While many tourists were cancelling trips to Kenya, fearful of being caught up in its deadly political crisis, Tina and Craig Washbrook were planning their wedding there. Determined to prove that a country they adored was still safe to visit, despite the television news images of death and destruction, they exchanged vows in the picturesque Ngong Hills on Saturday.
"I have come to Kenya because it is a country that I really love, and the people here are my friends," the bride told revellers and reporters at a resort in Kiserian, just west of the capital Nairobi.
Moments earlier, she had arrived at the ceremony with her parents in a white helicopter as Maasai tribesmen in traditional red robes looked on. Among the partygoers were 17 Britons, most of them from the couple's small village of North Frodingham in the northern county Yorkshire, most of them visiting Kenya for the first time.
Since arriving earlier this month, the Washbrooks' friends have toured three national parks, visited elephant and giraffe sanctuaries and enjoyed a hot air balloon ride. International media coverage has been misleading, they said.
"The impression we got is that Kenya is a no-go war zone, that everything has come to a standstill-now we know this is not true," said Tina, 41. On Sunday, she and her husband started their honeymoon in Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean coast.
Kenya draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year with its big game safaris, lush parks and palm-fringed white beaches. Tourism earned it a much-needed $940 million in 2007.
But officials have warned that the sector, the country's biggest employer, could be wiped out if the political impasse does not end soon.
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