My safari guide calls me Dada*

One of the most unexpected connections I made in Tanzania was meeting Leo Bambe.

She runs Safari by Leo, a safari outfit that offers tailored experiences to Tanzania’s national parks.

At the entrance to the Serengeti National Park

Leo also spends a part of her revenue purchasing re-usable sanitary towels which she distributes to girls in overnight towns along the safari route. Leo talks to the girls about her personal journey as a guide, sexual and reproductive health, and protection.

She opens up the possibility of different career path for these girls, once they may not have considered before. (If you join one of Leo’s safaris you might be able to tag along to one of her talks and help her distribute sanitary towels.**)

Leo at a local school

I’ve stayed in touch with Leo and Charles, her husband and partner, since my first trip. They visited me in Nairobi where we took a long walk in Karura Forest, followed by lunch at the River Cafe and a visit to the August 7th Memorial Park which honours the victims of the 1998 terrorist bombing of the US Embassy.

I love Leo’s story because she intentionally pursued a job in an overwhelmingly male-dominated industry. For me, her story is a reminder that there are still niche industries with toughened, reinforced glass ceilings. These industries often don’t benefit from intentional interventions (think women in winemaking, women in coding, women piloting) to correct the gender imbalance.

With Leo and her family at the Karura Forest Waterfall, Nairobi

If you find yourself in Tanzania and want to go on safari, I cannot recommend Leo more— you’ll get an expert guide to Tanzania’s beautiful parks and wildlife, a personalised itinerary based on your budget and things to see, and you may even score a bonus hike to the Materuni Waterfalls at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro.**

• We visited Tarangire, Ngorongoro and Serengeti National Parks.
• We also did a Chagga cultural tour with a coffeemaking demonstration followed by lunch.
• The absolute highlight of my time with Leo was this being my first ever safari where we spotted all of the Big 5 in one day.
• A bonus was the discovery of a cheetah who had just devoured a kill. We came upon it by chance, alone somewhere in the Serengeti hidden behind some bushes off the path. This was the day we enjoyed lunch with a cheetah.

Anth. x

* Dada is sister in Swahili
** Might only be offered to dadas.