Kisieni

Did some 2-hours-drive towards Uganda yesterday which will reduce stress today. I wanted to stay at a campsite in Kakamega forest but it was closed so I just parked my car on a flat grassy lawn next to a lodge, on the private grounds of an old lady. In the morning I give here some shillings for that and I buy 2 eggs from her. I think this is a fair deal :-) There are even toilets nearby from an old abandoned church. Opposite of my camp a narrow corridor of tea plants blends over into the pristine forest. I see monkeys in the distance and many birds, working hard on the ambient sound atmosphere. Hillery, a local dude usually working in Mombasa in a hotel, is here at his parents' place because due to the current situation there is no work in Mombasa. He invites me to his place in the morning and from him I also learn that a worker on these governmental tea fields earns around 200 KES (1.5 EUR) per day whereas people illegally harvesting dead wood (for charcoal) in the forest reserve manage to earn 700-1000 KES per day. There is of course some monitoring but due to high corruption nothing takes effect. A police officer or ranger earns just 30,000 KES (230 EUR) per month and everybody searches for secondary and tertiary income sources ;-)Read more