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This trip leads you to remarkable scenery and close encounters with over a hundred tribes of East Africa. You camp in a community run campsites, an initiative by Kenya Wildlife Service and Kajiado county council, which was set up to provide alternative source of income to the community living around the park. Here, we discourage the use of lodges because it leaves little tangible benefits to the locals since they are mainly owned and run by people outside the community. At this stage, we introduce you to experience Tanzanian rich culture where you make use of Mto Wa Mbu - a cultural programme, which has benefited the local inhabitants comprising of representative of all the country’s 120 tribes.
A stay at Twiga campsite allows you to interact freely with the locals and sample up a variety of cultural activities. Amongst these activities, is a visit to a traditional local handcraft centre run by Magonte people, who are reknown for their skillful wood carving. Their products, mainly ebony, are well known and fetch a lot of fortune throughout the country and also in the outside markets. Buying of local artefacts or gifts directly from them is a noble idea as it offers not only a memorable experience but also uplifts the community’s living standards.
We outsource services from local guides who have valuable indigenous knowledge to complement our able and professional staff. Our local guide, Henry, who happens to work for the cultural programme at Mto Wa Mbu, makes our stay interesting and worthwhile with his vast knowledge of both the area and the local customs.
Mto Wa Mbu is an agriculturally endowed area and the local communities utilize a permanent springs from the foot of the Rift Valley escarpment, for irrigation. They rarely depend on rain for farming. They grow a lot of different types of food crops; rice, over 30 varieties of bananas, vegetables etc. We buy our fresh supplies here in order to provide a ready market for their produce. A visit here supports learning in a nearby local school, organized by the Mto Wa Mbu cultural programme as part of our accruals go directly to school projects. Donation of new or used books and other learning materials are welcome since learning materials are quite few considering the number of students in any given class.
Photo credit: Rina Rao
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