Short answer? Yes.

But, I’d argue that it’s more different than it is “rough”. One of the main lures of living and working in Kenya is that the culture and landscape are things that absolutely cannot be found in other parts of the world. Life is carried out much differently there. And even though Kitengela was founded by Europeans, life will be very much a Kenyan experience.

I will be eating some meals prepared by and for Kenyans. Which, if it is similar to my brother’s experience at all, will mostly consist of potatoes, maize bread, beans, and maybe some eggs and the occasional meat. On special occasions there will be Goat roasted over an open spit. Goat meat is the most incredible meat on earth. When simply cooked like this, it requires no seasoning whatsoever, and it has a surprisingly ’seasoned meat’ taste to it. Very rich and very unlike other meats.

Kitengela is separate from any other village or town. They get most of their power via solar, but do have a generator on hand as well. The water comes from a deep well and is pumped to a water tank on site. There is a laptop here, and it’s connected to the internet via cellular dial-up. It’s a bit slower than even regular dial-up, but it works.

Living at Kitengela will be way easier than even the easiest camping trip that someone may take in the US. It will be by no means the cush life we all live day to day, but since I do not particularly mind camping and roughing it, life there should be fine.