Kenya, August 22
It’s been another lovely day in Kenya. Uncle Daryll and Aunt Verna picked us up at our hotel this morning in time to take us to the Elephant Orphanage. The roads in Kenya are very bumpy, and the traffic is pretty crazy. It seems to take us forever to get anywhere. Fortunately, Uncle Daryll is a great chauffeur, and he has gotten us everywhere safely.
The Elephant Orphanage is a non-profit organization that takes in baby elephants who have lost their mothers and raises them until they are old enough to go out into the wild on their own (about ten years). The keepers act as a family for the elephants, and as such, the commitment to the elephant orphanage is rather long.
Elephants live to be about sixty. They have six sets of teeth, and when they lose their last set, they starve to death. This is considered a natural death for an elephant. When fully grown, they are twelve to fourteen feet tall and between five and seven tons. The oldest elephant currently in the orphanage is twenty-four months.
After leaving the elephant orphanage, Uncle Daryll and Aunt Verna took us to African Nazarene University, the place where they work. African Nazarene University is a Christian university in Nairobi. Uncle Daryll is a professor of theology and education, and Aunt Verna teaches health. The university seems to be a thriving learning community. While we were visiting, a conference called Africa Ablaze with seminars for young people was going on. We sat in briefly on a seminar for AIDS/HIV education, a very important topic in sub-Saharan Africa.
Our next stop was the Giraffe Center where we got the opportunity to feed giraffes. Dave especially enjoyed this visit. I found having a giraffe suck on my hand a little strange, but they are really pretty animals, and I really enjoyed seeing them up-close. Their tongues are coarse and long, and they didn’t appreciate being petted unless you were feeding them. If they didn’t want you close to them, they would try to head-butt you. I had a near miss with that, as did Dave and Aunt Verna.
Our last stop for the day was a cool restaurant called Rangers near the Safari Walk. We enjoyed good food and good conversation before heading back to the hotel for the night. We leave early tomorrow morning for Mombasa, a town along the coast.
The Elephant Orphanage is a non-profit organization that takes in baby elephants who have lost their mothers and raises them until they are old enough to go out into the wild on their own (about ten years). The keepers act as a family for the elephants, and as such, the commitment to the elephant orphanage is rather long.
Elephants live to be about sixty. They have six sets of teeth, and when they lose their last set, they starve to death. This is considered a natural death for an elephant. When fully grown, they are twelve to fourteen feet tall and between five and seven tons. The oldest elephant currently in the orphanage is twenty-four months.
After leaving the elephant orphanage, Uncle Daryll and Aunt Verna took us to African Nazarene University, the place where they work. African Nazarene University is a Christian university in Nairobi. Uncle Daryll is a professor of theology and education, and Aunt Verna teaches health. The university seems to be a thriving learning community. While we were visiting, a conference called Africa Ablaze with seminars for young people was going on. We sat in briefly on a seminar for AIDS/HIV education, a very important topic in sub-Saharan Africa.
Our next stop was the Giraffe Center where we got the opportunity to feed giraffes. Dave especially enjoyed this visit. I found having a giraffe suck on my hand a little strange, but they are really pretty animals, and I really enjoyed seeing them up-close. Their tongues are coarse and long, and they didn’t appreciate being petted unless you were feeding them. If they didn’t want you close to them, they would try to head-butt you. I had a near miss with that, as did Dave and Aunt Verna.
Our last stop for the day was a cool restaurant called Rangers near the Safari Walk. We enjoyed good food and good conversation before heading back to the hotel for the night. We leave early tomorrow morning for Mombasa, a town along the coast.
posted by Lindsay | 1:43 PM
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