Spiral Boma began with a question

What does it feel like to be fully alive? Not performing, not managing, not optimising. Alive.

That question has taken us into the heart of Tanzania, into Maasai sacred sites, into cacao ceremony, into the depths of wild landscapes that have not changed in thousands of years. And it has brought people from all over the world to those same places, looking for something they could not quite name but recognised the moment they arrived.

Spiral Boma retreats are the fruit of that question. And of the relationships, the land, and the years of lived experience that followed.

A person hiking up a dirt trail on rugged terrain, with a vast desert landscape and mountains in the distance, under a blue sky with some clouds.

Our Story

Spiral Boma is a Netherlands-based organisation founded by Cindy Lobo.

We are registered in The Netherlands as Cindy Lobo B.V., with Spiral Boma as the registered trade name.

Our work spans retreats, impact travel, cultural immersion, personal transformation, coaching and organizational development.

All of it rooted in the same philosophy: the sacredness of the mundane.

The belief that real change does not require extraordinary circumstances. Extraordinary places can make real change easier to find.

In Tanzania we have a subsidiary company founded together with Ibrahim Hassan.

WHAT FALLS UNDER SPIRAL BOMA:

  • Spiral Boma Retreats: transformational retreats in Tanzania and beyond (Suriname upcoming)

  • Spiral Boma Safari: impactful travel, cultural journeys, and safaris in Tanzania with future offerings in Suriname and other locations as the work grows

  • Spiral Boma Creatives: soulful photography, videography, and filmmaking rooted in real human stories and the landscapes we work in

The people behind the work

A woman with curly hair stands outdoors during sunset, wearing a patterned sleeveless top, with her hands over her chest, smiling softly with closed eyes, in a natural, serene setting.

Cindy Lobo

Cindy grew up between worlds and has spent her adult life exploring what lies beneath the surface of the ones we inhabit. A certified mBIT Master Coach and Trainer, cultural anthropologist, and author of The Medicine: Personal Tales of Awakening and Inner Transformation, she brings a rare combination of academic depth, embodied experience, and genuine personal history with the land and people of Northern Tanzania. She has lived and worked in Tanzania for years, built lasting relationships with Maasai communities at Mukuru Sacred Site, and guided hundreds of people through some of the most significant thresholds of their lives.

She leads The Primal Code Experience and the Meet the Wisdomkeepers retreat, and co-leads the Embodied Leadership Trail. She guides with warmth, directness, and the kind of presence that makes people feel safe enough to be honest, with themselves and with each other.

Co-Founder
A man smiling and petting a white lion cub lying on the ground in a grassy, open field with trees in the background.

Ibrahim Hassan

Ibrahim co-founded Spiral Boma Tanzania with Cindy and leads Spiral Boma Creatives, the photography, videography, and filmmaking arm of the organisation. His work has taken him deep into the landscapes and communities that Spiral Boma calls home, producing fine art photography collections, documentary film, and a body of work that communicates what these places and experiences feel and mean long after the journey ends. His eye is not documentary in the conventional sense. It is witnessing. He captures people and places at the moment they are most fully themselves, not posed, not performed, but present. The four photography collections from Spiral Boma Creatives (Wisdomkeepers, Earth's Song, Maasai Life, and Wild Love), the Meet the Wisdomkeepers immersive exhibition, and the coffee table book are all expressions of that quality of attention.

Ibrahim is also developing his role as a spaceholder within the retreats themselves, bringing his presence and perspective into the container alongside Cindy and Marco.

Co-Founder
A man in a red shirt and blue cap holding a camera in a field of plants, with trees and mountains in the background on a sunny day. 
Lead Facilitator

Marco de Graaff

Marco has spent more than twenty years guiding wilderness expeditions and transformational journeys, and more than twelve of those years living in Maasai-land in Northern Tanzania. He knows this landscape in all its moods, the dry season dust, the rains that transform the valley overnight, the silence on the summit before dawn. He brings to each retreat a depth of cultural knowledge, outdoor expertise, and relational trust with the Maasai communities at Mukuru that makes the depth of these experiences possible.

He does not impose, he creates conditions. And those conditions allow things to happen that would not happen otherwise. He co-leads the Embodied Leadership Trail and the Meet the Wisdomkeepers retreat with Cindy.

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