slapped Mvoa’s rear in a moment of affection and drove a four-inch camel thorn straight through my thumb.

Still, we all made it: forty days and forty nights sleeping rough beneath the endless African stars. Exhausted, bitten, sunburnt, stung – and forever changed.