A Plug For Rondo Retreat in Kakamega Forest
When PCV Sean came to visit me a couple weeks ago we took a little jaunt into the Kakamega Rainforest. The truth is we spent about an hour and a half actually walking in the forest, and the other twelve hours hanging out at Rondo Retreat, a high-end accommodation in the middle of the forest.
I had arranged a ride with the van that takes the headmaster’s kids to school every morning. The driver agreed to drop us at the entrance to the forest on his way to drop off the kids in the morning, and to pick us up again around 4 or 5pm when he went to retrieve the kids. We hired a guide who took us on a nature walk through the forest, into a bat cave, and up to a viewpoint that overlooked the whole forest. She worked for an NGO that educates local communities around the forest about the importance of conservation. She walked way too fast, ditching us as we panted uphill, and seemed tired of pointing out the same flora and fauna that she pointed out to all her tourists, so basically she didn’t point out much. The only time we got any information out of her was when we asked very specific questions. Do local communities see the value in conservation? It seems their priorities would be on survival, not preserving rare birds. What do they say when you tell them they can’t use the forest to graze their cows or chop firewood? It was actually kind of insightful once we peeled some answers out of her. The communities are pretty receptive to the idea of preserving the forest, and they are taught to plant trees on their own land for firewood and how to raise butterfly species only found in the forest for extra income. Then Sean offered to share some of his water with her and she drank it all.
It was a short walk but the heat wiped us out. We went to Rondo Retreat to rest and buy more water. Right away we knew we didn’t belong. The compound is an immaculately landscaped slice of the forest, with rustic wooden cottages topped with solar water tanks, a hexagonal chapel with beautiful wood paneling overlooking a densely forested valley, and groundskeepers who do nothing but rake leaves all day. A night’s stay in one of the spotlessly clean and tastefully decorated cottages (think Tahoe ski cabin) is just under 4,000 ksh (about $60). This price includes three Western-style meals, afternoon tea, hot showers, and electricity from 6:30pm to 10pm every night. Sean and I snuck around the compound, peeking into windows of cottages because we had been warned not to enter any of them, not even to walk on any verandas, since we weren’t paying guests.
“You may stay anywhere on the lawn,” one of the leaf-rakers informed us.
“Can we order food, maybe some chips?”
“Um,” there was an uncomfortable pause. “We don’t usually do that. The cooks make food for guests.”
We were, however, allowed to order cold sodas for 80 shillings (regular price 15 shillings).
It was only 11am but we were already hungry, so we busted out the sandwiches and dried fruit I had packed. This attracted Africa’s fattest cat to our table (which was very much on the lawn), who was so well-fed that she turned up her nose at the bread and went straight for the bologna. I can’t remember exactly what we did between 11:30am and 9pm when the driver finally showed up, five hours late, but in addition to trivial banter about malaria medications and commiserating about our exile to the lawn of the proletariats, I think there was some tag-team napping where we were each sprawled awkwardly across our lawn chairs with heads flopped back and mouths hanging open so that we wouldn’t choke on our own drool, while the leaf-rakers shuffled around us, shaking their heads at the wazungu riffraff who had somehow managed to infiltrate their compound.
Around 6:30, when the electricity came on, we moved to the reception office where we met a very nice couple, an American woman from Tennessee and her Kenyan boyfriend. After we introduced ourselves I said what I say to every American I meet who isn’t a Peace Corps volunteer:
“Yeah you start to understand things you only thought you understood before like before I came here I never really got what it meant for people not to have the things we take for granted like roads and electricity and I’d always heard that most people in the world don’t have access to clean water but I never really got it you know I didn’t really get it until I got here and saw how most people in my village get their water and how there’s just no infrastructure and then you have to ask why and then you find out it’s because of corruption and because of a government that doesn’t have the interests of its own people at heart and they just steal money from their own people instead of trying to raise them up and provide things for them like education and water and all these other things that would make this country so great and reflect well on the politicians but I don’t know why people are just so greedy and selfish and then I tried to fetch water by myself the other day and I can’t believe that women in this country do this ten times a day and they have to go down into a valley to where the spring is and then climb back uphill to their house with a heavy bucket of water on their heads and because it’s women’s work the men don’t lift a finger to help and then the water might not even be clean because most springs aren’t protected and then your family gets sick and your kids get worms and typhoid and dysentery and by the way it’s weird now for me to realize that in America the water we use to flush the toilet is safe for drinking and all it takes is for the government to invest in some infrastructure instead of some MP buying another Mercedes and most people in rural areas don’t even know about CDF money or how to write proposals so they can get the money to protect their springs or they assume CDF is corrupt anyway so they think why bother if the money’s not even there anymore because their MP stole it and it’s so sad and most people in the U.S. never get to see these kinds of things and they’ll never get it unless they see it for themselves I mean I never got it until I came here even though I always read about stuff like this in the paper and I thought I knew what it was all about then I think every American should be required to serve in the Peace Corps but then I think I wouldn’t want most Americans running amok in developing countries being a representative of my country and my people because when I think of the average American they’re fat and lazy and wouldn’t want to use a choo or eat ugali.”
