He is the great-grandson of Bavaria’s last king in Germany
Franz-Josef of Bavaria moved to a godforsaken region in the far north-east of Kenya as missionary Father Florian
The monastery is perched on the hill like a castle in the desert. Father Florian sits on a bench in front of his mission station and looks out over the barren, inhospitable plains with its manyattas, the huts of the Dassanech nomads. He has just finished reading the morning mass in the church. Lake Turkana shimmers silvery in the haze on the horizon. The air is already flickering, a new, unbearably hot day is dawning.
‘You need a purpose if you want to get on here,’ says Father Florian. ‘And when you see the conditions in which people live, you need something to believe in. Something bigger than ourselves.'
