Where Kenya See Lions?

I touched a baby elephant yesterday.

Dave and I had been here for 6 days, so I guess Fr. Kamanzi decided it was time for us to see some of Kenya's famous wildlife. That is, other than the baboons that we see almost every day playing by the side of the road (I know, right?!). Happily, Nairobi National Park is located just minutes up the road.

Yesterday, the three of us went to the David Sheldrick Elephant and Rhino orphanage, housed by the park. Everyday from 11 to 12noon is feeding time, so people flock to a paddock and handlers guide the herds of baby elephants to the gathered crowd. These are some flipping cute animals. The run full-speed to the gargantuan baby bottles scattered around, and begin feasting immediately. Then the just kind of hang around, playing with each other and their handlers, being, well, elephant-ish. They're aged from 3 to 25 months, and all of them have been orphaned in the wild, mostly by poachers. (The rhinos didn't come out yesterday.)

This afternoon, Fr. Kamanzi, Dave, and I were once again on the prowl for big game. This time, we went to the Animal Orphanage at the park, and took a safari walk. The orphanage had all kinds of animals: monkeys, lions, cheetahs, leopards, warthogs, wild cats, hyenas, baboons, more lions, and more cheetahs. All of them were orphaned in the park and were rescued by rangers, but they will never be able to live in the wild again. For, like, a second I thought to myself "Huh, this is kind of like a zoo back home." But then I realized that A.) The animals are closer and friendlier, B.) All of these animals came from right here, and C.) Instead of peacocks, there are baboons positively everywhere, running amok. It was really a beautiful center. We went from the orphanage to the Safari Walk, which was kind of like an extension of the orphanage, in that the animals there were in pens and had also been orphaned in the Park, but there were some different really cool animals, like albino zebras, pygmy hippos, buffalo, turtles, and rhinos.

On Monday, we depart for Tanzania, and there are some major "Seeing Animals" plans in the works, but I don't want to give away any surprises. Be assured, this is not the last time you will read about East African wildlife!