BUSY MONTH

September 2009 is a month i will leave to remember.It has been busy and chaotic .We have moved our shop to a new building .It bigger loaded with lots of new products which will be posted on the website very soon .We have improved our IT system with installation of Skype softwares

in all PC i took some pictures of the activities

.

Above is Engineer Silvano and Engineer Paul installing new sever .In Kenya engineering work was only meant for people over 40 years ,but as time moves we have been inheriting western cultures and ICT revelation has landed in Kenya and young people are dominating in ICT like never before .You can find more about it in www.routingafrica.com

VILLAGE MARKET

In 1992 two Kenyan brothers, Hamed and Mehraz Ehsani had the idea of constructing a shopping and recreation mall within Nairobi. Their objective was to provide a shopping and recreation experience for Gigiri's residents which include diplomats, expatriates and tourists living and/or working within the Nairobi's Diplomatic District and its immediate environs.Construction began in April 1992 with 10 shops. Three years later they opened The Village Market's gates to the public. Today (February 2009) the complex covers over 225,713 square feet (20,969.4 m²) of leasing space; three levels high, with more than 150 outlets.The latest addition to the mall is a 5 star hotel with a 142 guest rooms and suites.[2] In 2007 Sandstorm Kenya launched its second shop in Kenya in a african safari style at the village market ,our shop is suited above food coat .Please pay a visit in our shop when you visit village market ,lots of enduring styles travel bags, work bags, wash bags, ladies bags and outdoor accessories, in Canvas & Leather, Pull-up and Pelage Leathers, African Camel and each one hand-crafted carefully, individually and ethically. Learn more.

Here are some of the pictures i took during the launch of the shop

Masai dancers entertaining guests during the sandstorm village market shop launch,well this kind of dance it was only meant for them ,don't try this at home

dancing in all styles

safari corner inside our shop in village market


lady line small in hair on now available in black and white,also known as Pelage available in travel bags too

Ol Donyo Wuas

The amazing Ol Donyo Wuas is the latest Lodge to take Sandstorm into their shop. If you're lucky enough to visit you will see us there. Ol Donyo Wuas is linked to Great Plains Conservation and you can find out more about their important work here.

Rhino Charge

Rhino Charge is a 20 year old Kenyan institution organised to raise funds for the Rhino Ark Charitable Trust and it takes place this weekend. Sandstorm has supported the event in the past, and this year the extremely persuasive Elodie Sampere, Head of Conservancy Marketing at Lewa has convinced us to sponsor her team Pinks in Charge. You can donate before (and after!) the event at JustGiving here and FirstGiving here.

We in turn managed to convince our friends at Scottish ad agency Newhaven Communications to sponsor them as well. Perhaps not the most tightly targeted piece of sponsorship in history but it's all in a very good cause, and it just goes to show how nice they are.

Below is a little about the event from their website, but follow the link and take a look for yourself.

The Rhino Charge is an off-road event in which competitors are required to visit 13 points scattered over approximately 100 square kms of rough terrain within a 10 hour period. Competitors are supplied with a 1:50,000 scale map of the venue, co-ordinates of the 13 Control Points and their Start position (at one of the Controls). Each competitor must plot the Control Points on the map and decide his/her route. Navigation is by compass/GPS and the winner is the competitor who visits all controls in the shortest distance (GPS measured). The event is organised to raise funds for the Rhino Ark Charitable Trust. Competitors are required to raise the minimum sponsorship set by the organising committee. Most however raise considerably more - the record to date being Kshs 9,393,552 in 2008 from Car No. 5 Alan McKittrick, Bruce Knight, Charlie Hewitt-Stubbs, John Trundell, S. McKittrick, winners of the prestigious David Schaeffer Trophy. Long-time supporters such as Mike and Sarah Higgins have raised a total of Kshs 39,604,399 over the last 20 years.

Karibu Fair

From the 5th - 7th June Joyce and Moshi will be representing Sandstorm Kenya at the Karibu Fair in Arusha, Tanzania. You can find out more at http://www.karibufair.com/ and if you're attending please pay us a visit. We'd love to see you. Moshi will take some pics and post them when he gets back.

