A Yes in the Rift Valley
Muddy Feet, Wild Hearts | Field Notes, No. 1 | Nakuru, Kenya, May 2026
There's a gecko chasing bugs across the verandah floor. The sun is high. The river is roaring somewhere behind the house, the way it always does this time of year. A small family of vervet monkeys is climbing down a tree at the edge of the garden, watching, walking slowly along the boundary. Three days have passed and I still don't quite believe it.
I've always said that coming to Kenya feels like coming back to myself. This is the place I feel closest to my childhood — the one we left behind years ago — and the place where, somewhere amongst the dust and the thorn trees, parts of my soul quietly knit themselves back together. It is, I'll admit, an airy-fairy thing to say. But it's also true, and it's the reason I'm writing this from the verandah and not, say, sitting at my kitchen table in Aberdeen drinking lukewarm tea.
How we got here
I wasn't sure we'd come back this year. Then, at the end of my first visit to Sweden in January, mum asked — almost casually — shall we go to Kenya? And so the planning began, along with some very last-minute passport updates.
Dad insisted, at first, that he wasn't coming. By the time I saw him again in Sweden, I was on the verge of tears begging him to please, please come and have a family holiday with us. He relented, looked very pleased with himself, and informed me I'd ruined the surprise — he had been coming all along.
What I didn't know, of course, was why he was so keen.
Nakuru
We spent a day in Nairobi getting our bearings before heading up to Nakuru. The first night was lovely. Dad had dressed up for the occasion. The rest of us had not.
The first proper game drive was just my brother, the mountain man and me — looking, as we always do, for the elusive leopard and for the lions of Nakuru, who have evolved to climb trees. We didn't find either. We did find fish eagles, storks, a whole cacophony of birds, and the kind of quiet you forget exists when you live in a city.
The next day, two cars went out. I'd brought my first proper telephoto lens with me and was determined to put it to use: rhino, giraffe, hippo, zebra, hyena, waterbuck, buffalo. Birds I couldn't always name. The kind of day that makes a photographer's heart do something embarrassing.
The evening of the 2nd of May
We got back from the game drive in the late afternoon. The mountain man kindly took my very heavy bag — because what's the point of travelling light — and carted it back to the room while I went to find my parents for sundowners. Thunder was already cracking somewhere in the distance, that low rolling African thunder that is honestly one of the things I miss most when I'm away. There's nothing quite like it. The lightning streaks the whole sky and the rain, when it arrives, arrives properly.
We ordered drinks. The whole family was gathered around the table, talking about what we'd seen. And then the mountain man walked back across the lawn with a book in his hands.
It was a Sally Mann memoir — my favourite photographer, signed by her — and he held it out to me and said, very casually, I guess this is as good a time as any to give you this. But you can only have it if you agree to marry me.
Reader, I did not leap up and shout yes. What I actually said, with tears already in my eyes, was: are you joking? He shook his head, asked again, and only then did I jump up and properly burst into tears in front of my entire family in the middle of the Rift Valley while the sky did its thing overhead.
He knows me well. The place I love photographing more than anywhere. My favourite inanimate object — a book — signed by the photographer whose work makes me want to keep chasing wild places. My whole family there to witness it. Even now, three days later, it doesn't quite feel real.
The ring (or: where is my ring?)
You might be wondering about the ring. Who proposes with a book?
The mountain man does, as it turns out — though not entirely by choice. He had ordered a ring, which the sellers cancelled. He then couldn't find the ring I'd been telling him, for two solid years, that I planned to use as my engagement ring: my mum's rugby ring, which she had already passed down to me. All of this came out only after I laughed and asked, so where is my ring, then?
Honestly, I'm glad. Being proposed to with a signed Sally Mann is a story I'll tell for the rest of my life.
Two hundred cows
For anyone who knows my dad, and the culture I come from, you'll know that lobola negotiations have been ongoing for years. The agreed figure, last I checked, was 700 cows. Not just any cows — pregnant Boran cows. On a farm in Kenya. The mountain man has been on the hook for some time.
So once I'd said yes, he reached for two small boxes, handed them solemnly to my father, and said, a down payment on the lobola. Inside were 200 toy cows.
There are many reasons this man is perfect. Knowing exactly how to take the mickey out of my father is high on the list.
Respecting the timeline of the wild
A small thing from earlier in the safari that I want to write down before I forget. On our second evening, on the way back to the resort before the 6:30 cut-off, we came across a hyena padding along the road, lake on one side, forest on the other, clearly looking for somewhere to slip away. We followed at a distance for about a kilometre until he found a gap and disappeared. That morning we'd also passed a hippo out of the water, and quietly backed away to give him his space.
Part of the privilege of being here — and it is a privilege I never want to grow used to — is being allowed to move at the animals' pace, not ours. To watch from a respectful distance and let them decide how the encounter goes. We were lucky enough to be almost alone in the park for long stretches. That kind of quiet is rarer every year, and I'm grateful for it.
Mornings on the farm
We're at the farm now, wedding plans already creeping in around the edges of everything. We may have found our celebrant. The date is locked in (and pleasingly spooky). We're working on a venue that means the world to both of us, and we've started a guest list.
The mornings here are easy. The warmth means my otherwise sore body feels almost normal, which is no small thing. I get up early without protest and watch the sun come up over the trees while the geckoes go about their business, the butterflies do theirs, and someone, somewhere, starts a kettle.
A paw print appeared in the mud near the boundary on our walk yesterday. Almost certainly a dog. I'm choosing to believe it was a big cat, frozen by drying mud until the next rain comes and softens everything again — making the soil malleable, ready to be shaped by whatever walks across it next.
Mum and the snake
On one of our last nights, mum gave me a very large fright.
There had been a blind snake in the living room earlier in the day, which I missed. The second — a dead boomslang — mum had found out on the compound, which I also missed. So when we were walking back to the house from my brother's place that evening and a toad leapt across the path, she shrieked. I love toads. I still jumped a foot in the air. It could have been the head of a snake, she said, and I couldn't argue with that.
This is part of the deal here. You never quite know who you'll cross paths with — a baboon deciding to strip the fig tree, a snake using the living room as a thoroughfare, a paw print that might or might not belong to a leopard. The wild isn't somewhere you visit. It's somewhere you live alongside.
Leaving
Leaving Africa is always hard. I say, only half-joking, that there's a piece of my soul that stays here permanently — roaming the land, sending me reminders that home is still here, waiting, even if I'm old by the time I get back to it.
It is a slightly maudlin thing to say in a piece that's mostly about getting engaged. But the truth is that Africa was the place I felt most at peace until the mountain man came along and quietly gave me some of that peace back. I still can't quite believe how lucky I am to have a fiancé — a word I'm very much still getting used to — who understood, without needing it explained, why the milestone needed to happen here.
My three-year-old nephew, by the way, is rapidly turning into a small gentleman with perfect manners, an enviable accent and some genuinely funny one-liners. He's giving his dad a serious run for the family-comedian title. I'll miss him very much when we go.
The gecko is still on the verandah. The river is still loud. Soon enough I'll be back in Aberdeen, rain on the window, planning a wedding. But for now, this — and a yes I'm still getting used to saying out loud.
Stay wild,
Marlene
