Hey everybody, Ok I know that it has been a while since my last post, more then 4 months ago actually. So what have I been doing these last months on my internship in Western Kenya, you might ask.
Well many developments here in the guesthouse we are working in. Linda and I are the managers of a guesthouse in Western Kenya, the guesthouse is located on a school compound and serves as a training centre for the catering & hospitality students as it is a hotel school as well. Our main task was to write a marketing plan for it but meanwhile we have taken the function as managers and are constantly busy with improving the service standard in the hotel.
Regarding marketing we are busy with getting a name here in Western Kenya (which is not very known by tourists), visiting travel agencies frequently, improving the website and translating it in Dutch, German and Swahili, placing signs and promote the guesthouse on fairs. In the last 4 months we have been on 3 fairs and a conference about ecotourism, we were visited by a media team last week to make some footage about Western Kenya, we have met the Minister of Tourism already twice and some other ministers and next week we are invited for the official opening of an Impala sanctuary in Kisumu were we will meet the Prime Minister. All in all we are really trying our best to put Mago on the map.
As managers of the guesthouse we try to improve the service and facilities, the guesthouse has been operating for more then 2 years now and it has never been marketed and when we arrived many things were below standard.
Things got missing from the storage, many things were broken etc, but by making strict controls and checklists we are trying to change this.
The result is there; after many questionnaires from customers we improved allot and more and more visitors come thanks to our Western way of implementing new structure in the organisation.
Kenya is great but after handling with the people here frequently you often know why businesses are sometimes not running efficient because many and (trust me) many people here don't think about long term planning.
We have the feeling that some people just don't want to change their way of working, when we want to change something we have to mention it at least 3 times to that person. Of course in the Western world people in general are more educated thanks to government funding of education, less poverty etc.
These thresholds and obstacles are often very frustrating but we do see them as challenges and we really like living here and working in this organisation. When confronted with these challenges we know that we will be better of in a Western company later on; especially regarding when things are being done right away when asked, better time planning and long term investment.
The trips we make for example to the Masai Mara and Nairobi we combine with sightseeing the country. My parents visited me in October for 3 weeks and Linda's parents in November and so on we went twice to the Mara to see the Big 5 (lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino and (not yet the) leopard) and dozens of other animals, went to the coast with my parents and Nairobi a few times to combine it with visiting tourism bodies like travel agencies and tour operators. It was good to see our parents again after 5 / 6 months away from home.
Our BEAST car is still doing very fine and so far we only 3 flat tyres, some problems with the power steering motor, a small battery fire and something that was broken with the break fluid controller, all in all not much for a car from 1988 travelling more then 17000 km from Cape Town, South Africa!
When we were travelling from South Africa to Kenya we often slept in the car and after arriving at our internship we slept from September till November in a nice room in the guesthouse. After the 2 volunteers left (who were here for more then a year) in the beginning of December we got to move to the big house on the compound. The house were we live in (for free!) has 3 bedrooms, big kitchen, living room and a nice terrace were my hammock suits perfectly. And like the cherry on the cream we have a maid in our house who cleans and cooks for us.
How many people can say this about their internship living for free in a huge house with a maid in a country with nice temperature, with allot of freedom of being your own manager of a Guesthouse.
Of course the other side is that as we are living on the compound that we have less free time in the weekend as when guests are there you are the one who has to check if everything is going well. And as we are pretty far from the city or other white people we don’t have allot of options to make new friends. Some people working here we do consider as friends but many here just want to be friends with you because of the fact that we have money.
From this moment I can already say about my internship that I learned allot, with only a few weeks left here one of the biggest changes I have seen in myself that I can be an asshole when needed. People might know me as that friendly guy and that is how I like to be, keeping everyone as a friend but in my time here I learned different. In the first few months we tried to approach people in a friendly way and saying it normally how to improve their behaviour but these methods don’t work here in Kenya (at least); shouting and being extremely strict or money punishments only works. I don’t like being like that but if you want to change and improve something here (and that is why we are here) you have to be an asshole to people or they just don’t listen.
Another project I have been working on for about 2 months now is creating a basketball field for the students of the school. The idea came from that I saw in the storage a big bucket full off good quality basketballs but no basketball field anywhere around.
As I played basketball for many years I wanted to give something to the school and students as I heard that they would really appreciate it. I started a sponsor campaign for getting the required 550 euro needed for the goal posts, building a retaining wall and concreting the field with the official sizes 15m by 28m.
Within no time I had the money given from friends and family and the building could begin.
The basket posts are finished and the field is levelled and at the moment 2nd year masonry students are mixing the cement with sand and stones to make a strong base for the court.
By the end of the week the baskets will be placed (with a valuable message on it; AIDS KILLS, Drugs KILLS & Education your Future) and the lines will be painted on the field.
A big drawback for me is that the total costs will be much higher then I expected. More sand, cement and stones are needed and the 900 euro line will be passed. I am at the moment looking for more sponsors but a big amount I will have to pay for it myself.
Between all the hard work we are doing here, we also were able to create some free time between Christmas and New Year to go to Uganda, just 2 hours from here.
We left Mago the day before Christmas and picked up a friend of us at the border, who we have met a month before in Nairobi. With him (Marcus) we celebrated Christmas on Banda Island; a small island in Lake Victoria with a small campsite and hostel on it. We had a very nice time for those 3 days but unfortunately we had rain every day. Jinja was our next stop, this small village is also known as the source of the Nile (the point where the river Nile begins).
Here at a nice hostel I celebrated my birthday and New Years Eve among fellow tourists and travellers. For my birthday I got from Linda a rafting trip on the Nile, a grade 5 rated full day of rafting with some serious waterfalls and rapids. Many of the rubber boats flipped over and I ended up in the water several times.
On New years day we left to Sipi falls, three beautiful waterfalls on the border with Kenya. Within 2 weeks we were back at our internship. Uganda is really nice, very green and much cheaper then Kenya is.
So what are the plans the following 2 months; in 2 weeks time we will leave this place and we will travel back to Nairobi. Linda will fly back on the 14th of Feb. and Noud a friend of mine will arrive a few days earlier and with him I will go back to Uganda and Rwanda to travel and to find a buyer for our car. In March I will come back to Kenya to help promote the Guesthouse on a big exhibition in Nairobi and I will fly back home on the 23rd of that month after spending a year in Africa.
Sorry again for waiting so long with this post, but better late then never.
Photos: http://picasaweb.google.nl/jcopray
Greets from Western Kenya.
