Lucchese DeCavalcante
JF-Expert Member
- Jan 10, 2009
- 5,471
- 752
Corinne Hofmann spotted her Masai warrior on a ferry headed for Mombasa in Kenya. On holiday with her boyfriend in 1987, she could not take her eyes off the beautiful stranger wearing a loincloth, braided red hair and masses of jewellery.
She's not the first tourist to have that reaction. Driving through Kenya and Tanzania a few years ago, I was mesmerised by the elegant Masai men striding across the savannah in their scarlet blankets with a straggle of goats or cows. But the fascination stops there for most of us.
Hofmann was weak-kneed with love. When the Masai appeared again to guide her through Mombasa, she took it as a sign. A 27-year-old blonde beauty from the world's neatest country, she went home to Switzerland, sold her clothing shop and returned to Kenya without knowing what would happen next.
"I had the deepest feeling I had to follow that man," she says on the phone from Swtizerland. "I had to look for him through the whole of Kenya. For three months I tried to find him. I was tired and hopeless and thought I would never see him again. But I found him and I was so pleased just to sit with him."
She found Lketinga, a Samburu tribesman, in his village three days' rickety bus ride from Mombasa. Against all logic - she was warned that women are less valued than goats - she moved in with him and his mother.
So lovely, genuine love and what a perfect match ..... I am so proud to be a MASAI
