By APRIL BERESFORD

February 6, 2011

Getting up at 05:00 was really rough, but I was so excited about going on a real African safari that I was ready to go in about 25 minutes. The elevation in Nairobi is significantly higher than Ndalani and yatta, so it was much cooler this morning. I actually broke out a sweatshirt. The safari vans picked us up at 06:00 and, in two separate vans, our group headed over the Nairobi National Park (NNP). The roof on the van pops up so we were able to stand up straight and view the serenghetti without a window pane. On our way to the NNP, we drove past a bad accident. A man was laying in the middle of the road, half undressed with a couple of Nairobi medics trying to care for him as traffic carefully drove around and continued on it's way. By the look of the accident, he was driving in our same direction but for one reason or another lost control and flipped his vehicle in the ditch separating the lanes of traffic going east and west. The car was trashed.

Once we arrived at the NNP it didn't take us long to find the animals. Our van had five people: Kayley, Anita, Karli, Marijo and myself. We had plenty of room to manuver around for the perfect snapshots. My camera was still acting funny and making an odd sound in between photos, and I was just praying that I'd get some good photos out of this. Who knows if and when I'll ever get to go on safari ever again? We saw water buffalo, herds of zebras, giraffes, ostrich, gazelles, warthogs, colorful birds, impalas, babboons, elots, and a huge black rhinosaraus. It was totally surreal. One of the moments that will stand out in my mind is how close we got to a live, wild African lion! We were about 20 yards away, and he was watching us with laser-like intensity. He was totally unimpressed and just watched us with curiosity, but his stare was icy cold. I was in awe. There was a car that pulled up behind us and started overheating, so the driver got out to pop his hood and look at it not knowing that there was a lion just beyond the tall patch of grass. My heart was in my throat as we shouted at him to "GET BACK IN THE CAR!!!". By the time the lion stood up, he had dove back into his car. Oooooh... close! Just an hour later, when we were trying to zoom in on a black rhino behind a tree, a car full of (stupid) men pulled up and GOT OUT and started walking toward the rhino to get a better photograph. Again, we were screaming for them to get back in the car and they were so pissed off that we were yelling at them that they actually came up to our driver and started picking a fight with him. They are soooo lucky that the rhino decided to run away. With 30 yards between them and their vehicle, there was no way that if the rhino decided to charge after them that they would have survived the attack. Some people are so unbelievably dumb!

The weird part about the location of the NNP is that it borders Nairobi. If you look out in one direction, you can see the serenghetti go on forever and ever. Turn around a hundred and eighty degrees and you can see buildings and condos. Angela was telling us that a couple of times a year one of the carniverous cats wanders onto the campus of Nairobi University. They actually have a "lion on campus" drill where everyone runs into the first available building. That just blows my mind. We drove around the NNP all morning, then when our safari tour ended our driver took us to a Masai tribal gift shop. It was small little shop with lots of handmade bracelets, masks (those frighten me), wood-carved animals, and other souveniers. No doubt that the driver had some sort of contract or agreement with these guys. It was all severely overpriced. After that place, we went to Kazuri, a small shop that employs over 200 women to make handmade jewelry to sell around the world, and I bought a pretty pair of earrings. By then we were really hungry. We went to the Karen Blixen coffee plantation restaurant. After doing some research, I found that Karen was a British citizen that moved to Nairobi with her family to run a large coffee plantation in the early 1900's. It was restored recently and converted into a REALLY nice restaraunt with quaint little tables set all throughout the restored home and around the lush green yard. Where just hours earlier we were hard pressed to find any white-skinned people in Nairobi, this place was filled with white ex-patriots from the USA and Europe. The food was AWESOME! They had a curry lunch buffet set up outside on a long linnen-lined table and I helped myself three times and sucked down two Coca -Colas. (Matt dislikes curry, so I had to get my fill!) It was a bargain at just $18.00 American. Yummy!!!

After all that excitement, we had a few hours of 'down time' at the hotel to relax before heading back to the airport. Jen and I sat outside and chatted for a while, then while she took a nap I went for a swim with Kayley. In a pool full of about 200 people, we were the only white folk and we stuck out like a sore thumb. It's so interesting to be the focus of all the curious stares, to be the foreigner. Mostly it's just the kids that stare. The pool felt great. It's SO hot outside! I'm so far removed from the Michigan winter happening at home that I just can't remember how cold snow feels. At 18:30 (6:30pm) our bus came to pick us up and take us and our baggage to the airport. One last ride across Nairobi. Charles followed us in his blue Isuzu and got caught in a cop-trap set up outside the aiport. The police here set up checkpoints to check tags and registration right in the middle of the road. They pull cars over randomly and try to find something 'illegal'. Charles got pulled over. In Kenya, the police officer does not issue the ticket on site, he escorts the offender to the police station. Charles was allowed to bring Phil and his bags up to the airport but was escorted away after bidding us "goodbye". (We later find out that his offense, having slightly expired license plate tags, was forgiven once the chief of police realized who Charles Mulli was. In a country the size of Texas, Charles is quite famous for his good works!)

One one hand, I can't wait to get home and throw my arms around my husband and kids, and sleep in my own bed. (You know, that spot on the left side that is the exact size and shape of ME? And my super-fluffy pillow!) But the other side of me knows that I am going to miss Kenya. A lot. As I write this, it is 04:21am Michigan time (12:21pm Kenya time) and we just flew over Scotland. the flight from Nairobi to Amsterdam was OKay, and I actually slept for 5 hours of the 8.5 hour flight. We flew over Africa in the darkness, overnight, so even though I finally scored a window seat I saw nothing but vast black darkness. We had a 2.5 hour layover in Amsterdam, and now we are on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. All I was able to see was a smidge of the lush green and rocky coastline of Scotland, and now it's just miles and miles of ocean. The morning sunrise took almost an hour, as we are flying through the longest day in history; we are taking the day with us as we travel west. Just six more hours until we land in the USA, a quick 90-minute layover in Detroit, and I am homebound to Grand Rapids again. I'm so excited to see my family!!!

This has been an amazing adventure, to say the very least. I hope that, by taking lots of photos and journaling a lot of my thoughts and feelings, that I can remember this forever. And I can't wait to share it with friends and family. I have grown so much on this trip - personally, professionally, and spiritually. I have been happy, devastated, disturbed, joyful, satisfied, frustrated, hopeful and sad and everything in between. I want to come back soon, and do it all over again, and hopefully bring Matt with me. I never want to forget the people here, the things we did here, or the lessons I have learned. But I also can't wait to get home....