First week

Hello!

We have already been living in Naro Moru for over a week. Time flies!

Last wednesday we joined a meeting with the CFA (community forest association) of the Naro Moru forest. An organisation that wants to build an ecolodge in the forest set up an environmental impact assessment meeting with the locals. It’s nice to see that the people are busy with improving ecotourism in the area here. In the afternoon we walked to the Naro Moru River Lodge. It’s a luxurious place with a pool, restaurant and a tennis field. We had a drink there and made an appointment with the assistant manager of the lodge, so we can learn more about the process of starting up an ecotouristic activity in this area.

On Thursday we walked to the Leisure Lodge with Ann and Peter. There is a big difference between the lodges and the areas around it where the locals live. The locals houses are mostly wooden sheds, whereas the lodges are made of bricks and cover large area's of ground.

On Friday we prepared our research for Monday: we thouroughly read the Forest Management Plan (FMP) of the Kabaru Forest and made a planning for the next couple of days. We also had a skype-meeting with Dirk, our supervisor in Holland.

The next day it was weekend! We had time to go to Nanyuki, a bigger city to the north. We went there by matatu, unbelievable how many people can fit in one small bus. In Nanyuki we bought food and other stuff. We had our lunch in a typical Kenian restaurant: a shed with plastic chairs. Some cats were eating the food that fell on the ground. It was cheap (25 shilling for chapatti, that’s around 20 eurocent) and a nice experience! On Sunday we relaxed and Jorinde and Ellen walked to Naro Moru and back, a two hour walk. The boys got a haircut from Ann, they look totally different now. In exchange for the haircut Bauke and Martijn made dinner that night.

Monday was our first day we saw one of our forests, the Kabaru Forest. On our way to the forest we saw our first monkeys!

Some members of the CFA and the forester showed us three sites that would be interesting for tourists. A lot of interesting sites are described in the FMP of the Kabaru Forest. We wanted to see as many sites as possible. They showed us a Mau Mau cave, an elephant breeding site and the rainbow trout hatchery. 

The Mau Mau cave

rainbow trout hatchery 

During this tour we saw two dik-diks: small antilopes. The walk took us two hours and would be very interesting for other tourists. Right know we're working on a plan to establish and exploit this walk.
A member of the CFA, a specialist in ecotourism, took us to his house afterwards to show us pictures of some more interesting places. We had a cup of tea with real cow milk. We will visit the forest again next week to see the remaining sites of interest.

Kwaheri!