Help Sam get a boat - transform his family’s life

Let’s do something good - let’s fulfil Sam’s long-standing dream, and get him a boat. It wouldn't just be a vessel; it would be a lifeline, enabling him to conduct his own bird tours on the lake, and when there’s no tourists, catch fish to sell in his sister’s roadside stall, transforming his family’s income prospects. Will you please help me?

Many of you know Sam and his huge smile from Lake Baringo in Kenya on my wildlife photo tours, where over the last 13 years he’s grown from an entrepreneurial young bird-spotter into a good friend, a single dad, and bird wizard - thanks to the gift of a bird book from one of my first guests. (The story continues, click 'Read more')

It’s been a joyous, eye-opening and heartbreaking journey, trying to help people in some of communities I’ve frequented around the world, but Sam’s journey stands out:

I know I can’t help everyone, so I use three tactics: I try to give broadly, donating desperately needed supplies (books, pens, food, women’s sanitary items etc) to different schools and orphanages each year in Kenya. Many guests chip in too: It’s almost impossible not to, when you see how far even a trivial amount of our money goes, and just how in need and appreciative they are. It’s hard to know where to stop actually - the need is so huge and so worthy, and saying “No, I can’t” feels morally inexcusable, when you know you can. But it can feel like a drip in the ocean. So I also try to make a more meaningful difference to specific groups:

There’s a small desert village I’ve formed a bond with in Kenya, a handful of huts made from dung and sticks. Every year I ask my friend there - the head woman - what the village needs most. Over the years I’ve brought them a bicycle and a wheelbarrow to help cart water; durable solar-powered lights, and some of you even helped me fund a food aid program when covid unemployment combined within drought, killing all their livestock. On my tour last September I bought them 7 goats, which have now given birth to 3 more! =)

Lastly though, I like to try to really change a couple of good people’s lives, who have become friends, like Sam and his family: I paid for his sister Betty to go right through college, making her the first in their family to earn a degree - but she insisted on studying theology which unfortunately didn’t end in a job. She made a little road-side stall but struggled to find anything to sell. After bird guiding, Sam started inviting my guests through his village, proudly showing them his house, kids and way of life. As I’m sure some of you will attest in comments, the experience was somewhere between humbling and heart-rending. I suggested Sam should start charging for his village tour, he reluctantly suggested $3. I said it needed to be $10. Everyone was happy to pay.

We only come once a year though. We brainstormed business ideas that could provide a sustainable income. Sam shyly suggested if he could get a motorbike it might allow him to operate as a local taxi to the next town, where he could also buy supplies cheaper to bring back and sell at the stall. It seemed a good plan. Together with many of you on Facebook we pooled funds and got him a simple motorbike. Sam was “very much happy” and we all got enough blessings to ensure we live forever. It was Sam however, that almost died:

He had an accident on the motorbike and broke his leg. He just turned up one year on crutches, leg in a cast, smiling sheepishly. I asked what happened, and his main concern was trying to reassure me that the bike was fine. Clearly his leg wasn’t though, and I ended up funding some better medical attention, and now it’s fine. Betty’s stall was slowly improving, but the taxi business was going backwards - too many people took advantage of his kindness asking for free trips. Still his prize possession, he used the motorbike less and less, unable to afford fuel. His passion has always been birding on the boats, but when covid came, the tourists left, as did I. The roof of his house fell in from termites, and unable to afford to repair it without tourists, his whole family moved into his parents tiny one-room hut for months. Thankfully I happened to keep in touch and asked how things were. It’s always hard to get Sam to admit he needs anything, but he eventually explained, and I was happy to be able to send some money right away. He was unbelievably thankful and soon sent pictures of the repairs.

This last season, when I sat with him in his village and asked how things really were, his perpetual smile actually slipped, a heavy weariness draped his gaunt frame, and he looked away as his pride and positivity slowly lost an internal battle. Things were clearly not good. Betty’s store, it turned out, had been closed because it’s now illegal to have a shop selling food without a toilet nearby. I asked why people couldn’t just use the toilet in his family’s huts. Sam looked at me awkwardly and whispered, “We have no toilet…” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed. I asked “Where do you all ‘go’?” and he gestured shyly to a huge thicket of prickly pear cactus beside the village with scraps of toilet paper visible, and said “In there, it’s ok, but…. when it rains, sometimes, it all washes down here…”. He was ashamed, but I was even more so. Tears stung my eyes. I asked how hard it was to build a toilet, and he explained it’s impossible to dig a deep enough pit into the rocky ground by hand, it needs tools and he couldn’t afford to get it dug. I actually forget how much he said it would cost, all I remember was the blazing guilt of all the totally unnecessary things I’d bought every year for the last decade, which cost far more, while Sam’s entire family were crouching in the cactuses. I gave him the cash as soon as we got back to the lodge. The next day, he sent me a photo of people already starting to dig the pit, and by the time I got back to Australia, a photo of the finished toilet shed. Betty’s shop can now re open, but to sell what?

Sam’s dream has always been to get his own boat, so that he could run his own bird tour business rather than just be hired as a guide on some other local's boat - it should enable him to earn significantly more during tourist season, and when there’s no tourists, he can use the boat to catch fish, which Betty to cook and sell in her stall. Boats are expensive though, even old ones (about $3,500 AUD with an old outboard). Sam suggested he could sell the motorbike we got him ($600), and I will put in $750 of my own, another friend can put in $950, leaving $1,200 to find. We can do that, right?! There’s 119,000 of you following me on Facebook. That’s literally 1c each. I know most of you won’t see this, haven’t travelled with me, have no reason to help Sam, and have your own worthy causes you donate to, but please just think of an amount that you could spare this weekend without really suffering, and I promise the photos I’ll share with you of changing the life of Sam and his family will warm your heart far more than an extra $5 cup of coffee ever could.

Any excess we can raise above $1,200, I would recommend we invest in a newer boat & outboard (apparently $1,000 extra) which would help Sam avoid the risk of costly mechanical repairs during startup and also make his boat more attractive for tour groups to use. Anything beyond this, I will put towards helping the desert village, and purchasing extra supplies for the schools & orphanages.

Please help me do this. I will post photos of the journey to my Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chrisbrayphotography

UPDATE: WOW! Ok... so we've already funded a second hand boat for Sam in under 3hrs! I've upped the target to $2,200 for the newer boat. He doesn't know it yet, but we've just changed his life! =) THANK YOU!!!! =)