Kenya

From the Middle East, we headed over to Africa.  Our first stop was Nairobi, Kenya where yet another one of Mike's business acquaintances had gotten us all set up.

A beautiful sunset enroute from Amman to Nairobi.

Mukesh and Bharti were amazing hosts.  They arranged everything for our stay in Kenya including a place to stay, a driver, a safari, meals, and lots of fun events.  They are second generation Indians living in Africa.  Many Indians came to Africa to help build the railroad, so now Kenya has a significant Indian population.  It was interesting to come to Africa and get more of an Indian experience than an African experience!

They had been invited to an Indian reception and asked if we could tag along.  We loved playing dress up in the Indian dress Bharti gave us. 

The reception is held the night before the wedding.  Bharti told us the reception is usually for a large group of people (5000!) but the wedding would be much smaller ("only" 500).  We stood in a long line to greet the bride and groom and their families and then ate a buffet dinner.

Speaking of marriage, the next day we visited the museum in Nairobi and love was in the air! (warning: rated PG-13)

First we were fascinated by all the excitement in the turtle area.

And then we gained some new snake knowledge.  Did you know it involves lots of twisting? :)

We were back to seeing baboons along the side of the road.  Even though I know they're terrible pests, it's still so much fun to see them run all along the road.

And this brought our trip full circle.  In Lithuania (in summer), we saw storks nesting everywhere.  By the time we reached the Netherlands in August, the storks had just left.  And now in Nairobi, we saw the storks "wintering".

We were told we had to visit the elephant orphanage.  About 60 baby elephants are being cared for until they're slowly able to be released into the wild.  The public is invited to come for an hour and watch their feeding, while the caretakers tell their individual stories.

There were wheelbarrows full of these giant bottles and the elephants would nearly run the guys down trying to get that bottle in their mouths.

The girls were so disappointed that they couldn't touch them, but then right at the end this little guy escaped under the rope and came over.

And the resident ostriches had to come over and see what all the commotion was about!

Then it was on to a giraffe feeding center.  Obviously a tourist trap, but a fun one!

OK, not sure which was grosser to me--the lick of the giraffe or holding that nasty food pellet in the mouth!

All those brave daughters, and then there was me...

I could hardly bring myself to feel that tongue on my hand, much less put the food in  my mouth

Way back when (in India...in January) we talked about our visit to DOOR International, an organization that does Bible teaching for the deaf.  They also have a location in Kenya, so on Sunday we drove over for a quick tour of their facility and a chance to join them in worship.

As in India, this facility is used to film the signing of Bible stories and to train groups of deaf missionaries to share these videos.  As I mentioned before, the deaf are considered one of the largest unreached people groups because most cannot read.

There's a significant deaf community that lives near the center, either because they work there or just because there's support for the deaf.  The church service is held in a community center nearby.  The  worship service was insightful and interesting and sometimes a little funny, but mostly inspiring.  First the funny.  People  were arriving late and I was getting a little irritated as they were just moving chairs around and making all kinds of noise and distracting me.  Then I realized--duh--the "noise" of the moving chairs is not a distraction for them.  And then it started to rain--cats and dogs!--on a tin roof!--but the teaching continued on.  Again, the only ones distracted by all that noise were us.

Songs were sung (signed) using a strong drum beat to keep the rhythm.  The signing made the words more beautiful and it was cool to see everyone swaying in rhythm to the vibration of the beat.

This man in blue gave the message.  Different members take turns reading the scripture and giving a few thoughts, but then the rest was completely participative.  They sit in a big circle so all can see the signing and then everyone contributes his or her thoughts.

It was also getting close to Diwali, a big Indian holiday.  Mukesh and Bharti took us to the community center to see the various contests.  There was a coloring contest for Happy Diwali cards, there was a contest for shrine-making (probably not the right term, but that's what it looked like to me), and then a contest for these colored powder designs:

They were for all different age groups, ranging from 5 years old up to adult.  The intricacy of even some of the ones done by the young children was amazing.  They have, I believe, 4 hours to complete their design within the square given them.

And then on Monday, it was time for our safari in the Maasai Mara National Reserve.  Samuel, our driver for the three days, picked us up in this fun safari vehicle!

Our safari had to be paid for in cash, the exchange is 100 Kenya shillings to $1, and the ATM would only give smaller bills.  The girls had fun organizing and playing with PILES of money.  Trina's quote:  "I just want to make it rain!"

We had about a 5 hour drive from Nairobi to Maasai Mara (mostly because much of it was rough dirt roads).  On the way we stopped to look out over The Great Rift Valley which runs from Lebanon all the way down to southern Africa.

At the entrance to the game reserve, we were met by all these Maasai women trying to sell their wares.  Funniest was when one of the women stuck a puppet right through the front window and scared me just a little.  Saddest was when they just wouldn't ease up and Mike nearly shut the window on a woman's hand.

When we arrived, we were shown to our "tent"--a very deluxe, pseudo-tent.  Trina was the only disappointed one:  "What? I thought they meant a real tent.  I love tents!"

She quickly moved beyond her disappointment.  This was such a fun place to stay!

Our safari included three different game drives.  Our first was a late afternoon one.  The weather was rainy and kept getting rainier.  I thought it would keep the animals hidden, but that was not the case.  We saw some amazing things!

The drivers all keep in contact, so shortly after our drive began we received word that Mr. and Mrs. Lion were lounging around.

And then this--the most amazing thing I saw!  This cheetah had just taken down a wildebeest.

Sad and there were a few tears--but the circle of life.

We saw many huge herds of wildebeests.  It didn't take long until the rain was causing little waterfalls everywhere.

We were cold and wet when we returned, but this lodge that thought of everything had a cozy fire waiting for us.

Before dinner, we had a little Maasai dance number.  These "warriors" demonstrated their dancing and also the high jumping they do to win their girlfriends--highest jumper wins.

This guy in purple, Emmanuel, works at the lodge and had met the girls earlier while working at the pool.  He pulled Trina and Faith in to join the dancing.

A new day and two more game drives--early morning and late afternoon.

Jackals lie in wait around the kills and finish what's left after the predator leaves.

Another lion!

There were maybe a dozen other vehicles out, but there was lots of space to spread out.  The only time we would see each other is when someone sent the word that there was an animal to see.

One of our favorites--this Mama Warthog with all her little babies skipping along behind her.

Hyena

Giraffes were scattered around everywhere and we never got tired of spotting them from a distance.

Yesss!  We looked long and hard for a hippo and finally were rewarded with this.

And then the leopard!

We were so glad the weather stayed clear for day two so we could pop the top!

Some of the beautiful birds tend to get overshadowed by the big game.

In between our game drives, we had the day to hang out at the lodge.  The girls sampled all they had to offer:

Archery

Swimming and the poolside ping pong table

Putt Putt Golf

This place was amazing--a huge buffet offering hundreds of options, attentive staff that knew us all by name.  They even prepared our rooms each night by placing hot water bottles in our beds and closing the shades and opening the mosquito nets.  We felt like royalty--a little different than our typical hostel stays.

Surrounding the game reserve are many Maasai villages.  Emmanuel gave us a Power Point presentation one night at the resort which taught us a lot about the villages.  This was on our drive out--waiting for these Maasai guys to move their herd off the road (and you can see how bad the roads were)

And then it was off to South Africa.  We were a little shocked when we stepped into the airport in Johannesburg and saw this huge Christmas tree.  First of all, the seasons tend to blur on this adventure.  But secondly, it was only November 4--so the US isn't the only place putting decorations up this early!