I am writing this with about an hour and a half to go as we head toward London on British Airways Flight 64. We are nearing Italy, traveling at 36,000 feet above the ocean at 533mph. I have managed to sleep for almost 5 hours since being served a late night dinner after our 11:50pm Nairobi takeoff. What a blessing to sleep so well on a plane! It is a sign that I was pretty tired from both the great week we had and the big Saturday full of non-stop activity we just had completed.
Our day started with being
picked up by our driver Steven at 6am to head for the safari, since you need to
be early to get a chance at seeing the nocturnal animals at the end of their
overnight shift. We all had to get
packed up Friday night since we would not be returning to Rosa Mystica at the
end of the day. I also had Pastor
Kevin’s carry-on, since he would be in meetings downtown and we could more
easily get it to the Daughters of St. Joseph compound than he could. We drove across town in light traffic and
arrived at the Game Park in about half an hour.
Steven went in and helped me arrange for admission for our group and the
van. Residents, the driver and tour vans
get in very cheaply, but non-residents pay about $50 each after all is said and
done. It was worth every penny. Linda
and I both had our 55-300mm zoom lenses mounted on our DSLR cameras and Billy
brought up the rear with my loaner Nikon point and shoot camera. That was a good mix, because our zoom lenses
are great for tight animal photos, but they can’t capture the broad vistas that
we see at the park. And, the little
camera has a 5x zoom, so it had some flexibility as well. I can’t wait to see all of the pictures from
the entire trip and from this safari.
We began to see the animals and
birds almost immediately upon entry to the park. It’s about 220 acres and has many dirt roads
to take you to all sections that are on either side of the Nairobi River. During the rainy season, the animals are more
spread out and on higher ground. When
it’s dry, they are more concentrated at the lower elevations where the
remaining water exists. We were not too
far into the park when Linda was all excited as we saw two female adult lions
and the youngest cub I’ve encountered in all of my safaris. They were laying on the ground, occasionally
raising up to look around or they might have picked up the scent of their next
unsuspecting prey. The cub yawned a lot
and was very cute. Next we saw a species
of stork that I am going to need to research as I post the pictures of it on
the blog. It had an orange beak, orange knees
and stunning yellow between its eyes. We
got some fantastic close-ups of it. I
had never seen one of these, so I can add it to my growing list of species. During the rest of the morning, we also
encountered giraffes, zebras, hartebeests, water buffalo, elands, rhinos,
baboons, secretary birds, gazelles, vultures and many, many more species of
birds and animals. One noteworthy
incident was when we saw 3 or 4 water buffalo running toward our matata and
quickly realized a rhino was chasing them.
Each of these species is HUGE, so it was a sight to behold. We took the customary walk down a nature trail
with an armed park ranger, hoping to see the big crocodile that resides there
or maybe some hippos, both of which we have seen in the river on past
trips. It wasn’t to be, since the river
was pretty low. We did see some large
turtles, a lizard and the sheep and goats that the Masai that sell souvenirs on
the other side of the bridge have in their herds. It was a beautiful morning that started out
cool and cloudy, maybe in the upper 60’s and ended at around 75 degrees and
sunny. After the safari, we went to the
Veranda restaurant and had a wonderful lunch.
Billy and I got fried prawns (shrimp, for you Texans!) and Linda had
vegetarian lasagna. We shopped for
souvenirs there in the attached gift shops until 3pm and then headed for
Nakumatt, where we needed to buy 45 soft drinks for the team members returning
from the field. This was at Catherine’s
request, since she and Shara had gotten tied up at a wedding. Our driver Steven
and I went in and made an assortment with the help of a store employee and when
we got to the register there were only 44 bottles. They already had 45 in their minds at the
register, so our friendly store clerk ran all the way back to cooler in the
rear of the store to retrieve one more. I’m
not sure they could have subtracted one drink without starting all over and
scanning every bottle again, as they did the first time. We made friends with everyone in line, which
is the Kenyan way. Waiting is a way of
life, so you might as well make it a party.
I like this custom. Catherine had
one of the other drivers get 9 pizzas, so the late afternoon meal came off
without a hitch right at 4pm as planned.
We spent the next three hours getting our footlocker packing finalized,
talking to members of the other teams and finally having an evening
devotion. We all shared two or three
stories from our week, some were funny, a lot more were moving. I will share some of these when I’ve had some
time to reflect on this trip.
The long range forecast for our
trip had called for rain every day and we escaped without seeing a drop. This
was good for our eye clinic, where we ended with an official count of 1,644
patients and 104 people either coming to Christ for the first time or wanting
to consult with our pastor. A good
clinic by most measures and a real miracle, since after the Westgate Mall
incident, we weren’t sure if the trip would make and if it did, we had no idea
until literally the last minute where we would be serving.
I am now at Heathrow, after an
incredibly smooth landing. We could
barely feel the plane touch down. I got
torn apart in security with my autorefractor, as did several others. They swabbed it and tested for explosives,
since it is an electronic device with several lithium ion batteries in the case
with it. This caused me about a 15
minute delay, but we have plenty of time between flights and once again I
thanked the authorities for keeping us safe.
Just another Dave going through security story, which seems to be a
recurring theme on this trip. Other
people in the long line for second screenings of items didn’t handle it quite
so well and paid with more scrutiny and aroused bad attitudes all around. This trying to “treat people like Jesus would
thing” really seems to be working for me!
We will be leaving for Houston around 10:30am London time and should
arrive at Bush International Airport around 2:30 pm Houston time after about a
10 hour flight. It will take about an
hour and a half to clear Customs and Immigration if the past is a guide. Tammy will be picking up Pastor Kevin with
their truck and they will be taking most of the footlockers back to
Redeemer. I’ll take some empty ones and
the autorefrators back home and will get them over to Redeemer sometime
Monday. I really don’t like driving back
alone, since around 6pm I start to fade fast.
That’s 2am in Nairobi and my body will be telling me that it needs to be
asleep. I am very good at pulling over
for a 20 minute trucker’s nap, which I’ll do if necessary. I should be home somewhere between 7 and 8pm.
That’s about all for now. Our Internet access was very iffy the last
part of the week and the bandwidth when it was up was only good enough for
plain text or simple emails. Pictures were not an option. I’ll begin organizing the team’s photos on
the flight home and hope to have the first of the pictures linked to this blog
early in the week. Within a week, I hope
to have the best of the best, maybe 400 pictures, in the album for you to
see. I will continue writing about this
trip for the foreseeable future and, as usual, will write a reflection on what
this trip meant to me and the team once it has sunk in for a while.
To God Be the Glory! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. We felt them half way around the world.
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