The hiking guide system at Malealea Lodge has evolved quite significantly over the years, and yet, there is still so much more to learn and implement. In the earlier years, a trick in an unregulated guiding system was for the guides to come to work in their worst pair of tattered old shoes. Naturally, unsuspecting tourists would depart with their new or fairly good trainers, as they felt sorry for the guide concerned. What the unsuspecting tourist did not know, was that if they walked into the guides house, they would see a stock of good trainers accumulated on a shelf. Asking for tips, money for school, scholarships, you name it, the guides worked out exactly how to get tourists to depart with their beloved cash or belongings. To be fair to the guides, they were not earning enough and they must be applauded on their exemplary entrepreneurial skills.
Naturally the lodge took on the responsibility to administer the guiding system, and create some rules and regulations. Money collected from the hiking system has always gone back one hundred percent into the community, mainly into improving the schools in the area. Up until 2017, this was always the case, where the majority of funds collected would go to school improvements. In the expenses report in 2016, it is clear to see that the Makheteng school received the bulk of the funds collected, and a new kitchen and fence were built from these funds. What is also evident, is that the money that went to guides, was minimal, and like a waitron, made the job heavily reliant on tips. You can imagine that a certain amount of creativity and skill was still required for a guide to get the tourist to empty their pockets.
In 2017, the MDT and Malealea Lodge took the decision to rethink the way this hiking money was to be distributed in the community. For at least 15 years, money mainly went into infrastructure, and so we took the decision to divert the bulk of the money, into the guides themselves. In 2017 reports, you will see a significant increase in the money paid out to hiking guides. We wanted to create a professional guiding system, where guides take their jobs seriously and value themselves, as important ambassadors to the lodge and MDT. The MDT took on the role of being the body to train, administer and supervise the guiding system. The MDT has hosted a few training workshops for guides, as well as a few meetings, where guides could have a voice, and bring out potential pitfalls and successes. The guides earn 65% of the fee the visitors pay and the balance goes out to support community projects, as well as pay for training courses for guides. In 2018, 6 guides were given the opportunity to attend a Rock Art Course, hosted at Malealea. We hope that this newly acquired knowledge is filtering through to the other guides, who did not attend the course, and that the visitor experience to our rock art site, has been enhanced.
The Malealea Lodge and MDT partnership has always been an interesting one. When tourists felt the need to donate to this community, the lodge did not want these amounts reflecting in the lodge’s own business bank account and so a new entity was formed, purely to divert these donations. This is how the Malealea Development Trust came into being. The decision was taken that all proceeds from hiking activities would go straight back into the community, via payments to the guides or supporting community projects.
Tourists, over the last couple of years, have become a lot more suspect of tourist schemes, where departing with their money is concerned. The MDT was created because of the demand from tourists to want to contribute and donate. This is the reason, why you may notice quite a few, drop off points, where you can leave old clothes, and school stationery, etc. When it comes to giving money donations, a lot of confusion arises. We have two entities, which provide the channel for donations. Remember, this is because many tourists approach us and want to donate out of their own goodwill, not the other way round. We do not go out and try to collect funds from tourists. Some tourists do want to give, so we have to provide the channels for this.
The Malealea Lodge reception is one area where people can donate money and if you go through the reports from 2016, you will see exactly how that money has been spent. The other channel is the MDT office itself, around the corner from the lodge reception. The MDT is a registered non-profit organisation, and has its own set of financial and project reports. They have identified four areas of need in the community; Education and training, health and well-being, orphans and vulnerable children and general community development. Please go to https://malealeadevelopmenttrust.org/ for more information. The MDT deals with mainly large donations, but also collects small donations from tourists, as some tourists are more comfortable depositing donations with the MDT office.
Please feel free to go through our reports and you can see exactly how money collected in reception is spent.
School visits has always been a contentious issue at Malealea. For a lot of tourists, it is a highlight of their visit to Malealea. Tourists get to engage with the children at school and vice versa. Both parties get an exceptional amount of value out of the experience. The question to be asked is “at what cost?
As a business we work with many tour companies, and many of these companies request a school visit, where visitors engage with children in the classroom. With sometimes up to 3 or 4 school visits in high season, this has proved to be a huge disruption for the children and the teachers at the local primary school. We have also realised that student academic performance is not where it should be, and children need as much classroom time as possible. The timings of the visits are aimed at break times, but this is not able to be achieved. Staggered visits by different tour companies, as well as individuals, sometimes results in a huge disruptions. The board of trustees of the MDT meet quarterly and after much debate, the MDT has decided to stop all school visits in the Malealea Valley. On a village cultural tour, it is still possible to take a tour through the school grounds, but there will be no more classroom visits.
Currently, we have a computer project in the lodge recreation room, where we have about 20 laptops and unlimited wifi for school children and community members. Money from cultural village tours is collected and mobile data is bought to provide the internet access. We have two facilitators, who run the programme, and children are exposed to a few online learning programmes, that are quite data intensive. Visitors are welcome to join in these sessions between 2:30 and 6:30pm from Tuesday to Friday.
The philosophy of the cultural village tour is for visitors to experience village life in its authenticity. We have worked hard with all stakeholders concerned, too keep to this philosophy. We do not want children begging for sweets or money and so we encourage visitors to also keep to this, by not handing out these items on the village tour. Enjoy the tour without having to feel you need to give anything. Everything is paid upfront already, so you are already contributing. All stakeholders receive their portion weekly as you can see by the weekly payments schedule. If you feel the need to contribute or donate further, please set up a meeting with one of the MDT members, in their office around the corner from reception or simply add the donation to your bill, on departure.
Please feel free to take photographs, if permission is granted by the recipient. Please don’t feel you need to give anything in return. A simple exchange of conversation and playback of the photos is enough. Guides provide an essential role here as they can quickly let you know which community members like having their photographs taken and those that don’t. They can also communicate with community members on your behalf, to ask permission.
Click here for a useful article on ethical tourism during a village cultural village tour.
Glenn Jones
Malealea Lodge Representative/Trustee on the Malealea Development Trust