The tourist season on the Kenyan coast is not yet over, although in beautiful Watamu one can already see the first signs of the return to the Italian cold of holidaymakers for a week or two.
Wandering around the tourist resorts that are benefiting from the return of charters, we come across departing compatriots and find in their eyes and thoughts what has been the leitmotif of the Italy-Kenya-Italy comings and goings for so many years.
Federica would have very long hair, but you can't see it. It has become tiny coloured braids that don't even look good on her. Francesco, her boyfriend, wears a tank top that highlights his tan and tattoos. One week in one of the wonderful resorts, and it is already time to return.
In front of the ready suitcases in reception, I ask them what Africa has left in their hearts.
"In the heart?" asks Francis, amazed...nothing, a nice sunny memory...a nice swimming pool.
His companion, perhaps, understands. She waves her hair and says: 'the smiles of the children, the day we went shopping. And also that of the waiters. They must be good people, the Kenyans. But that's not all this country is, is it? I would like to get to know other places too'.
Some people breathe Africa and others only the chlorine in the swimming pool....
I know that it is impossible to get 'sick' of Africa in such a short time, but I had forgotten the thoughts of the 'one-off' tourists.
For Gianna and Gigi, another couple but more advanced in years, it was a food holiday.
"We love the buffet," they say, "and we ate a lot of fish and delicious vegetables in the village.
Needless to ask about the 'heart'...
Katia and Giorgia, friends from Tuscany, are also on the same wavelength.
"Last year we went to Zanzibar, Africa is beautiful and there is no jet-lag. In eight hours you're there. A week can be done'.
Observing the faces of the 'all-inclusive' people, I realise that if even one of them has figured out where he has been, it is already a victory. There are a couple of fifty-year-olds who do not stop taking pictures of everything, like Japanese, the last ones being of the receptionist, the makuti and a statue placed in the lobby.
 Talk about a photographic safari. They talk about the cold weather in Italy, about getting back to work.
A young man with a beard has the lost look of someone who has fallen in love, but not exactly with Africa...he is chatting with his new love, the one 'different from all the others' that he will soon return to find, you can bet.
"How come you chose Kenya," I ask a little family. The eldest son, Jacopo, 11, answers. "It was me, I wanted to see the animals of the savannah". Perhaps hope lies in the new generation.
The mother retorts: 'it was a dream we had for a long time, but we were waiting for the other daughter, who is seven, to grow up'. And then they say that Kenya is not a place for families, for children. Indeed.
The important thing is to have some culture, to inform yourself about the place you go to.
Otherwise you will never know the difference between an ordinary place, with a beautiful sea and a nice hotel structure, and a special place with nature, life and fauna that few other countries in the world can boast of.
As long as there is Kenya, there is hope.