I've been in Africa for over 2 months now, and I FINALLY got to see some exotic animals. Today consisted of going to the elephant orphanage, where people are allowed to go for one hour a day to see the baby elephants (along with a couple rhino) that have been orphaned. This facility raises the elephants, and then when they are old enough, they take them to Tsavo National Park and release them back into the wild. You can also 'adopt' an elephant, which means that by making a small donation, you get email updates on how your elephant is doing, pictures...etc. AND, the best part is, if you adopt one, you get to come back when no one else is allowed in and 'put your elephant to bed.' Which means you get to go and watch them come in from ranging out in the park and watch them getting their bedtime snack, and pet them and all that good stuff. That is what the above video is from-the elephants coming back to sleep for the night. All of those are under the age of 2, and they are all orphans. I adopted Lesanju, who was born Sept. 5th, 2006 and was 4 weeks old when she was orphaned. She fell down a sandy well dug for cattle in the seasonal river bed of the Milgis Lugga and was recued by the Samburu people. You will see some more pictures of her if you follow the link below to all my pictures.....
After the elephant orphanage, I went to the Giraffe Center, which is also in Nairobi. I can't even begin to describe how cool that was. You could feed the giraffes, and they would take it from wherever you offered it. Yes, I had to be cool like everyone else and put the feed pellet in between my lips and have the giraffe kiss me. I don't have a good picture of it, but I can say that I have 'kissed' a giraffe. And I found out the answer to a burning question asked by a 1 year old....giraffes hardly make any noise at all. They will grunt every once in a while, but they do not make noises like other animals do. None of them made a sound the whole time I was there. They didn't have any giraffes for me to adopt there, but I would have if they would have let me. I wanted to bring one home for Grandma Pralle, but sorry grandma...they wouldn't let me do that either.
At both places there were also warthogs just running around like they owned the place. And if any of you would like a short Swahili lesson, here you go: pumbaa means warthog (even I knew that...thanks to the Lion King!), twiga is a giraffe, and ndovu or temba means elephant. I kept waiting for the warthogs to break out in a rousing rendition of 'Hakuna Matata', but they didn't. But, in case you were wondering, yes that is an actual phrase that people use here. They are very much like Hawaiians...very laid back...'no worries'.
Below is the link to the pictures from Kenya...I may end up taking just a few more, because we don't leave until Wednesday, but these are the majority of them. Enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/acstrat55/Kenya
4 comments:
Very cool baby. I loved the video...and I'm sure that was you in the back ground going "awwwwww"
You can tell the giraffe if he kisses my girl one more time I'm going to turn him into a pair of shoes!!!!
:-)
Great photos! I can't decide which one to use for the Christmas card. Why do the baby elephants have blankets? It can't be that cold there. The millipedes looked disgusting. Do they crunch when you step on them?
I'm sure I might have uttered an "awwwww"... (or 2 or 3 of them :-)
It actually does get cold here. Nairobi is up at around 5,000 feet, so the climate is much like Denver in the summertime. The smaller elephants haven't built up their immune system yet since they didn't get the colostrum from the mom, so they are predisposed to getting pneumonia. That is why they put the blankets on them, so they don't get sick.
I tried not to step on the millipedes...I don't know if they crunched, but they really stink when they get chopped in half.
Those pictures remind of that old John Wayne movie, Hatari! Love those babies. I so wish I could be there with you to experience all of this. What an adventure you are having. :)
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