The Njozi Guide Team
Deo Magoye – Senior Safari Guide
Fadhil Magoye – Tanzania Safari Guide / Wildlife Biologist
George Mbwambo – Tanzania Safari Guide
Khalfan Jory – Tanzania Safari Guide
Sosy Maria – Wildlife Biologist
Among his industry peers, Deo is one of the most well-respected guides in Tanzania. Guiding is his passion, and our Tanzania team have dubbed him the ‘King Guide’. Most companies will claim their guides are great, but a quick look at Deo’s history illustrates that he is a one-of-a-kind for this region. In 2008, Deo was featured as the Safari Guide and Bush Lore expert for the South African television show Voetspore: Journey from Gansbaai (South Africa) to Gabon, a 3 month expedition through rarely visited terrain. This was a follow up to his role on the same series when their expedition went from Cape Town to Cairo. He will be participating in the third installment in June and July of 2016.
Deo’s guiding skills are well known, making him the guide selected by many film crews and professional photographers. He was the head guide for a National Geographic film crew for 4 months making a film of the Serengeti migration, and he has guided for BBC filmmakers as well as legendary wildlife photographer, Tom Mangelsen, for his East Africa shoots, as were Boyd Norton and Joe McDonald who have contributed to the Audubon Field Guide for African Mammals as well as created their own books.
While it is clear that Deo is the experts’ choice, he is also perfect for anyone who is simply excited to go on safari. When preparing such a resume of highlights it was Deo who said, “it is hard to single anyone out because all my clients are VIP to me.” The skills to find animals and position a vehicle are only a small part of what makes Deo a special guide. His laid back, hard-working, confident manner, and vivid personality make him a joy to spend time with. With nearly 30 years of guiding, Deo knows Tanzania like few others.
Beyond guiding Deo has done a phenomenal job of growing our Tanzania operation. His high character is a magnet for attracting other great people. The result is a guiding operation loaded with exceptional guides, and the absolute best camp staff and operations personnel.
Fadhil Magoye – Tanzania Safari Guide/Wildlife Biologist
Fadhil is Deo’s son and was fortunate to learn about the natural world and guiding from a master throughout his childhood. Fadhil grew up loving wildlife and fascinated by the secrets of nature. He had a vision of becoming one of the people that will conserve natural habitats within Tanzania and beyond. This led to college studies on wildlife.
As a guide, Fadhil combines his interests in wildlife and conservation. Amazingly Fadhil’s first guiding job was with Asilia Africa as a resident guide at Olakira Camp. The annual hiring process starts with 150 applicants invited in, that narrows to 30 candidates for a 3 day intensive testing process resulting in just 10 guides being selected for an impressive 6 week training session. Fadhil served as a resident guide at Olakira for 2 ½ years learning both the Ndutu and Northern Serengeti areas intimately to the point of having remarkable knowledge of individual big cats and the events in their lives.
In addition to guiding Fadhil is putting his wildlife studies to work as a wildlife biologist on our Ndutu/Serengeti big cat research project helping catalogue big cats in the region.
George Mbwambo – Tanzania Safari Guide
George is one of the old school guides who really knows Northern Tanzania like few others. George was a classmate of Deo’s at Wildlife College many years ago, and with Njozi Camp’s rapid growth, we were excited to be able to have George join our guiding team in 2013.
George is a natural fit for Njozi’s specialty of catering to very keen wildlife enthusiasts with serious game drives not limited by time or distance in an effort to always go the extra mile (or ten) to find the best quality wildlife viewing. George has a couple decades of experience exploring the back roads of the Northern Circuit to find the best wildlife sightings and to avoid crowds in favor of a high quality wilderness experience. His passion and love of the bush is infectious, and his gentle nature and laid back manner make him a pleasure to spend time with as he shares Tanzania’s treasures with his guests. George is thoughtful and meticulous and considers things like where the sun will be so that you drive in the best direction and have ideal positioning for photography. George brings all his experience and knowledge but still has the burning excitement to guide leading to wonderful safaris for his guests.
Khalfan Jory – Tanzania Safari Guide
Khalfan (the K is silent, pronounced Hall-Fawn) is a very experienced guide with more than a decade of guiding in Northern Tanzania. Khalfan’s early experience came guiding for Abercrombie & Kent. Building on his success Khalfan went out on his own as a freelance guide in 2008. One of his guiding highlights was being contracted to guide for a National Geographic film crew. Deo Magoye, became impressed with Khalfan’s guiding talents and recruited him to join our team late in 2013. Khalfan quickly won us all over at our guide’s retreat with his eagle eyes. In a vehicle of seven guides he was the first to spot much of the wildlife, including a leopard on a rock at a couple hundred yards away – it might as well have been in Kenya!
Khalfan has a quiet but engaging personality and is very serious about game viewing, always happy to be in the bush sharing the treasures of the area with his guests. His client feedback in his first year with us has been outstanding.
Sosy Maria – Resident Wildlife Biologist
Sosy Maria was hired to be Njozi’s camp-based staff wildlife biologist in January 2014. Sosy is a graduate from the College of African Wildlife Management in the Arusha area, which is the premier Institute of higher learning for wildlife research and management in the region. The curriculum focused on practical education with time spent out in the field learning wildlife research techniques and participating in on-going research projects.
Sosy has been the principal investigator of the camp’s big cat research in the Ndutu/Serengeti region. He has been working to identify individual cheetah, leopard, and prides of lions. By determining how to identify individuals within the population we are able to provide the reference data set for testing an identification software program that is being developed. Sosy is recording locations and tracking movements for each cat to map their ranges. He is also observing behaviors such as hunting and collecting data to see if tourism is having any impacts on hunting success. Through his daily studies of the cats in the region Sosy has an unmatched knowledge of many of the individual cats that we encounter on safari, and as such has begun guiding for the company as of the 2016 season while training the camp’s next full-time biologist, David.