Nakuru Day 2

Tuesday 25.01.11

This morning, after a freezing shower, I had some nice bread with butter for breakfast and then Olympus explained to me about the different animals that can be seen in the National Park from his front stairs with binoculars.  He pointed out the buffalo and also where the lions den is, although he has never seen a lion from his house.  I took over the binoculars and followed the tree line from the lions den and what did I see?!  A lion prowling through the grass after a herd of gazelle or similar animal.  By the time I had called Olympus excitedly and explained where I saw it, the lion had ducked down into the cover of the grass.

Finally Olympus spotted the lion and after initial disbelief he said “wow it’s not like a mzungu to break a record like that” which I thought was pretty funny.  Even later in the day he was still commenting at how surprised he was that someone had spotted a lion from that far.

Then Tammi and I headed into town to do some wholesale shopping at Gillani’s to get the orphanage up and running.  We got everything from baby powders, vaselines, biscuits, jams, butters, nappies, torches, batteries, candles, bowls, saucepan and much more all in bulk of at least 12 items and still it only came to $100!  Sometimes Kenya is just soooo cheap!

Then we caught a tuk tuk to Mission In Action finally.  The ride took nearly one hour, when it should usually be 20 or 30 minutes as we ran out of fuel 5 times and the driver had to keep push starting the tuk tuk, and after all that we even had to stop twice to refuel!

Martha and Ivan were so happy to see us, especially since I hadn’t been back for two years but Tammi had visited a fortnight ago with Tracy.  As most of the kids are at school now there are only 9 home during the day, so we said a quick hello and went upstairs to catch up with Ivan and Martha.  Damaris is still there too which was good to see and she is now the head carer.  We had a lovely lunch of mushrooms with spaghetti (soy) bolognaise.

By the time lunch was over the kids were all home from school so we headed downstairs to say hi.  They were of course so excited to have visitors as there aren’t any volunteers until mid February.  The kids have all grown so much since my last visit and have all picked up the concept that each of them has a few sponsors.  We walked around greeting everyone to cries of “are you my sponsor?” and “whose sponsor are you?” which was pretty funny!

Then I got to see Alex, who I actually am sponsoring, and he has grown so much.  He is walking and talking but was at first a little bit hesitant about approaching me but pretty soon would not leave my side.  He wanted hugs and to play ball.  Purity has grown too and has passed the stage of crying if she isn’t picked up.  It was great to see her wandering around independently on her own, and the other kids all take such good care of her.  She doesn’t talk much at all which is funny, but apparently she can!

Ivan took me over to Mission 2 or Mission In Action Nyota which is the other orphanage they took on when I was here last time.  It is still based out at Nyota but they have nearly finished building their new home out beside the new school so they will hopefully be moving in in about 3 months.

After promising the kids we would return tomorrow, we both squished onto the back of a motorbike out to the highway to catch a matatu back into town.  Once in town we met with Olympus and headed back to his place.  He prepared ugali for dinner which is a bit like damper with a spinach sauce and I am not a huge fan so I piked and stayed in our little hut and did some hand washing of my clothes and then went to bed.  It was well after midnight when Tammi got back to the room so I was glad I didn’t join them in the house for dinner!