The wind was picking up now coming in from the darkening surface of the lake and showering us with tiny particles of sand, sending sparks flying from the wood fire on which the pot was bubbling and carrying with it the smell of boiling fish.

Poking out of the pot above the foaming water was the tail of a Nile perch, one of several fish I had watched being gutted and filleted a few minutes earlier in the warm shallows of Lake Turkana.

The fishermen were exhausted now and we sprawled in a circle around the fire, all of us ravenous.

I had counted 50 fish being taken from the nets by our boat: silver, gold, green coloured fish and one spectacularly ugly beast which made a honking noise as if cursing us for seizing him from the depths.
For Dominic Alar and his friends, fish and maize are the staple foods eaten twice a day.

Now I should say that I have always been suspicious of the idea of boiled fish - it reeks of the grim Fridays of an Irish Catholic boyhood - rain, eternally grey skies, people complaining about their health, those Fridays when anything might have happened but never did.

But the fish served up by Dominic and the other fishermen of Turkana shore was delicious.
We ate from the pot.

Fifteen pairs of hands plunging in to grab still scorching lumps of fish, all of it accompanied by vigorous slurping.

I could see they had next to nothing in material terms.
They lived under trees in makeshift camps with their wives and children. Their boats were shared, as was the catch, but they assured me that this was all they wanted or needed.

So the food was good. So too, the surroundings, the changing colours of the lake as the fantastically huge red disc of the sun slowly vanished into the water, the warm wind and the sound of birds making their last sweeps in search of fish.
All were conducive to a feeling of well-being.

But what really left me feeling that this was one of the best meals I have ever eaten was the welcome I was shown.

The ease with which I was accepted into a group with whom I had no cultural affiliation, with whom I shared no common spoken language.

It was typical of the Africa I have known and loved for 25 years: the continent of generosity.