So another week gone by, it’s only been two so far…yet already feel as if I have been here for months.
Being so well looked after by Paul and Alison, it really is a blessing that they are so willing (!!) to look after me!
So what a weekend of animal encounters! On Friday, knowing that the next day we would be journeying to Amboseli National Park, we visited the Kenyan Wildlife Service (the opposite side of town, a bit like trying to get from Marylebone to Barbican on a Saturday morning…a journey I know far too well…). Here you can pay for the national park fees in advance by putting the money onto a swipe card. A bit like topping up your mobile phone. Anyway, the KWS is situated in the Nairobi National Park and within the NNP there is an animal orphanage. WELL! I just couldn’t contain myself and so Alison and I headed into the animal orphanage. I was assured there wouldn’t be too many babies there - I would get far too mushy and want to take them all home with me which wouldn’t be the best idea - and in fact it is a home for animals that for various reasons are unable to survive in the wild.

We worked our way round the usual lions, blue-bollocked monkeys (they don’t show those on Monkey Business do they now!!) and a menagerie of Crowned Cranes. We got to the cheetahs den (I love cheetahs just to add) and the keepers asked if I wanted to go into the enclosure! I thought ‘hmmm let me think about this one….ER YES!’ and I got to go in with a nervous Alison behind me whilst the cheetah ruffled its head wanting to have its rather large tummy tickled (just like my own cats only 7 times bigger). I was not nervous around the cheetahs – I figured that they were hand reared from cheetah cubs and despite being fully grown with rather large canines they were still winding round the keepers legs. SO CUTE anyway we came back at feeding time and got to go in again and I started stroking this GORGEOUS animal and she was purring away (somewhat louder than my tabby cats at home…) and rubbing her head up against my leg. AAAHHHH highlight of my life.

So then yesterday we went to Amboseli National Park as Paul was entertaining a colleague over from the UK. We just went for the day (which involved two 3-hour drives there and back) but it was spectacular. Amboseli is known for its very large population of Elephants. Over 600 in all, and the park is only a third of the size of the Mara. It is actually an extension of the Serengeti – it is just called something different because of the border with Tanzania, hence the Mara and Amboseli not being called the Serengeti. It was so surreal to be standing out of a landrover window (which, ok, is pretty uncomfortable but you get the best photos…) and staring at this MAHOOSIVE big Elephant only 3 metres from your car. We also managed to spot a cheetah (although not a cuddly one I guessed, as it was wild…) and a hippo, as well as your usual gazelle, buffalo, zebra, ostrich etc

Amboseli is normally a very dry park – indeed it has a Lake Amboseli which apparently only has water in it after the rainy season (which comes in March). The pictures of brown dry and arid grassland was just a picture yesterday and not reality. The place was full of water, many of these brown fields of grassland/savannah were turned into luscious green landscapes – with some areas totally flooded and full of happy hippos. One road eventually got closed off as we watched a safari vehicle attempt to drive through a massive mud patch on the track and get stuck. You couldn’t overtake because the side of the tracks (which are built as causeways, higher than the ground) were boggy and water-laden so you’d just get stuck in that in trying to overtake.
I took over 200 photos CRINGE because my camera has that great multi-shot function. I got some awesome photos, and of this I am seriously glad. Being so close to wild animals in their natural environment is just magical. And despite the vast quantity of people who go on safari, the expanse of land enables you to just get away park your car and just sit watching these great big Elephants come lumbering up towards you..


On an even happier note, Alison received a reply to her newsletter from a chap who knows someone who runs a charity out here in Nairobi. Talk about coincidence. He and his wife work with street children and provide education etc (is the idea I am getting from what I have heard already). Anyway he plus a delegation from the UK have flown out THIS weekend to Kenya and we are going to get in contact – he has in fact offered that I could go and work with the people that have come over from Britain, at the local school in Nairobi. I was struggling to know what to do decision wise, whether I was to go back and try again with Chagaik or whether something better would actually surface as a result of the chaos. I sent a prayer request email on Friday and LOOK!! It really does work this whole Christian thing eh?! No promises yet, but it is a hopeful opportunity to replace the disappointment of Chagaik.