Amasiko's immediate plans

Amasiko is still in it's infant shoes. In the last two years, neighbouring farmers came and sold us so far 12 small plots, totalling to about 1 ha of land, all sloping down to the lake shore. About 2/3 is along the shore of Lake Bunyonyi and very suitable for recreation, half of it is covered with eucalyptus threes and has good shade. Here we want to build a camping site and some cottages. The other 1/3 is agricultural land, and in use to grow some crops and rear some small ruminants (goats and sheep). This area for agriculture is still small and we want to buy some more land as soon as farmers offering more. This normally happens when they find a better piece for themselves, more fertile or nearer to their homes. At present a neighbouring plot is up for sale at 3 million Uganda Shilling, i.e. around Euro 1200,-

For the time being, we want to concentrate on developing camping facilities:

• renovate a local house to become a kitchen, and construct a firewood saving oven out of clay estimated @ Euro 300/=
  
• build an Eco-san toilet (composting toilet) with bathroom and a safari shower (uses firewood to prepare hot water, a solar heater is planed for once the eco-camp starts operating)Euro 3000/=
  
• levelling some five places for tents and planting with lawn grass Euro 200,-
  
• Construction of a jetty to allow easy access to the lake, (yes, lake Bunyonyi is free of diseases and one can enjoy swimming) Euro 100,-
  
• Construction of a chicken house to get them out of the vegetable gardens and off the camping site. Euro 300/=
  
• Renovation of one Mud&wattle house as staff house Euro 200/=
  
• Constructing of a log house Euro 500/=
  
• Building a water tank of 3000 litres with rainwater harvesting. (drinking boiled lake water is fine, but not very appealing to many foreign visitors I believe) Euro 250/=
  
• Buying some equipment such as tents, beds, mattresses, chairs, tables, kitchen equipment,
• Estimated at Euro 1,000/=

When all this is done, I am sure the place is attractive for people who like simple life in nature. and I hope to get visitors from around Uganda and neighbouring Rwanda to come and spend some relaxed time at our site. This should give us enough income to cover our operational costs and to develop the place further.
First of all we want to expand the agricultural land and secondly to set up some demonstrations in erosion control, soil improvement, vegetable and fruit growing, animal husbandry (dairy goats, chicken, pigs, later a dairy cow on zero grazing), thus al kind of activities local farmers could copy from us and which could become training facilities for disadvantaged youth.
Thirdly its our wish to build five cottages where people really can feel comfortable and spend some good time. we are still in a planning phase. we are just asking ourselves how luxurious these should be? And how big? Some friends advised to make it European standard, with a decent bathroom attached, bathtub, shower water-borne toilet, sitting room, two bedrooms all properly tiled. Together with an architect, we made some drawings of a round cottage with split level (as we are on a slope, this will save some land). each cottage to cost Euro 4000/=

So many plans are made and we are looking for ways of getting all this done! And we need all the support we can get, but also want to offer opportunities to get involved. If you have any ideas, plans, suggestions, questions or of you are interested to get involved, please contact us!