If it is true that the grass is always greener on the other side, then the Kenyans are very close to us.
In 1762, the Portuguese Rasta explorer Toquinho De Fumeiro landed in Malindi and was the first to explore the bush, the lush forest within the seaside settlement.
He came out refreshed, after the vicissitudes he had endured on the high seas, but also slightly dazed and, having loaded a ton of special spices on board, he set off with his crew and his galleon, which curiously enough bore the name of one of Columbus' caravels (Santa Maria), for South Africa, to round the Cape of Good Hope.
Instead, he found himself in Cape Palinuro and was even rounded by a boat of mussel fishermen.
He was killed by a peppering.
Since then, sea explorations ended and the fashion for tourism related to African spices and their daily use began.
Herbs that cure glaucoma, pyorrhoea, slow down the progress of sclerosis and also seem to have a positive effect on the progress of HIV.
Herbs that have the unfortunate downside of making you see a bat dancing the Charleston with an owl at three o'clock in the morning, a giant talking samosa or a horse-drawn pumpkin instead of a tuk-tuk, with a bearded Arabian cinderella called Ebenezer on board.
From Italian colonisation onwards, many people have used Malindian spices to fit in with the environment or the mentality of many natives.
Even though it can make a holiday even more relaxing, non-vegan plant-based tourism is the prerogative of a few (at least officially).
"Taste is not in the result, but in the search," said Alan Proust, a well-known philosopher and Formula One driver brought to Kenya by Flavio Briatore.
"Taste is in not putting on the cardboard filter," said Claudio Martelli, a member of parliament devoted to Kenyan magic spices in the early 1990s and the first real testimonial of their popularity in Italy.
Also significant in this regard is the passage to Malindi of poor (oh my God...) Edoardo Agnelli, who was convinced that "Bhang" was a new model of Fiat, the one with the cylum-shaped exhaust pipe, and of the singer Zucchero Fornaciari, who composed his "Mint and rosemary", finding nothing better to replace in his thoughts the equatorial plants that had bewitched him.
Marungi, on the other hand, has a completely different effect. This green root is chewed together with chewing gum and keeps drivers awake, while not-so-fundamentalist Muslims get hungover. The most prized quality is called Kolombo, probably because the first person to find it discovered America.
With its bitterish taste, marungi was not initially very popular with the mzungu, who like more immediate stimulants.
For some years now, in fact, spices have no longer been in fashion among Europeans, and even in Malindi the lack of such curative elixirs has caused not only a return of glaucoma and pyorrhoea, but also a terrible epidemic of inflammation of the nasal septum, which causes bodily spasms and stereotyped movements.
Inflammations also affect the urinary tract, forcing sufferers to go to the toilet several times.
It is to be hoped that, like all fads, this deviation will remain confined to a few and that the epidemic will pass quickly.
It is to be hoped that the spices and medicinal herbs, and their careful and intelligent use, will get the better of every modern and so un-African virus.
For everything else, my boys, there is mnazi!