We were staying at a camp called Lake Nakuru Lodge. The lodge has supported the
principles of responsible tourism since 2000 and has implemented a responsible
tourism policy plan. In 2009 it adopted a responsible tourism policy and action
plan. This plan ensures that the lodge is well on its way towards being truly
responsible destination. The lodge exercises its mandate for local tourism
through creation of supportive policy environment and actions based on
environment, economic and social-economic principles of responsible tourism. With us staying at the camp site, we, without
really thinking about it are helping the local community with a percentage of
our camping fees going back locally. The
food that the camp serves is sourced from the village where possible and then
also the jobs that are provided when we stay there. A great initiative and it was nice to be able
to contribute with us staying at the lodge, even though we did camp.
We were to go for a walk this morning around the local
village of Mwariki before setting off to Naivasha. We were given a light breakfast at 7.30am,
with the promise of a great brunch waiting for us when we returned and as Dan
put it, it will be a party in our mouths and we could also leave the tents up
for them to dry and we would pack them up when we got back to camp. We were introduced to Beth who is the young
community co-ordinator at Lake Nakuru Lodge and she was to take us around the
village and show us some of its enterprising projects that were currently
running to help the village generate money and to sustain itself. Mwariki Village is home to a group of 50
women who were in need of education, skills training, and a dependable source
of income. The men of the community worked in cities far away, and the women
were left with little to support their families. Nearly everyone in the village
has been affected by HIV/AIDS when a small NGO called The Village Cooperative
trained these women in Mwariki Village to produce various handicrafts. Beth explained that they are now to the point
where they have set up a micro finance system in the village where 200KSH (2.50AUD)
a month must be contributed to the micro fund and then after 12 months the
local folk can ask for a loan to expand their business such as buying chickens
to sell eggs, fish farming to sell fish or cows to sell milk. It is amazing to see how the village is
trying to combat poverty, be self-sufficient so that then have enough money to
send their children to school and hopefully break the cycle that has preceded
them and give hope to the future and their children.
We set off at 8am, with the sun high in the sky, walking
on dusty roads that wove in between tall crops of maize and corn, passing
animals such as cows, goats and sheep to our first stop called Black Sheep. Here the women spin their own wool, which is
bought from the Kenya Farmers Association, and then they use the wool to make
hats, scarves, headbands and also African animals, which were super cute and I
couldn’t help it and bought a giraffe and a zebra to take back to Nairobi with
me. It is rewarding that the women that
have made these items are standing behind the trestle table and you can see
then standing a little taller as their products are sold. The prices are also reasonable with the wool
animals costing only 500KSH (6AUD) and it was such a worthy cause knowing that
the money goes equally to each woman in the Black Sheep co-operative, directly,
and they all each own a cow or a sheep as well as part of the programme. Some of the guys had a go at spinning the
wool on the wheel and with waves goodbye and I think everyone having bought
something it was time to leave and head to our next stop which was the local
school.
We walked again through fields of maize and corn for
about 10 minutes arriving at the Rhino Secondary School. There were 2 buildings standing in a great
big yellow field, one was the local church and the other was a half completed
brick building and a shed attached to that that the children were learning in
temporarily as the brick building was completed. It was break time and as the school was being
explained to us, there were older children; aged 14-18 all making a mad dash to
the toilet block that was situated at the far end of the field away from the
main building. It was funny to see and
as they settled back into class we were then shown the small tin shed that held
the kitchen where the students are fed a lunch meal every day, the new building
that was 60% completed and then the temporary building where the children were
studying. It was the last week of school
before they broke up for term, so there was an atmosphere around the place that
was hard to pin point. I remember I used
to LOVE school holidays and I wonder what is in store for them when they are
back home to their village’s full time for the 6 weeks. We then were told to stand in a single line
and then the children were called from their classrooms to meet us with them
standing across from us. Looking at their
excited faces was something I will never forget. Joseph, one of the teachers that were showing
us around spoke very well and when he asked a certain question all the students
replied back with the answer. It was
very very education based school (der) and it gave me goose bumps when you hear
how far some of the kids have to travel to even be at the school and what an
amazing opportunity it was them to be able to even come to school. It makes you think, that we take education
for granted back in Australia and then you have countries like Kenya where it
is a struggle to get 50% of school children age to attend a school. Very sobering. The last sentence that Joseph finished on
before we were to introduce ourselves was that when the teachers and students
see us come through their school they see HOPE.
