‘We don't let the Somalis come here, even if they are Muslims like us. 
We are Kenyan first and Islamic second’. 
My friend Ahmed Ali Hassan (who probably has another seven or eight names along the same lines but avoids rattling them off) asks me to tell the Italians that Malindi can in no way be compared to what has been happening for years now in northern Kenya, especially on the border with Somalia.
‘First of all, you are rightly afraid as Christians,’ he admits, ’because you don't know that the Somalis are not angry with you Westerners, and above all they are not fundamentalists like the Syrians or Iraqis. They are angry with the Kenyans because they have invaded their territories. By attacking Garissa University they wanted to attack the new generations of wealthy Kenyans. To go to university you need to come from a rich family, here a normal person can't afford it. 
And the rich are always connected to the institutions in some way’.
Ahmed explains things to me that I already know and that for years I've been trying to make people understand, including those who write to me worried, and tourists who cancel their holidays in Africa, holidays they may have been dreaming of since they were children. 
I'm also a bit tired of acting as a defender at all costs of this paradise that has never had anything to do with terrorism, and that for years has in fact taught the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Catholics, but also Hindus, Animists, Buddhists and Protestants. 
I don't have to defend anything, I'm not paid by anyone and my life is not affected by the number of tourists who visit Malindi and Watamu. 
I simply live here, this is my home and if I felt more in danger here than in Turin, Pescara, Marseille or Budapest, I would have already packed my bags. 
Also because one of the things I love most about this place is the peace and quiet. 
I live in the Arab quarter of Malindi, in Shella. I respect and am respected and have never felt any hostility because of the colour of my skin or because I supposedly belong to a God other than Allah. This is something that I have always noticed, for example in Italy, with the roles reversed.
Of course, lately I've had my antennae up, but only because I don't like to be an optimist at all costs and because nothing is certain anymore, attempts at imitation and youthful discontent are growing at an incredible speed everywhere. 
If once upon a time you imitated Nazism or the Red Brigades just to cause trouble, today the reference points for a certain kind of youth may be Islamic radicals.
That's how the world is today, you're no longer safe anywhere, but I will never tire of saying that I have never felt so calm, free and at peace with the world as when I go to the savannah. The last time? Last weekend. 
It's a prerogative of Westerners to fill themselves with palliatives to the anxiety of not being in step with the times, with what is required by society, consumerism and lifestyle. 
All this performance anxiety generates fear and fear makes you read, click, makes you talk about yourself more than any other news.
I would like to explain to my readers that in these parts it's enough to disconnect from the internet, social networks, mobile phones and computers for a day, and you regain a truly objective view of things.
We've got to worrying about incursions from the other side of the world, when in the sixties and seventies there were more civil wars and wars caused by them than cars, we expect Isis to be on our doorstep as if they were interested in beheading us for the media, we continue to put X against every country and city based on what we read or hear, almost never based on our own knowledge. 
What would happen if, from tomorrow, all the media stopped talking about acts of war, bloody repression and terrorist attacks? Probably what happens to me when I disconnect from the internet for 24 hours and go out into the savannah. 
An incredible, amazing, fulfilling feeling of freedom and affection with my inner self.
Something that for humans is evidently terrifying at the mere thought of more than 150 students who have died on the other side of the world.