Nyamera:

KWS also has some interesting programs. Check their website and look up KWSTI . You could get a certificate in tour guiding with them for $1,300.00 with another $1,000.00 for accomodations. Might be something worth looking into if your serious about it.

Thanks for the link to koiyaki.com. I had never heard of them before, though I've heard Ron Beaton's name many times. Sounds it like it would be well worth donating to. Will add them to my list.

Sorry Nyamera, I think we have a misunderstanding of words here.
Like you I have to search out the deals to afford my trips. Luckily I\'m in a position where I can work long hours to pay for them we also save by not eating out, going to the pub or following the latest fashion! We even cut each others hair!
Our disposable income is for one thing only Safari!
I am always amazed at the spotting capabilities of guides, creatures that I would miss without a guide. We especially realized this on our self drive trip & now our last trip we had I believe one of the best guides in Zimbabwe.
Benson was a mine of information & could identify down to the smallest of insects. We tracked wild dog for 3 days with him reading old spore untill at last he tracked to the area of their den & fresh hunting tracks led us to them & their kill. OK I know guides always keep a trick or two up their sleeves but I do not think this was the case in this instance.
It is for these reasons I say employ a qualified guide as well as elsewhere here on Bushdrums we have discussed how to remove the "Get rich quick" non skilled guides who are causing distress to animals & putting clients at risk!

Jan, I’m a bit unclear thinking that people can read my mind. I’m not actually looking for a guiding course (at the moment) and the Koiyaki School doesn’t have courses for tourists, but maybe it would be a way for them to get extra funds. My plan is to get a more reasonably priced stay in the Mara letting them use me for training and experimenting, while at the same time I’d probably get better guiding than elsewhere. I had a look at the KWS website. The tour guiding course is 6 months and that’s a bit long when there’s no chance I as a foreigner could get job in Kenya. The accommodation is 1000 shillings or $13 per day, so that would be some $2340. When I find a way to become wealthy, I’ll do the 1 month Tourism Management and Eco-Tourism Development course, before starting a business in Kenya, but now I’m thinking a couple of lives ahead of this one. There is a way: there’re Swedish guides from package tour companies that accompany tourists and a Kenyan driver/guide. It’s a seasonal job and I’ve applied, but I’m too old. The people that get that kind of job seem to be 25-year-old girls who have worked for 6 months on Madeira and then are sent to Kenya for a one-week course. I’ve read on-line diaries and am very jealous.

Donations to Koiyaki Guiding School are a bit complicated as they have to go through the Tusk Trust and there’s no on-line donating directly to the school. I sent the Tusk Trust a Visa authorizing letter.

Re. what this thread really was about: The Zim guides themselves sound like a reason to go to Zimbabwe, and I will – after I’ve found a way to live in Kenya. I’ve seen wild dogs in Samburu, but that was because I was lucky.

Good to read that you saw wild dogs in Samburu -
I know the feeling of Nyamera to go into the bush at what ever cost or need as long as you are in the bush...!!
I have taken people around myself on various ocassions and mainly they were people with no or little expirence - but I think to go into the bush with someone like Kipper and Jan should be very interesting with all the years of Africa & safaries in them - I will only feel sorry for the driver or guide if he / she makes a mistake.

I will e mail Carsten with regards to the KPSGA website - good idea to have this on bUshdrums - thank you Nyamera and Kipper; only Carsten is busy getting his new house upto scratch before I invade it in January - !! Hopefully he will also be on line soon.

we did several safaris in kenya and the maasai mara in particular. and despite the camps highlight that they have all qualified/certified guides we had to provide them with some knowledge on several occasions. e.g. one guide could not believe that a vet is flown in because a cheetah was obviously ill and needed treatment. he was nodding because he believed that there are an abundance of cheetahs in africa!

Pippa:

That may be because many in Africa (not just natives but some wildlife groups) still hold to the idea that if an animal is injured or ill at the hand of man they will get help for it, but if it is ill/injured from natural causes, then let Nature take its course. I could certainly have understood that thinking 50 years ago when there was no capability of flying in help or when there was really no veterinary care for wild animals. However, today help is available and it is very hard to understand that people still follow that train of thought. If their relative was ill from a natural cause, would they just sit back and do nothing rather than getting help? Of course they wouldn't! Then why make an animal suffer needlessly when there is the possility it could be cured.

The one thing I never thought of before regarding rescues of some animals is that most animals are herd animals. If you rescue them and take them to a safe place to heal - then how are you going to release them? If you opened the gate and let them go into the bush, and they were without a herd who shared protection of each other, they would be lion bait immediately. Reintroduction might be more complex than treating the injury/illness.

One of the reasons Daphne Sheldrick has had such good luck with the older elephants orphans now living free in Tsavo is that it is older orphans themselves who form their own family, and when a younger elephant is ready to go free from the stockades, they join that already intact famly group who protect them and care for them.

Indeed one of the most heartwarming stories I know is Mweiga is a young female in Voi with a heart problem. She has never been able to keep up with the other orphans. Every day one of the other orphans makes sure they don't leave Mweiga's side. They take turns. Mweiga isn't strong enough to stay out all night in the bush with the rest of the family - she couldn't run fast enough or defend herself in an emergency so she returns to the stockades at night. Now that many of the older orphans are now living free and wild, one will come back every night to stay in the stockades with Mweiga so she won't be alone.

Animals can indeed teach us all something about caring.