When award-winning photographer and filmmaker Bob Demchuk traveled to Africa six years ago, his life was transformed. He found a place where past and present intersect with astonishing clarity, a place of wonder he felt compelled to capture before tomorrow wipes it all away. That place is the tribal homeland of the Pokot of western Kenya.
This book chronicles the three months in 2013 he spent living among the proud, spear-carrying warrior-hunters, hereditary chieftains, herb-wielding medicine women, and riddling storytellers. Demchuk’s tale is filled with marvels—battling hippos, unicorn-like giraffes, gorillas, crocodiles, a lake region with 458 bird species—and the Pokot themselves, a complex tribe wary of Western ways, guardians of a culture from our far distant past.

Bob Demchuk has had a wide range of experience, from covering the Vietnam War to producing and directing motion pictures. He lives in Patterson, New York.

Bob Demchuk
Format: softcover (8.5 x 11)
Pages: 244
Bibliographic Info: 290 photos, 2 maps, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2014
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9430-9
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1581-3
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents


Lion’s Hug viii

Foreword by Habiba Chirchir 1

Preface 2

Introduction: Discovery of My Journey 3

First Month 23

Second Month 84

Third Month 156

Six Months Later 225

Notes 229

Bibliography­ 231

Index 233

“An absorbing and amazing adventure. I felt as if I was there with Bob Demchuk with each step. I loved this book.”—Gus Leodas, Unsafe Harbor; “A gripping tale of a once proud people who lived harmoniously with the environment but now face extinction. We can learn a lot from them.”—George Ayittey, president of the Free Africa Foundation in Washington D.C.; “Bob Demchuk has achieved with his photographs what John and Alan Lomax did with their iconic audio field recordings. He provides a brilliantly focused insight into the beauty of a culture that is simply not available through any other means.”—Frank Dorritie, Los Medanos College; “Bob Demchuk pulls off a veritable photojournalistic hat trick. He captures with sensitivity and precision a disappearing culture that inhabits a different time and dimension in resolution that reflects a painstaking artistic process. To boot, he provides prose that illuminates the beauty and mystery of the Pokot people.”—Josh Ruxin, A Thousand Hills to Heaven: Love, Hope and a Restaurant in Rwanda.