'This is the land where the modern concept of safari was born! My first memories too! There are few areas in Africa as recognisable as Masailand – it has Kilimanjaro to thank for that. This mountain, with it’s occasionally snow-capped peak and permanent glaciers, is hard to ignore and can be seen hundreds of kilometers beyond Masailand’s boundaries. The plains that lie beyond the mountain’s gentle lower slopes and cinder cones are the home of the present Masai pastoralists, who in the past coexisted with the abundant wildlife of a region that extends in the west from the Oloololo escarpment and Mara River to as far east as Lake Jipe! It was here on the dusty plains beneath Kilimanjaro that at the age of one my (then still together) mother and father took me on my first safari – a weekend trip to Nairobi from Dar es Salaam. That five hundred-kilometer journey took us through Masailand, past Kilimanjaro across open plains that were occupied by herds of plains game and the occasional herd of elephants. My father stopped at a manyatta to chat with some Masai and take a few photographs. My mother got out of the vehicle and plopped me on the bonnet while she searched about in the boot for some gifts that the Masai would find useful. Pretty soon a Masai woman inside one of the dung-covered huts of the manyatta noticed that I was blonde. Moments later I was surrounded by a noisy gathering of Masai women, every one of which tried to fondle my snow-white hair. The noise, flies and mob of that terrifying (for me) occasion is literally the earliest memory that I have. I can still hear the women chattering, and smell the cattle dung of the manyatta. Amazingly I remember with complete vividness the hot metal of the car bonnet I was sitting on. Life as a traveller with a memory, started for me at that exact moment on the plains of Masailand. Every painting I have ever done of Kilimanjaro reminds me of this specific occasion.'

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