SAMBURU

Young Samburu Girl


If you thought MASAI are the only color full people in Kenya,then your tour guide must have hiden a lot from you . The Samburu are semi-nomadic pastoralists. Cattle, as well as sheep, goats and camels, are of utmost importance to the Samburu culture and way of life. The Samburu are extremely dependent on their animals for survival. Their diet consists mostly of milk and sometimes blood from their cows. The blood is collected by making a tiny nick in the jugular of the cow, and draining the blood into a cup. The wound is then quickly sealed with hot ash. Meat is only consumed on special occasions. The Samburu diet is also supplemented with roots, vegetables and tubers dug up and made into a soup.
There is also a game park in the area, Samburu National Reserve only 4x4 vehicles are motor able in these area
Young Samburu worriers with sandstorm bags

WATAMU

still at Kenyan coast here comes a strange town known as Watamu ,village essentially a Swahili (or Bajuni) fishing village that has grown into a small beach resort over the years.With traditional food coats, clean silent streets and beautiful clean beaches makes it another tourist spot. The village has several small supermarkets, grocers and the usual Kenyan style Dukas made from cooconut tress which makes the town more attractive
Traffic jam is always is always thing that you can't experience when you are in watamu



Tourist zone in watamu

Traditional fashion shows and dance in Watamu village

Malindi

malindi is small town situated about 120 km north of Mombasa,just little south of equator and tourism is a thriving business in malindi .Malindi really comes into its own when we are exhausted after working through out the year ,then it should be top of anyone list who visit kenyan coast

its fun to play football near the ocean waters ,list of things to do in malindi



from the distance you can see Vasco da Gamas Pillar, on the beach in the middle of Malinidi's long coastal front, is a monument to where Vasco da Gama first set foot in modern-day Kenya in 1498.
well after working hard through out the year this is the only place i will go to relax and celebrate my Christmas with my friends and family marine marine park

Luxury lies not in how much stuff we have but in how well it's made - and how highly we value it.

Great Newsweek article. Definitely worth a read.

 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/191499

Golf bags

It would appear that a lot of people who like Sandstorm also play golf, so we've built a couple of simple 'pencil' golf bags out of the same canvas, leather and brass as our other bags. They're far from super-technical and you're unlikely to see Tiger Woods playing with them on the PGA tour any time soon, but just like everything else we do they look great, feel great and they'll last forever. Once we've built up some stock we'll pop them up on the website.

Natural High in Edinburgh

On Wednesday night we co-hosted an event at the Merchant's Hall in Edinburgh with leading African safari specialists, Natural High: a great company and one we're looking forward to working with closely in future. (If my blogging lately hadn't been so lax I would have posted the details before rather than after the event...will do better next time.)

On the night Mark Houldsworth and Alex Edwards from Natural High gave a fascinating illustated talk on their experiences in Tanzania, while sculptor Mark Coreth gave what I understand was a superb demonstration of his craft. A lucky person also won a Sandstorm Kenya bag but I don't have their details just yet, must find out next week.


Mark Coreth, demonstrating.


Rosanna Osborne with Crispin Kennedy and James Foster. (Great smile Rosanna.)


Clare Kennedy with Sue Osborne from Africa Venture.


Heather and Julia Stephenson

Business is booming

We had a very good feature in an excellent Kenya supplement in the UK Daily Telegraph on Saturday (the bag shown is one of our most enduring styles, a Weekender in green canvas & leather). Click on the picture and you can read the page or alternatively you'll find the online equivalent here.

Inauguration celebration

Kenya was an especially great place to be yesterday as the nation gathered around their television screens to watch and to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. That Kenya was the birthplace of Obama's father is well known, but perhaps less well known (certainly outside Kenya) was that his father was a Luo, the same tribe as the vast majority of our skilled craftsmen and women, so they had even greater cause for celebration. Perhaps a few sore heads this morning!