Joseph then got the staff to introduce themselves and what they taught,
which ranged from biology, chemistry, maths and Swahili and then it was out
turn to introduce ourselves and what we did for jobs. It was interesting even for us to learn what
my fellow travellers did for a crust and I was surprised to find out I was
travelling with a pretty smart bunch ranging from a lawyer, 3 nurses, 2
research people, a communications person, a retired nurse, a retired
accountant, a horse owner and a teacher.
Yes I was rubbing shoulders with some dedicated and EDUCATED
people. Everyone said a little spiel
pushing education and that it was the key to their future and if they applied
themselves the sky was the limit. There
really were some inspiring speeches from my group and I felt my eyes welling up
a little. The students were all
immaculately dressed and they really had a vibe to them as they learnt more
about us and also the world where we live.
So we said thank you to them all for their time and it was time for us
to leave.
Our last stop for the morning was the cooperative, known
as Heart to Heart. The women here were educated
on recycled paper jewellery, hand knit wool scarves, hats and gloves, and
screen printing of t-shirts and bags. Heart
to Heart is a sustainable source of income that has changed the lives of
50 women! Together with Black Sheep and
Heart to Heart the Mwariki projects are a community based group which uses
tourism as tool to eradicate poverty within the area. The above organisation
was started in January 2009 by Lake Nakuru lodge as way of helping the
community. The waste recycling idea came
up with jewellery has been a great innovation.
These women are the future of Kenya and it isn’t a charity where money
is given it is an exchange of items of value.
Beth introduced the group of women and then the chair lady spoke to us
about the recycled paper jewellery. Gladys then demonstrated how the beads were
made and each of us were given a stripe of paper about 2cm long, shown how to
roll it and then with a dob of glue we had all made a bead for a necklace. They get their paper from old brochures and
flyers and looking at the jewellery on the tables you could tell what
advertising the beads were made from including old Nokia flyers, Coke flyers,
KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service flyers to name a few. The group couldn’t believe how beautiful the
beads were and that they were indeed made out of paper…and not painted! They
are then finished off with some furniture varnish to protect them and give them
a shine and then they are threaded onto fishing line and wallah they have a
product to sell. Needless there was a
frenzy on the buying of something again knowing that the money is going 100%
back to the community and with a wave and goodbyes said to this group of women
it was time to head back to camp. We
walked with some small aged children back to camp and it was nice to not be
hassled for money, or lollies or pens and they were happy to have their photos
taken as long as they could look at them once they were taken.
We were back at 10.30am and Susan had a magnificent
spread of food of roasted potatoes, avocado and corn salad, coleslaw, French toast
and rice. It was exactly what we needed
as we were famished and after the now ritual washing and flapping it was time
to pull down the tents and pack everything up for our drive to Naivasha. Anne and I have good team work already and we
are only on day 2 and had finished before everyone else. So I thought I would be helpful and open all
the windows in the truck. The windows
are around a meter long and they slide down giving you a whole unobstructed
view and this has always been my upside of travelling overland with Intrepid
for this fact. They can be tricky
buggers to open but I seem to have the knack and after opening all of them and
I was onto the last one when I opened the clips the window slid down faster
than what it should have and the next thing I knew was the window had smashed
into a million pieces with a massive bang!!!!
I was so shocked and everyone instantly stopped what they were doing and
all I could squeak out was “I was just trying to open the window”! Alex was below the window when it smashed but
he had the compartment open, so the door stopped the glass from falling on
him. OH MY!!! It is the first time I have broken a window
and I just couldn’t stop saying sorry.
Alex didn’t seem to upset and said don’t worry-we’ll fix it when we get
to Naivasha.
We were on the road at 11.30am and it felt like we had
done so much and it wasn’t even noon yet!
We travelled just 20 minutes into Nakuru Town for Susan to stock up on
some food and we were given an hour for us to stock up ourselves. I have been in Nakuru before, and too be
honest I recalled that there isn’t much to see and I didn’t need anything so I
told Dan that I would just stay with the truck.
