Jenn P

Okay, so I've been home for several days now, but the blog is unfinished and has been weighing heavily on my mind (well, a little bit). There's really not much to say, but here goes. Wednesday was a pretty easy day. I just re-read it and it's only a couple paragraphs, but we didn't really do anything spectacular, so I'm just going to leave it. Thursday - our final day in Africa. After being able to sleep in again, somewhat (we're in the middle of the city and the hotel is under renovations, so it's pretty noisy in the mornings), I made sure everything was packed and then we all moved our stuff into Todd and Heather's room for the rest of the day. That way we could check out of our other rooms, yet still ... read more

Monday – more safari. Our morning game drive was a wake-up call to everyone else. We had neglected to tell everyone how cold it is in the morning as you’re driving across the park, it wasn’t on purpose, but Heather and I had to learn the hard way, so I wasn’t necessarily generous with my info. So most of them weren’t too impressed with the drive. A lot more antelope, zebras, elephants. We saw a hippo crossing the plain from its night spot in the bush back to the river for the day and several hyenas wandering around, looking suspicious and up to no good. The impala kill and leopards were nowhere to be seen. But then we came across a huge troop of baboons (Kristina’s not really a fan of monkeys and apes anymore) and ... read more

The “project” portion of our trip is over, so now all we have to do is relax and have even more fun right? That was the plan for Saturday, but, well, you all know how plans are in Africa. We’d said goodbye to most of the clowns already, and Jane was next to leave, back to the UK, on Saturday morning. The rest of us, the 6 Edmontonians, Meryl, Elisabeth and Sue, headed off to explore Nairobi. Heather still wasn’t feeling very well, stomach cramps and diarrhea, but she wasn’t about to miss out on the day, so she rallied and we were off. First stop was the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust aka Elephant Orphanage. We got there a little early so had to wait in the sun. The babies were cute as always, but they don’t ... read more

Well, I’m almost a week behind in writing. It’s just been so much busier and fun than I anticipated, so it’s hard to sit down at the end of every day to write. I’m even farther behind in my personal journal. Oh well, I’ll have this to remember the important stuff. So where was I?? Wednesday?? Morning started out the same. But by about 10, a bunch of the grandmothers and mothers of our kids came by. The clowns had said that they would have liked to have had the chance to spend more time with the grandmothers on Sunday, so this was a way to make up for that, although it had already been planned. Todd said a few words and then we got to the task at hand – handing out a ton of ... read more

Okay, so I have 3 very full days to cover, so I’ll do my best, or just leave some for later. Each day feels like 2 – we do so much in the morning, and then another full afternoon that when we’re talking around the supper, we refer to things we did more than 4 hours ago as being yesterday. Today is actually Wednesday, and we’re all getting very tired, some of us are getting a little sick, but we only have one more day, so we’re all going to push on – we can rest on the long drive home on Friday. But I digress..... So our first day in Bumala was a walking tour of the countryside. But first we had to visit the school, show the clowns where we'd be spending the rest ... read more

Hello Hello, I am not going to apologize for the delay in posting because if I set that precedent, every posting will have to start with an apology. I have a couple days to catch up on but I will do my best. Just so you know the players in this saga, I am travelling with a non-profit group that I am involved in, One Child’s Village that was started by my Uncle Todd. If you want more info, check out www.onechildsvillage.org. So this trip is with my Uncle Todd, my cousin Whitney, and fellow volunteers Heather, Kristina and Kamal (later to be known by his last name Chetty). Our first bump in the road was at the Edmonton Airport – yep, we didn’t get very far. We’re blaming Kristina, as every flight she’s had that’s ... read more

I had a good night's sleep and woke up way before my 8am wake up call. That's great and all, but the 2 things I wanted to do for the day don't open until much later, so I kind of lazed around. I spoke to our Nairobi travel agent and we (i.e. he) decided it would be best for me to have a driver for the day. That way I wouldn't have to try to find a reliable taxi back to the hotel, and I wouldn't be wasting that time as well. So Sylvester picked me up a little after 10 and we planned our day. The first thing I wanted to do was go back to the Elephant Orphanage. I absolutely love elephants, adore baby elephants, it's a super cheap entry fee and it's only ... read more

Today was only a semi-early morning. We had breakfast, had a ‘discussion’ with reception as I needed my room for one more night and our travel agent had misunderstood our various itineraries, Charles arrived at our hotel at 8:30 and then we were off to the Mercy Children’s Centre, Kawangware branch. Mercy Children’s Centre was started several years ago by Charles, Pius who we met in Kisumu, and an American couple. The original school is in the slum of Kawangware here in Nairobi. As it’s near impossible to buy land in the city, they’ve rented several residential units in group that kind of form a compound. Problems are, the landlord keeps raising the rent, he keeps putting up more units, which is slowly taking the play area away, and the units that we do have possession ... read more

We headed out just after 6am for our final game drive. Again, it was just the three of us - Noreen went on a balloon ride to see the animals, and our married couple decided to sleep in again. On the agenda for the day were lions, the mother and baby rhino again, hippos and crocodiles. We started out with a lot of driving around, seeing the same usual animals. Looked for the rhinos for a few minutes before giving up. Came across a pile of vans, so we had to check it out - turns out it was two male lions, probably the same two brothers we saw on Monday, finishing up their breakfast. We were too far away, and the meal was too far done, to tell what it had been, but they looked ... read more

A personal wake up call at 5:45 (the tents don’t have telephones) to start off the day, along with the sounds of birds chirping, etc. A quick cup of tea and the 3 of us were off for our morning game drive. Today we had Anthony. We thought William had been a good guide, knowing where the rhino was, saving the lion for last, but Anthony was much more talkative and told us more about the park and the animals. Right outside the lodge gate was a herd of elephants. Good morning. We saw a lot of the same animals - zebras, wildebeests, a Hart beast which apparently is hard to get a good shot of because they turn away and show the “backside of Africa” but we got some head shots, some topis, some water ... read more