What (Guide) Dreams Are Made Of

It was so exciting for me to introduce Byron Ross, guide trainer extraordinaire, to the new team of Guides at Angama Amboseli for training. I have had the privilege of being trained by Byron before, so I was so happy when he joined us, especially as this is my first time leading the team, which is such an honour for me.

From the beginning, we were laughing so much. It seemed like the whole team had known Byron for years and we had so much fun together. The team and Byron got on so well and that meant the guides were not scared of him at all. They could see that this kind of training is not the old-school way; you can actually tell Byron what you think, and then he will tell you what he thinks, so it’s more of an open forum, and everything is open for discussion. We really felt like he was not here to teach us but to give us guidance.

The training was unbelievable, and we learned so many new things from Byron and from each other, as we have all come from different places and have received different training over the years. It’s been amazing to see how this group of guides are slowly by slowly becoming such a wonderful team as far as telling the stories and sharing our purpose. I spoke to one of the other Guides, Salash, who said, ‘The most interesting part was the theory… it was very useful to know how to deal with different challenges from guests, and the key thing was communication’. Even though we are alone in our safari vehicles, at the end of the day we are a team.

To break up our classroom hours, Byron introduced us to all kinds of games, one was called Pipe Dream. It is all about how we must work together as a team. Byron gave them the challenge and it was impressive how quickly they got it. They formed a team quickly and chose a leader while Byron and I watched. They were getting it wrong at first, but they didn’t give up, and they quickly figured it out. I was impressed by how smart they are, and I’m really proud of them.

For me, one of the highlights of our experience was a visit to the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, where Norah told us all about their research, the challenges elephants face, and the difficulties of wildlife conservation. We have already become very familiar with the elephants of Amboseli and it is through Amboseli Trust for Elephants’ amazing research that we are able to know so much about them and even their ancestors.

We also had the opportunity to explore both Kimana Sanctuary and Amboseli National Park, which was so much fun. Between laughing and learning, we saw some amazing things, especially birds, including lifers for most of us, such as the cut-throat finch, eastern violet-backed sunbird, and quail finch. We are very thankful to Byron for the guidance, and we are excited to share what we have learned with all our guests.

We received the following message from Byron shortly after the training: ‘On arrival, I was very unsure of the how and why of Amboseli and Kimana Sanctuary. But as a conservationist, on departure, I left my heart in Kimana Sanctuary and especially with the Angama Amboseli team. We had so many belly-ache laughs, it was fun and inspiring and I really respected how they took this training on.’