Peace Corps volunteers seem to elicit a lot of simultaneous admiration and pity from American travelers, so they offered to let us use their shower, despite my chattiness. We said, no thanks, our driver should be here any minute. An hour later they saw we were still in the office waiting, so they said if we were really out on a limb we could share their cottage for the night. We said, thanks but our driver should be here any minute. An hour later they saw us staring cross-eyed at a Disney Magic Eye book, trying to make out images of Snow White and 101 Dalmations, and offered to buy us dinner. We said, no thanks our driver should be here any minute.
“You’ve been saying that for the last two hours,” the woman said. “Let me at least buy you dinner so you won’t go hungry.”
We were really tempted, and in retrospect I don’t know why we didn’t take her up on it, except that Sean and I had been discussing a steak-and-potato dinner with cheese-stuffed green peppers that I was going to cook when we got home. By that time the staff at Rondo had been eyeing us suspiciously for several hours, thinking we were trying to bum a free night’s stay by claiming we were stranded. Our driver finally showed up at 9pm, with the headmaster’s kids who had also been stranded at their school with no electricity well after dark, and Hillary, who had thoughtfully bought some sheep steak for me before the butchery closed and came with the van to meet us.
We finally arrived home cold, tired and hungry. Dinner was at midnight, and delicious. In the morning we even had enough meat leftover to have steak and eggs for breakfast. And I’m telling you all this just to say that based on what I saw by pressing my nose against a bunch of cottage windows, and despite their policy of exclusion if you’re dirty-looking and not paying for a room, I highly recommend Rondo Retreat if you are up for $60-a-night-luxury in the middle of a thick, vibrant rainforest. The sodas are really, really cold and the cat is really, really fat.
I had arranged a ride with the van that takes the headmaster’s kids to school every morning. The driver agreed to drop us at the entrance to the forest on his way to drop off the kids in the morning, and to pick us up again around 4 or 5pm when he went to retrieve the kids. We hired a guide who took us on a nature walk through the forest, into a bat cave, and up to a viewpoint that overlooked the whole forest. She worked for an NGO that educates local communities around the forest about the importance of conservation. She walked way too fast, ditching us as we panted uphill, and seemed tired of pointing out the same flora and fauna that she pointed out to all her tourists, so basically she didn’t point out much. The only time we got any information out of her was when we asked very specific questions. Do local communities see the value in conservation? It seems their priorities would be on survival, not preserving rare birds. What do they say when you tell them they can’t use the forest to graze their cows or chop firewood? It was actually kind of insightful once we peeled some answers out of her. The communities are pretty receptive to the idea of preserving the forest, and they are taught to plant trees on their own land for firewood and how to raise butterfly species only found in the forest for extra income. Then Sean offered to share some of his water with her and she drank it all.
It was a short walk but the heat wiped us out. We went to Rondo Retreat to rest and buy more water. Right away we knew we didn’t belong. The compound is an immaculately landscaped slice of the forest, with rustic wooden cottages topped with solar water tanks, a hexagonal chapel with beautiful wood paneling overlooking a densely forested valley, and groundskeepers who do nothing but rake leaves all day. A night’s stay in one of the spotlessly clean and tastefully decorated cottages (think Tahoe ski cabin) is just under 4,000 ksh (about $60). This price includes three Western-style meals, afternoon tea, hot showers, and electricity from 6:30pm to 10pm every night. Sean and I snuck around the compound, peeking into windows of cottages because we had been warned not to enter any of them, not even to walk on any verandas, since we weren’t paying guests.
“You may stay anywhere on the lawn,” one of the leaf-rakers informed us.
“Can we order food, maybe some chips?”
“Um,” there was an uncomfortable pause. “We don’t usually do that. The cooks make food for guests.”
We were, however, allowed to order cold sodas for 80 shillings (regular price 15 shillings).
