East Africa’s people, history and culture

Interesting interactions, sometimes a full day experience, or multi-day walking safaris can be arranged to visit the hunter-gatherer Hadza and Batwa people in Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda, and the colourful Turkana, Pokot, Samburu and Maasai in Kenya. Visit cultural villages, where the culture and traditions of the people are showcased, offering you an insight and deeper understanding of the country you are visiting.

You could visit these villages as an excursion, or even better, choose to stay at a community-owned lodge or ranch to appreciate the development and projects carried out by the local people to sustain and develop tourism and their livelihoods.

During your visits, you could show your support for the local people by buying local arts and handicrafts, or visit a local school where a gift of schoolbooks and writing materials would be a generous and valuable donation. Investing in children’s livelihoods and welfare goes a long way in improving the life of the community.

The culture, cuisine, arts and songs of the Swahili Coast preserve the influence of its Arab associations, having being under the Omani Sultanate rule in the distant past. All over the area, there are several ethnography and natural history museums, it is still possible to find old German, Belgian and British colonial buildings and historical monuments and local sacred sites.

Archaeological sites are of special interest and can be visited as part of your safari or by a special helicopter flight to the more remote areas such as Koobi Fora, near Lake Turkana in Kenya. Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli are a treasure trove of relics of our ancient origins.