When the Masai dance, their bodies wave like grass and their voices hum like a summer breeze. They are greeting us joyfully.

The women have shaved heads and wear hand-beaded collars stacked one on top of the other; the men have braided hair and beaded anklets. They are all wearing bright red robes in patterns or checks that emphasize the long, lean gracefulness of their bodies. Together, they undulate forward in a slow shuffle. When they pause in a semi-circle, the men take over. They jump straight up as high as they can - to show their virility, we’re told. One man jumps so high it looks like his feet may clear they heads of the others.

The Masai are one of the most easily recognized tribes of Africa. They are warriors and nomadic herders, and retain much of their traditional culture, with the men and boys still grazing their beloved cattle on the country’s vast plains. They are welcoming us to Kenya. They are glad we are here.

The spring months of 2008 have been hard ones for the Masai, who rely on tourists to buy their beads so that they can buy rice; and for tour and hotel operators; and for the many other Kenyans who depend on the tourism industry. Violence and riots after the contested presidential election last December scared most tourists away – one vendor whose shop overlooks the Great Rift Valley told me that he used to get 500 tourists a day who take a look at his sisal baskets and sandstone carvings. Now he’s down to fewer than 10 a week.

But Kenya is not Rwanda or Darfur. Though people are still displaced, the country is not falling into tribal violence. Over and over, Kenyans said to me, “We are a peaceful people. Tell the people in your country to come back.” And people should come back. Not only is Kenya completely safe for tourists, but they need tourism in order to feed their families. And Kenya is as beautiful and interesting as ever.

Kenya is mostly known for its big game viewing. On the Masai Mara, which is the eastern part of the Serenghetti, the Big Five – rhino, elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo – wander freely, and you can follow them in a jeep across the trackless wilderness. The Masai Mara is owned by the Masai community, but there are also other state national parks, like Amboseli and Tsavo East and West, where things are a little more controlled (and friendly to the environment, since the vehicles aren’t digging up the fragile ground).

At these parks, vans with pop-out hoods (for better picture-taking) travel across roads of red dust, and the animals come to you. We saw a herd of elephants ambling alongside the road, eventually cutting across it. A baby elephant - just a day or two old, our guide said – was safely settled in the middle of the group. A tower of giraffes ignored us completely, pulling leaves from the flat-topped acacia trees with their long, black tongues. Baboons swung across the grass, sometimes joined by the Vervet monkeys, which are called “blue-balled” monkeys by the guide. You can guess why.

And the birds. There are the giant, three-feet-high Marabou storks, which in Nairobi are common as pigeons. There are the ostriches, which we saw ambling around near termite mounds the size of small trees. There are herons and egrets and spoonbills and falcons and cranes and guinea fowl.

Certainly one of the world’s most incredible views must be from the porch of Kilaguni Serena Safari Lodge in Tsavo West. At sunrise, the morning light crests over the mountain range and gently lights a dazzle of zebras, and then a gang of elks, and then a collection of gazelles, all of which have come to graze and drink at the water hole. In the distance, if you look closely, there might be a lone male giraffe, scouting things out.

But Kenya is not just rhinos and hippos, elephants and lions, flamingos and ostriches. It’s also home to rich indigenous cultures and alluring cities. My favorite of these cities is Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean. Mombasa was an ancient trading port, and it retains the exotic flavor of mixed cultures. As in all Kenya, English is the official language and Swahili is the national tongue, but tribes retain their own languages, as do the many Indian immigrants who have been here for generations.

In Mombasa’s Old Town, we wound through narrow streets lined with intricately carved doors capped by Arabic blessings. A buzzing heard around one corner turned out to be boys and girls reciting their lessons in a madrasa, the garage-sized door revealing them sitting on rugs on the floor. Around another corner was a tailor, sitting outside against his shop with a whirring Singer sewing machine that looked like it came from the 1890s. And around another were two men who were carving a wooden bed frame, each using a single, sharp piece of glass. Women carry baskets of goods on their heads; men push piles of coconuts through the street on wooden carts.

We trekked through Fort Jesus, named by the Portuguese who originally built it to defend their colony. At the top, we bought mugs of freshly-made limeade and looked out over the view.

Dark falls abruptly at the equator, at about 6 p.m. It is like a curtain is drawn against the sun. With Mombasa Beach almost empty of tourists, the local boys slowly walk their camels back to wherever they keep them for the night, no longer haggling for rides or pictures. The beach vendors pile their wooden carvings of giraffes and their pretty beaded sandals back in their carts and head home. In the evening at the coastal hotels – we stayed at the Sarova Whitesands - the wind blows gently off the Indian Ocean, chasing away the humidity and the malarial mosquitos, and rattling the palm trees.

But the most moving part of my experience in Kenya was a visit to a Masai village. These visits are standard options on game tours, and are usually available for a small fee, plus an understanding that when the tour is over you will buy a bracelet or a “lion’s tooth” necklace (which is probably make out of cow bone). The Masai are amused by tourists wearing their beads. They will finger a bracelet on a visitor and laugh gently and say, “You’re a proper mama Masai?”

In a Masai village, the houses are made with cow dung, mud and straw. In the center of the village is a pen made of brambles to hold in the cows and goats at night. It used to be that the Masai would live almost wholly on the blood and milk of their cows – now they also have small vegetable patches and buy rice. There is no running water. The women haul it from the nearest source in plastic containers. Flies are everywhere.

The Masai we visited were happy to see us; it had been a long time since tourists had come to their village. They showed us the dark interiors of their houses, how they make fire with two sticks and cow dung, where they cook their meals. They patiently answered questions about their lives: who builds the houses (the women, and they rebuild them every few months); how many teachers are at the school (12 – it’s for several of the Masai communities).

And then they gathered in a semi-circle and they danced.