‘’Kikorongo Community Walk’’ – 6 April 2016

Dear muzungu,

Kuthi? Here its fine. Actually I have been doing great.

I have been at The Elephant Center Campsite (referred to as TECC) for almost two weeks. I have visited Ruboni twice, which will be mentioned in the next story called ‘’Marketing days’’. I went to TECC to establish a new product and to update an older product. TECC offers a variety of walks such as the cotton growing tour (available June – Feb), equator walk, self-guided walk, hill/village walk. I have updated the self-guided walk by making leaflets about which birds/plants can be found during the walk. This has been rather interesting as I had the chance of taking this walk many times and discovering new birds as I went along. The view on top of the hill is amazing. There is a chance of spotting animals within the National Park. There is a great view onto Kikorongo but above all it takes your breath away. It’s beautiful.

Regarding the establishment of a new product, we came up with a walk which combines the new walk together with the equator walk. At the time, the equator walk meant spending $4 and therefore you would walk along the highway to the equator and back (which is not really safe!). The new walk called ‘’Kikorongo Community Walk’’ allows visitors to walk through people their land, reaching Kikorongo village, here they will have a few stopovers before heading to the equator. Returning to The Elephant Center allows people to walk through the land of people as well as shortly along the highway. The backstory of Kikorongo village is quiet interesting. In short, Kikorongo would not have been there if people had not moved to this specific place. The inhabitants of Kikorongo come from the hills behind this village, they only come and live in Kikorongo to take care of their land. As they are harvesting, they return home for a couple of months. As the planting season has just started they will return to Kikorongo village. Basically, most inhabitants of Kikorongo are people who migrated here based upon the farming season. In total, there are only a few families who never left Kikorongo after moving here. Therefore the walk is rather challenging, but it gives great rewards.

The coming weeks will finalize this walk but we already booked some result as the signs for both the new as old walk have been established as well as some bridges. We, Yason and I, made our own signs for these walks by buying some wood and painting this wood (as can be seen in the picture), I am very happy with the result booked!

On the other hand, we have made plans for reducing the amount of trash in the village. As Kikorongo has one of the highest poverty rates in Uganda, its challenging to change people’s mind-set about throwing trash on the ground. As they have no money, it’s hard to keep it or burn it as these materials cost money. We have a concept ready for trial to change people’s mind-set about throwing trash on the ground, it allows the school to earn some money but in return they will have to burn all the other trash. This trash will be burned on one specific place. Even though burning trash is not the right way of creating a safe haven for people as well as animals, it’s better than letting children, adults and wildlife be surrounded by trash. As trash reduces the amount of visitors coming to Kikorongo as well as be a danger to many wildlife including their farming chickens, pigs or cows.

I have been blessed in receiving some results in regards to the ‘’Kikorongo Community Walk’’, even though we faced difficulties. These difficulties ranged from being able to get materials, to one of the two employees at TECC quitting his job. I am happy I can be part of a change and increase the life of the inhabitants of Kikorongo. Let’s hope the next things in terms of all aspects of the walk will be successful.

Love,

Joëlle