It was only 11am but we were already hungry, so we busted out the sandwiches and dried fruit I had packed. This attracted Africa’s fattest cat to our table (which was very much on the lawn), who was so well-fed that she turned up her nose at the bread and went straight for the bologna. I can’t remember exactly what we did between 11:30am and 9pm when the driver finally showed up, five hours late, but in addition to trivial banter about malaria medications and commiserating about our exile to the lawn of the proletariats, I think there was some tag-team napping where we were each sprawled awkwardly across our lawn chairs with heads flopped back and mouths hanging open so that we wouldn’t choke on our own drool, while the leaf-rakers shuffled around us, shaking their heads at the wazungu riffraff who had somehow managed to infiltrate their compound.
Around 6:30, when the electricity came on, we moved to the reception office where we met a very nice couple, an American woman from Tennessee and her Kenyan boyfriend. After we introduced ourselves I said what I say to every American I meet who isn’t a Peace Corps volunteer:
“Yeah you start to understand things you only thought you understood before like before I came here I never really got what it meant for people not to have the things we take for granted like roads and electricity and I’d always heard that most people in the world don’t have access to clean water but I never really got it you know I didn’t really get it until I got here and saw how most people in my village get their water and how there’s just no infrastructure and then you have to ask why and then you find out it’s because of corruption and because of a government that doesn’t have the interests of its own people at heart and they just steal money from their own people instead of trying to raise them up and provide things for them like education and water and all these other things that would make this country so great and reflect well on the politicians but I don’t know why people are just so greedy and selfish and then I tried to fetch water by myself the other day and I can’t believe that women in this country do this ten times a day and they have to go down into a valley to where the spring is and then climb back uphill to their house with a heavy bucket of water on their heads and because it’s women’s work the men don’t lift a finger to help and then the water might not even be clean because most springs aren’t protected and then your family gets sick and your kids get worms and typhoid and dysentery and by the way it’s weird now for me to realize that in America the water we use to flush the toilet is safe for drinking and all it takes is for the government to invest in some infrastructure instead of some MP buying another Mercedes and most people in rural areas don’t even know about CDF money or how to write proposals so they can get the money to protect their springs or they assume CDF is corrupt anyway so they think why bother if the money’s not even there anymore because their MP stole it and it’s so sad and most people in the U.S. never get to see these kinds of things and they’ll never get it unless they see it for themselves I mean I never got it until I came here even though I always read about stuff like this in the paper and I thought I knew what it was all about then I think every American should be required to serve in the Peace Corps but then I think I wouldn’t want most Americans running amok in developing countries being a representative of my country and my people because when I think of the average American they’re fat and lazy and wouldn’t want to use a choo or eat ugali.”
Peace Corps volunteers seem to elicit a lot of simultaneous admiration and pity from American travelers, so they offered to let us use their shower, despite my chattiness. We said, no thanks, our driver should be here any minute. An hour later they saw we were still in the office waiting, so they said if we were really out on a limb we could share their cottage for the night. We said, thanks but our driver should be here any minute. An hour later they saw us staring cross-eyed at a Disney Magic Eye book, trying to make out images of Snow White and 101 Dalmations, and offered to buy us dinner. We said, no thanks our driver should be here any minute.
“You’ve been saying that for the last two hours,” the woman said. “Let me at least buy you dinner so you won’t go hungry.”
We were really tempted, and in retrospect I don’t know why we didn’t take her up on it, except that Sean and I had been discussing a steak-and-potato dinner with cheese-stuffed green peppers that I was going to cook when we got home. By that time the staff at Rondo had been eyeing us suspiciously for several hours, thinking we were trying to bum a free night’s stay by claiming we were stranded. Our driver finally showed up at 9pm, with the headmaster’s kids who had also been stranded at their school with no electricity well after dark, and Hillary, who had thoughtfully bought some sheep steak for me before the butchery closed and came with the van to meet us.
We finally arrived home cold, tired and hungry. Dinner was at midnight, and delicious. In the morning we even had enough meat leftover to have steak and eggs for breakfast. And I’m telling you all this just to say that based on what I saw by pressing my nose against a bunch of cottage windows, and despite their policy of exclusion if you’re dirty-looking and not paying for a room, I highly recommend Rondo Retreat if you are up for $60-a-night-luxury in the middle of a thick, vibrant rainforest. The sodas are really, really cold and the cat is really, really fat.
posted by Justina at 10:04 PM
1 Comments:
wow, awesome post. i love it!!! i think it's my fave so far!
Post a Comment
<< Home