‘At its
best, interpretation is a whisper in the visitor’s ear. It suggests ways
of looking, plants seeds that may take root in the field of a visitor’s own
thoughts, while leaving them free to explore for themselves.’ James Carter
As the guide
training season draws to a close, I thought I would share a few highlights and
thoughts on my guide training philosophy and what I actually do during guide
training.
From the 2nd
of April until the 1st of May, my home became a tent, as it often
does. My tools include: a duffel of clothes, a flashlight, my binoculars, a
trunk of books and various toys, from UV lights, to laser pointers, and i-phone
apps. This month my training was exclusively for Asilia Lodges & Camps, a
company that invests a small fortune in its guides.
Together with
Lewis Mangaba, a distinguished guide from Zimbabwe with phenomenal knowledge,
and 16 “trainees”, we set off to try to gain an understanding of how the world works.
The month’s focus was to spend as much time in situ, learning ecological concepts and attempting to apply them to what we
could find and what we could physically see. The abundance and diversity of
what we call “charismatic wildlife” are incredible in this country, but all too
often become the sole focus of a safari. You don’t have to watch too many David
Attenborough documentaries to learn that nature is full of wonderful, weird,
and crazy things going on - let alone on the savannahs of East Africa. It is
our goal to influence guides to reveal and unravel some of these intricacies
for their guests.
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| Lewis, inspiring. |
During the past
years I’ve been fortunate to co-train with various guides and as we draw near
to the end of the training we realize how much we’ve learned from each other.
Sometimes, it is just a different perspective or way of seeing something, but
often it’s also an inspiration to learn more and discover more.
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| A dung beetle, forming a brood ball... do you have any idea how much dung we'd be wading through if it weren't for these little guys? |
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| Grass identification. |
But, all of
this focuses on natural history and that’s not what guiding is all about, which
is one of my major criticisms of the guide training/certification industry. Of
course, it is necessary to have a baseline knowledge of
ecology and to be able to identify most of the species of animals that you come
across, but there’s so much more to guiding. At the very foundation, there’s
plain and simple safety, and you’d be surprised at how many guides do not have adequate
and up to date first aid knowledge, let alone certification.
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| A track- 3 lobed pad, claw marks... this is a special cat. |
This year’s
training did not just involve the 16 “trainees,” who Lewis and I spent the
whole time with, but an additional 43 guides from Asilia’s portfolio of camps
in Kenya and Tanzania joined to get a valuable Wilderness Advanced First Aid
certification and to take another course- Adaptive Human Behavior and Client
Care. This interesting course was developed by Robin Peterson after an the
initial 3 day course Myers Briggs course into what is now a 5-day level 1 and
5-day level 2 course. Not only does this course improve the guide’s ability to
interact communicate effectively with the guests, but a guide’s life is
improved being armed with a toolkit to deal with the many human relationships
that they have at work and home. In addition to this course, they spent a day
each with a hosting coach, behavioral ecologist, 2 bird guides and a
photographer who coached them on how to use a camera.
