Seriene. It means “welcome” in Samburu and can be heard as you make your way past the proud, elaborately adorned warriors of the Samburu people, who occupy a remote region of northern Kenya, near the foothills of Mount Kenya. Semi-nomadic pastoralists, they are excellent blacksmiths and subsist primarily as farmers and herders, though meat and vegetables are not often available. So they survive on what surrounds them, preserving meat with salt, making soups from bark and roots, and drinking milk and blood from their livestock. These days, draught has put even more strain on the Samburu, stifling their ability to keep livestock and grow even meager crops.
     During his first encounter with the Samburu, photographer Lyle Owerko was told, “We will feed you what we have. You will drink what we drink, you will eat what we eat, and you will drink blood if that is all we have to offer.” Later, he was offered a plate. “Tonight we give you our best meat and bread,” they told him. “You will drink Samburu tea to quench your thirst.” It’s tough to trace back the origins of the Samburu further than a couple of hundred years, as many of them have no identification or knowledge of their own age. Instead, theirs is an oral tradition, spliced with mythology.