What I had forgotten was the street sellers that storm the tourist trucks
when they come into town and they call you from below your windows wanting to
sell you beaded jewellery, bookmarks, small painted pictures that they all
claim to have painted themselves, Swahili books, bags and anything else that
people must buy. I LOVE to barter and couldn’t
ignore the cries that were coming from below my window. As it turned out they had some nice stuff and
playing the tough tourist and learning a new word called rafiki, which is Swahili
for friend. So once I had that word I
used it asking for a friend price and not a mzungu price and ended up buying a
bag, 2 necklaces and a beaded bangle in the hour we were there. I also ‘referred others from the truck as
they dribbled back and the sellers made a few more sales. There was another Intrepid truck across from
us and the driver of the that truck was just smiling as he saw the spectacle of
this crazy mzungu getting crazy prices and using probably dodgy Swahili at the
same time. I had fun and I think the
sellers did to.
1.15pm we left Nakuru with about 10 sellers, no exaggeration,
in our wake as we pulled away. The drive
took us around and hour and we got to see some pretty big green houses full of
roses. Like Ethiopia, who would have
thought that Kenya would be a power played in the flower industry? Currently Kenya is the leading exporter in the floriculture sector
having surpassed productions in Israel and Colombia. Last year over 166,000 tonnes of horticulture
products were exported earning the country over 32 billion shillings (366
million USD) in foreign exchange. The
horticulture sector has employed directly half a million people and 2.5 million
rely on it indirectly with flower farms employing over 100,000 people directly. Since 1978 when the first flower farms were
established in Kibwezi and Naivasha, the sector has turned out to be the
fastest growing in the country’s economy. And Naivasha has turned out to be the
hub of the industry hosting 85% of the flower farms in the country. Currently the dusty town located at the
shores of Lake Naivasha hosts over 60 farms with new farms coming in day in day
out. The Britons and the Dutch have
dominated the field although locals and investors from Israel and India have
joined the sector. Some of the main
farms in the town are Sher Karuturi which is the world leading producer of rose
flowers with an annual production of 600 million roses. Now that is a lot of roses and the flower
houses were massive and stretched as far as the eye could see.
We arrived into Crayfish Camp, which is located along Moi South
Lake Road, 18km from Naivasha town. It
is set in natural Acacia woodland within one of the largest flower farms. After parking the truck, helping Susan unload
the truck we put up our tents and then we had some free time. Dan was taking a group to have a look at the
local market and then a cold beer in a local bar, but I decided to pass on that
option and after we had popped the tent, I grabbed my laptop and made way to
the camps bar to upload some pictures with the free Wi-Fi and swig a cold beer. It was a pretty cool bar and looked like
something that stepped out of the deep south of the US. There were shirts and a slogan hung all
around the bar and was cool in a quirky way.
Peter and Evie came over for a cold beer and so the three of we stayed there
until Dan came to get us at 6.30pm for dinner.
It seems a little warmer here, but I’m not too worried as my 10 quid
sleeping bag kept me warm as a bug in a rug (my mum used to say that all the
time) and I am 100% confident that it will do for the rest of this trip and
certainly will be more than suitable for West Africa. That was a great buy that is for sure and I
would go as far as saying it is more comfortable than the sleeping bag I bought
in London for 90quid a few years ago!!!
After dinner, some people hit the showers and some of us
went back to the bar to have a cheeky beer before heading to bed. So far we have been so lucky with the camp
sites, it is a little bit of luxury to have buildings and music and TV and not
having to huddle around a fire in the evening (which is nice-but not all the
time) and we are making to most of it as the next dew nights will be on a more
basic level. It is only the second night
of the trip and already we have some upgraders.
On my ‘other’ trip we called the upgrades for Losers or Lovers but this
trip we are calling it ‘Glamping’ and Nicola, Ads and Effie were the upgraders for
the next 2 nights for a grand total of 40AUD a room a night. Anne and I were fine to stay in the tent and
for the week, when we are only in a tent for 6 nights it would have to take a
cyclone to get us to move into a room during the week-we are on the same wave
length which is super cool. We were able
to string out the night a little longer and we were tucked up in our tents and
sleeping bags at 10pm-oh yes-just call us the party animals!!!!
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