Oooops! Nelson is one of our newest hosts and we're still working on getting his bio worked up. In the meantime we can introduce Melinda Rees, Nelson's helpful neighbor and EarthFoot's designated e-mail-relaying host helper.

Melinda Rees in her own words:

I was the General Manager of a hotel called Turtle Bay Beach Club in Watamu for 6 years. During that time I employed around 260 staff and started a large number of community and conservation projects as a part of the hotel's involvement with the local Community. I left the hotel in 1999 year to set up my own company with two friends, eco-resorts.com. We are now actively involved in promoting and marketing Environmentally or Community Oriented (ECO) tourism within East Africa. We also do much consultancy work on how to set up, operate and develop community and conservation projects.

Nelson was one of my staff members at Turtle Bay and when he finished building his house he approached me to ask if I knew of a way to help supplement the family income. We set up the itinerary for an American anthropology professor and as it was so successful, we now want to expand and promote this home stay elsewhere.

Eco-resorts will make a small profit on the flights, and, if the clients choose to do it, the safari section of Nelson's itinerary. However, the remainder of the moneys go directly to Nelson Bashora, as my partners and I feel that this is simply another community project with which we can help with a little bit of time, communication facilities and international banking facilities, the latter two being something Nelson does not have!

Nelson conducts the Village Life Among the Giriama program.