For four months I lived in Nakutan village in the Turkana desert, Kenya, working at a local school and observing how a closed community responds to the introduction of a foreign cultural code. The village name Nakutan means “scorpion,” reflecting both the environment and the social hardness shaped by poverty, hunger, post-colonial trauma, and imposed Christianity layered over local pagan traditions.
Turkana people are often described as emotionally severe. We were told there was no direct phrase for “I love you” in daily use. With a background in linguistics, I couldn’t believe it was possible. The affection between parents and children is rare, but is it possible that basic feeling of a human being is not described in the language? Yet every Sunday, the local priest preaches about Jesus love in the church. What words does he use then? And if the words exist, why the community is presented to us this way?
This contradiction became the core of my research: is love absent, or simply culturally buried?
After four months of gaining trust of a local community and children, I introduced a foreign ritual: a graduation waltz, inspired by Russian school traditions. Physical tenderness between boys and girls is an unspoken taboo in a tribe, so what seems to be elegant and naive in Russia, could bring confusion in Nakutan. I adapted the dance into a contact-free choreography emphasizing respect, gentleness, and mutual regard rather than intimacy. Why? I wanted to carefully provoke parents and find love which must be hidden.
Their path from rejection, stiffness and judgement to warmth is the most unexpected part of this journey.
What were the mothers thinking about? Did they forget their harsh lives for a moment? What did they see that moment?
This project is not about changing traditions. It is about revealing an existing emotional capacity through a new cultural form — and questioning why external agents so often choose not to see the love that already exists, simply because it does not mirror their own.
