as we love to chat with locals whenever we meet them we are always interested in their way of life! so we ask many questions regading their living, married, how many kids, staple food, schooling, health care, tax system, political parties etc. etc. etc.
so we gather quite some information and speaking with many people delivers a kind of puzzle which in the end gives you a fairly good insight whats going on in a country.

regarding the wages:

one dollar/day e.g. is ment for ladies who pick the flowers and beans who live at the grocery's site which also provides housing, schooling and healtcare for the time being employed! afterwards they have to take care of themselves!
a shop assistant in nairobi e.g. should earn at least double means 60 US up to 100/month. which is still little money considering the lack of own garden for growing veggies etc.

when we last stayed at kicheche mara camp we rented the safari vehicle with guide for 10 days in order to ensure we can do extensive shootings and stay out as long as we wanted. at the end of stay we handed over to him 200 US$ in an envelop plus a headlamp, a kind of latterman swiss knife and a camping cuttlery and some 100 rubber balloons for his children and village! he almost sqeezed us to death and he gave a typical massai belt to kai as his special gift (in kicheche mara's gift shop one can buy all sorts of massai bead work made by relatives of the staff members and the money goes directly to them without commission!).
his reaction shows in my view that 20 US$/day for the guide means 10 per pax is quite sufficient.
we left also 90 US$ for the camp staff and 30 US$ for our tent steward who got also a headlamp as well.
we never tip the manager couple if they are white! in case it's a local means black we tip. (don't call us rassists now )

we carry always such special gifts (headlamps, knifes, tools, scissors, pens and pencils, some math tools for school children etc.) with us and give them away to special people!
we also take used clothes with us (we need very little clothes on safari especially because the camps offer laundry service) so that we pop up our weight allowance and take additional suitcase or bags with clean and good clothes and give them away as well! sometimes we take soccer dresses for teams - my brother is a team coach and gets all sorts of sponsored stuff - and give them to orphanages.

we have realised these people are very grateful also for "hardware". and if they sell tzhe stuff at the market and get some cash it serves the purpose - and we don't mind!
pippa

Pippa:

You and I think a lot alike. I do the same thing. I take two duffels with me and at the end of the first week one is empty, so I leave it for friends and go on to my next camp with only one. This month I've had fun buying baby clothes for a Kenyan friend's 10 month old including pants, shirts, jacket, sneakers and even a baseball hat! Something like I would do if my sons would ever settle down, get married and have kids. I even found "globe" beachballs which I took once. The kids can blow them up and see what the world looks like - fun and learning at the same time. Have also taken calculators fo the older kids to help with school work.

The Kenyan government doesn't help though. At one point I wanted to see if I could get a company here to donate "combat" boots (steel-toed high boots) for the keepers and desnarers to prevent feet being crushed by baby elephants or snake bites in the bush. I ran it by Sheldrick Trust and was told that once before a shipment of boots was sent for the men as a donation and Kenyan Customs made them pay the full amount plus some! Thus it makes it difficult to take things that people really need unless you "smuggle" in one item at a time in your luggage. And of course you can't bring in food products that they might need.

I just wish there were more we could do to make people's lives better.

Hmm, the good old customs

I remember a friend of mine who had been away to England got his video tape conviscated from customs on returning to Kenya. As it was weekend, he had to leave it there and on Monday we went back to watch the video with a higher customs officer who had access to a video recorder to make sure it had no ´illeagal content´ !!!

Or, when my grandmother used to send me Christmas-parcels with cookies and other yummy stuff I always spent about an hour at the post-office getting it out of customs I can imagine how it would be if you sent over a whole bunch of army boots

jan, you have excellent connection to the head of kws! i would think this could help.......or maybe you should get in contact with a honest newspaper and tell them in order to get public awareness that foreigners try to support kenyans in need but their very own customs just distroys any effort made!

yes, you are perfectly right: it's a pitty! one would like to help but their officials give one a hard time...........

carsten,
my account manager at A+K has joined the GOETHE institute nairobi and learns german. as a little support i occasionally tape some news (tagesschau, heute) or some documentaries (lately i even got a very good series on the biggest nairobi slum where teenagers have initiated a video- and photo workshop; it was in suaheli translated into german!). i always smuggle this in even friends take them and nothing happend so far

pippa

Jambo all,

Here are a few comments:
1. Tipping
- Usual tippint policy in Kenya is US$5 per person per day for the driver/guides, and about the same for the hotel staff at the end of your stay. All hotels already charge you service charge which should go to the staff (in many cases it doesnt), and some restaurants also have the same. I would suggest for restaurants about 10 - 15% of the bill is enough.

2. Postage to Kenya
The Kenyan post service has improved a lot. You can safely send and receive things without a problem. The customs is another story on the other hand. I order some stuff receintly and paid almost 80% of the invoiced amount in customs duty & taxes! Its a shame but its Kenya!!

I personally would not recomment cash - or cheques which are not non transferable to be sent via post - any country.
Money can be scanned and seen through paper via cheap detectors available on the net.