Mtindwa is the name of an area to the east of Nairobi. Today we went there to meet the boys who gather there, who live there. I wasn't quite sure what to expect: we had met them a week earlier, during an exploratory visit in which we began to identify the groups with whom we might imagine the carnival.

From the very beginning it seemed to us that the boys of Mtindwa had a great desire to take part in this project. The words of Jack, the educator they already knew who was accompanying us on this reconnaissance, had probably piqued their curiosity. It is hard to describe how much anticipation and hope could be read in their eyes as Jack's story took shape.

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We didn't know, at that moment, whether that group of boys would be chosen to take part in the project, but deep down I was hoping they would.

And yet that is precisely where we started.

I leave Kivuli, the centre of the association Amani that is hosting us, gripped by a thousand doubts. Who knows whether we'll find the same boys as last time. Who knows whether they'll agree to get involved with us. Who knows whether they'll come. Who knows where we'll set up (the rainy season has just begun).

As soon as we arrive we can immediately see that the boys are there, and there are many of them. Jack and Collins, the other educator, introduce us. We introduce ourselves. The boys take us to a field. A pale yellow field, next to the shelter made of four tree trunks and a corrugated iron roof, which is their home. That will be our space. It is then that a kind of miracle happens, when we pull out a roll of paper that we unroll on the ground, give everyone a pencil and some colours and ask: draw whatever you like.

In an instant, boys of all ages lie down and begin to fill that very long sheet. In no time at all the paper is populated with their dreams: drawings small and large, in pencil or in colour. Matatu, houses, strange characters, helicopters, girls. A family portrait appears, in which the family is their companions on the street.

One word appears several times, as if to set a rhythm to this special drawing: Gaza. This is the name they have chosen for themselves, one that encapsulates conflict, pride and precariousness. It is the boys of Gaza who have welcomed us, and whom we are beginning to get to know.