Animals of Kenya

I've come across quite a few awesome animals here in Kenya, and thought I'd highlight a couple.

I went to the Kakamega Rainforest about a month back, Amber has the album on her facebook if you want to see some pics of that.  I took most of the pictures with my fairly small camera, but the one that was the best IMO was the random bull we found in a field outside the forest main - he wasn't very happy to see us, and I had to get within 15 feet of him to get a good, full picture since my zoom isn't the best.  I think he nearly charged me for that.

On one of my trips on the way home from Kakamega I saw a family of baboons on the side of the road just chillin.  Didn't have my camera though.

I went to Hell's Gate National Park at the end of April for the end of the school break, and boy was that something.

You can just walk around and see the wildlife without needing to be in a safari vehicle since there are no predators there.

I also went to Fisherman's cove, a small little camping spot next to Lake Naivasha, very close to Hell's Gate.  While setting up camp we encountered some monkeys that were not very shy, and I was surprised how close they would let us come.

We went out boating after that to see the birds and hippos around the lake.

Then our boat broke down.  As you can see from the clouds, a storm was rolling in... it was nearly dark, we were quite a distance from shore, and starting talking about life insurance and wills with each other before another boat came to tow us back to shore.

That's my "We're gonna drown if help doesn't come soon" face.

At the campsite there is an electric fence set up to keep the hippos from invading the campsite.  But apparently that doesn't deter them from grazing right next to it... about 30 feet from our tents.  It was too difficult to get shots in the dark, but let me tell you, there's nothing quite like seeing Africa's second most dangerous animal (a tip of my hat to the Malaria loving mosquitoes) that close to where you are preparing dinner.  Beautiful and somewhat nerve wracking.  Mostly awesome though.

This month has been really, really busy, trying to implement a lot of new ideas and establish a new "normal" routine at school.  I'll write all about it soon, but I know everyone loves pictures so I thought I'd throw a few up here in the meantime.

What's goin on?

I don't have a lot of time to be in town this weekend (where I can get internet), but I wanted to throw a couple little updates on here.

So, Rex almost ate of the new, young chickens William bought for the farm.  She wasn't hungry actually, she was stuffed with ugali, but she is super playful.  She even taunts cows while we walk to school, and I can only facepalm and apologize to the passing shepherds.  Thankfully she isn't actually very aggressive, just hyper-energetic due to being 8 months old or so.  Go figure.  So I'm taking her to school now, trying to both fatten her up from school lunch leftovers and keep her away from my poor chickens that can't keep up with her.  There is another dog at school that hangs around the kitchen, and me and her are good friends;  it's easy to befriend dogs in a country where everyone treats them like vicious beasts most of the time.  The first time I brought Rex to school last week, they nearly started fighting - they both thought they were protecting me from the other!  After some time, and a little strong-arming, they are tolerating each other now.

No lion updates, sorry.  When I went to Hell's Gate National Park a few weeks back, there were no predators so we could walk around the place and see zebras, giraffes and all that good stuff up close.  The new animal for the month of April was the Hippopotamus!  Haven't seen those before, especially so close up when we went boating on Lake Naivasha.  Good stuff.

My students are super stoked about all the new changes I've promised.  More experiments, soccer practice every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, a party if they do well at one of the competitions at the end of term, integrating grassroots soccer into life skills, and I'm opening up my house for visitors since we don't have an office for guidance and counselling as of yet.  At the end of my first HIV/AIDS education session for my Form 2s, one of my students quietly asked me if he could have my phone number to talk more about it.  I'd rather not start a precedent of handing out my number to students, but I invited to come to my home over the weekend to talk.  I'm definitely going to make an effort for the students to have a "safe place" to talk about things they don't feel comfortable talking about to friends and family normally.

I learned how to make "good" beans and rice by lightly frying the beans with tomato, onion, and green pepper!  That plus my regular pb+oatmeal will decrease my chances of starving to death due to pickiness/laziness : )  Seriously though, if I couldn't find peanut butter, I would probably be in trouble.

Next weekend I'll put up a real post with some answers to common questions I've gotten from family n friends at home.  What is the average Kenyan like, what kind of things do they have in their houses, stuff like that.

I'll post some pics and some more of whats goin on when I celebrate my birthday with Amber next week, since she has internet at home now.  I'll be 23 this friday!  Woo!  Of course, with my beard, Kenyans think I'm in my late thirties haha.  Nobody has beards here...