They are returning to Kenya.
There is certainly a reason for this, and perhaps there is more than one.
In the meantime, they are all comforted by the data that after ten months are now a certainty of how things went in Kenya, at least in the first year of the global pandemic.
Let us compare these official figures, which speak of 2,000 deaths from Covid-19, and see that comparisons with the rest of the world are impractical, but also those with other countries in the Dark Continent, for example South Africa, speaking of a twentieth of the deaths caused by the virus.
Those who have lived in Kenya for as long or as many years as I have, have not had a single acquaintance perish from the disease, and even among the poor people we meet through social work or the profession that takes us around hospitals, care centres, schools and other public places, in the hinterland and so on, we have no news of people who have become seriously ill by being positive.
This, mind you, does not mean that we should lower our guard because it has already been confirmed that the virus is changeable and deceitful, but the simple observation that it has arrived here in a mild form and that even the elderly (because, despite the fact that the average life span as propagated is much lower, there are many elderly people... the average life span is lower because unfortunately many children die, and they make up the statistics) are doing well. In the villages there is no more crying than usual, and yet outside the cities no one dreams of bringing a mask and water to wash their hands... it is already a lot if there is enough to wash. Full stop.
These things start to show and tourists start to come back.
Backpackers come back, safari enthusiasts come back, villa owners come back in Malindi, Watamu and Mambrui. Back to the businessmen in Nairobi and Mombasa.
Back come the lovers, more naive than sex tourists, back come those who dream of a different life.
Those who would not come back, but would come for the first time, are starting to think about coming to Kenya.
And it is not only the light Covid-19, but the heaviness of the Old Continent that convinces them.
For months we have been sitting on the "rive gauche" of the Sabaki River waiting for everyone: the gurus of "I told you so" and those of "it will be a massacre".
And when there are so many of them here, we can continue to commend ourselves to them: it's not over, but here we can begin to hope again.