April 2008

April was a bit all over the shop for me with a week in Kenya meeting people including somebody from a group lodges that have offered to assist in training our staff at one or more of their lodges in the Masaai Mara. This program would also involve them helping out with their trained staff assisting and shadowing our staff during the first couple of months Ikoro Tented Camp is open. A massive boost thus for our proposed training program for our staff.

I had also been in London for Sarah's birthday party with the obligatory champagne of course which also coincided with a house move in London. Speaking of which, please make sure if you have any correspondence for our London address, to confirm you have the correct address.

Back in Musanze, Andy and I went to see how the stone-cutting machine operation was going that we thought would provide cut volcanic rock for building. This has since fallen by the wayside and all our building is now with hand-shaped rock from quarry in an area known as Gahunga.

End of April saw Sarah and I hosting our first dinner for guests in the new covered entertainment area with about 15 people present. After some snacks and drinks, a 3 course dinner followed around a lovely big fire. Definitely not the last time we'll be doing this - if you're in the area, give me a shout and I'll set-up a dinner/bbq for the late afternoon or evening.

'New' House in Musanze

December 2008 we moved house in Musanze. A lovely property we're renting at the moment but decided it needed some work to on the gardens and outside - for a start anyway. A little bit further from centre of town but generally still a reasonably central location and 1.5km from the site. The one side of the property was previously all dedicated to a vegetable garden which, by the time we moved in, was totally overgrown.

The idea was to convert part of this to a lawn and garden adjoining the existing front garden and formalising a section into a vegetable garden towards the back of the property. I also designed an outdoor bbq area with a banana fibre roof which would also prove to be a worthwhile 'test drive' for similar structures at Ikoro for the campsites etc.

The photos here are of the work we'd done to date and the way it looks at the moment.

Part of the rock garden at dusk I built with some of our guys using large volcanic rocks. Some rocks took 4 of us to carry.

A view of the vegetable garden with rock pathways between the beds.

View across part of the back lawn of the covered bbq and entertainment area