Crazy Weekend!!

This may or may not be a long post........don't say I didn't warn you :)






Hey, thank you for continuing to read!! My weekend has been anything but dull. Here is what happened:

Friday:
Woke up at around 6am, because I was supposed to be ready for 7. It was Court Day for 8 of the babies at Happy Lift. Basically what happens is that these babies need to be "committed" to Happy Life which means they can be adopted!!! We had an appointment at 8:30 so we wanted to leave at 7... well African's run on their own time, and Judy, the lady who was in charge of this, only arrived at 8:15. There is NO way we could get into town on time, in fact by the time we got all 8 ladies (each with one baby carseats are not necessary here...) and our driver into the van and got into the City Center through the crazy traffic it was 9:30. We got into the court and we were sitting on benches in the hallway waiting for an open slot because we obviously missed ours by an hour. Judy went and told someone that we had a sick baby (which we did, poor Jayden was feeling aweful) and they actually managed to fit us in earlier than expected!! I was thanking God for that. So it was about 11:30 when we got into the court room and our time in there was maybe 15 minutes. A man read off a baby's name, then the person holding that baby stood up. The judge "committed" each of them seperately and then we were outta there!! By this time though, it is lunchtime, which means lunchtime traffic, which was a nightmare with 8 hungry babies in one van. They did super well though!! Not even crying too much. We got back to HLCH around 1:45 and then I ate lunch and had a nap. After my nap though I was grouchy....which sucked, but I eventually decided to get over it and I wasn't grouchy anymore!!

Saturday:
Woke up at 5am because I was going on a day safari with PACU, which is a Christian university just next door. A man named Peter, who is studying to be a pastor, invited me to go along. I was the only Mzungu (white person) aboard the bus, which held about 60 of us. So any time I heard the word Mzungu, I knew that someone was talking about me.....and since white people are quite rare I suppose, I was the one that EVERYONE wanted to take pictures with, it was terrible. I have so many pictures of me with people that I don't even know!! And personally I am totally fine with being on the back side of a camera, but yesterday I had my fair share of being on the front side. Anyways, so we had breakfast at 5:30am at the University, which was chapati and a smokie and we were supposed to leave at 6, but we were off by 6:30. The drive was 3 1/2 hours, which was long on the bumpy roads and in a huge bus, but it was well worth it!! We went to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy which is a huge area, 9000 acres, of land where wild animal are. There is a fence around the outside and the chimpanzees are in a large fenced in area inside, but mostly the animals are in their natural habitat. The fence is to protect them and to stop poachers as well (which is illigal, but through corrupt systems it still happens). It was one of the coolest things!! We paid at the entrance, and then a guide hopped aboard our bus to tell the driver where to go. We started down the road/path and all of a sudden there are zebras and gazelle right to our left!!!

This picture is taken on the move, and that is why it is not clear :(

And then, to the right is this large giraffe!!!!! They are the coolest animals in the entire world. I freaked out, I was like "Oh my word, it's a giraffe!!!!!!!" in my "not-so-inside" voice...and then the tour guide came over to where I was and started getting upset that we were being so loud, and I'm like "story of my life..." hahahaha it was great!!

So we ended up seeing lots of zebras and gazelle, two elephants, three giraffe, some lions (but they were under a tree so we couldn't really see them), some deer like animals that weren't very interesting :), some really cute monkeys and lots of warthogs!!! Which are another sweet animal, because when they are just chilling and standing still, their tail is curled like a pig but when they start trotting it goes straight up in the air!!!!! It is JUST like Pumba in The Lion King. Cracked me up the first time I saw one. Another cool fact, in Swahili, pumba means worthog, simba means lion and nala means lioness!! Who knew The Lion King could teach me soooo much :)

Also, about their chimpanzees; they are from the Congo and it is the only place in Kenya where you can see them. They are very dangerous animals though!! One of them kept on throwing stones and sticks at us through the fence!! Man did I laugh!! Everyone else ran away from it, but I was too busy laughing at the chimp. One time, I was videotaping it, and I was the only one on the ground, everyone else had went up to the watch platform thing to get away. So I was videoing it, because it was trying to throw stuff up at everyone, when all of a sudden it saw me and realized I was there and it whipped a stick at me!! It missed me by about 5 inches, but it was the coolest experience :) And then one of the bigger ones came out of the bushes to where we were, and he was showing off, so he would run back and forth at the fence pounding his feet one the ground and making chimp noises. Waaaaaay better than then ones at the zoo I can tell you that.

We had some lunch there, and I got to chat with three girls, which was awesome. I met so many new people and they all know my name and are constantly trying to talk to me. It was great fun. I felt very welcome by everyone. We got home around 9:30pm and I was exhausted!!! and I have this feeling that I will have lots more facebook friends by the time I leave here.

Sunday:
Sunday I was up at 8am, like any normal day here. Fed the babies in the morning and then by 10:30 we were with Tim, our taxi driver. We went to the Nairobi National Park today, which was pretty cool, except we didn't see too many things, which was a rip off for $30..but it was fun with Leanne and Sharon (two ladies who are volunteering here as well).  After the park we went to a market type place which was really cool and a nice restaraunt where my seafood meal was served inside a crab shell!!!

It was a really tasty meal :) It was nice to have some cheese, as I can't seem to find any to buy here. After lunch, we went to the Nairobi National Museum, which was way more interesting than I thought. We got back to HLCH around 6:30pm so it was a nice day. Fed the babies around 8:15 to 9:40, and got severely puked on!!! That was absolutely nasty.....poor Sophie though, because she is sick. I also got to Skype my momma and Sheila, Zoee, Keenan and Rhiya tonight!! That was super awesome :)

Lots of the babies are sick right now, with the flu I think and when one of them gets the bug, it just seems to pass around to each of the babies. If you could pray for them that would be awesome!! There are 13 babies in Infant A (12 at the moment because one is in the hospital)

• Sophie (who puked on me today...)
• Hannah (who is currently in the hospital)
• Jayden (who is in the process of recovering from malnutrition)
• Edward (the youngest baby)
• Jewel
• Trevor
• Precious
• Leanne
• Micah
• Tai
• Reuben (the oldest in this room)
• Tendai
• Cathy

I am in Infant A the most, and I have not learned the names of all the other babies and kids, but I will let you know when I do!!! Please keep these 13 babies in your prayers as they are sick. And also the other kids too please :)

I am thanking God for safety this weekend as I was on the road a decent amount of time and he has brought me safely back!!! Also I am sleeping well which is a real blessing.

One more thing, I was chatting with my nephew Keenan earlier and he told me 72 more days until I am home. I think my neices and nephews are looking forward to me coming home a lot more than I am...haha, but I suppose they aren't experiencing what I am either!!

Thank you for reading, and may God bless you and keep you and may He shine His face upon you.

Love: Rach :)