A Visit to the Giraffe Park, etc.

Yesterday was a very full day! It started out with several of the secondary girls heading off for their second school term of the year. The girl we sponsor, Maggi, is now back at her school, Excel. It was a fond farewell, as it’s not likely I’ll see her again before I return to the US - and Rick certainly won’t, since he leaves tonight.













We and the Humphreys took 12 of the younger girls to the Nairobi Giraffe Park, on the way dropping the secondary girls off in Karen so they could catch a matatu to their schools. The Giraffe Center is a reserve for giraffes where the animals are quite acclimated to people and are happy to get up close and personal with visitors as the staff doles out hands full of pelleted feed that the animals apparently find delectable. We and the girls had great fun offering the food on outstretched palms while the giraffes delicately transported the pellets into their mouths with their very long prehensile tongues!

After we had fed giraffes until the center wouldn’t give us any more feed, the girls enjoyed an engaging lecture (in Kiswahali, of which we didn’t understand one word except for ‘simba’ - remember Tarazan?) about the different giraffe sub-species, their distribution, life cycle, enemies, etc. Then they all got their faces painted. The fellow who did the face painting was marvelous, quite the artist, and had all 12 painted up in less than a half hour. Above is a picture of all the painted faces!





By then it was lunch time, so we took everyone for - guess what! - pizza! The pizza and soft drinks were a big hit. The girls drank so much pop I’m surprised we didn’t have to make at least one potty stop on the way back to Hekima!



Since Rick is leaving tonight, last night was his Hekima Place farewell celebration. The girls and mums made lovely speeches (even one of the 2 year-olds). There was cake and ice cream and a gift of a beautiful CD of African praise songs by the Hekima Place girls and the St. Louise choir (from Pittsburgh). Everyone seems really to have appreciated his presence, his hard work, and the example he has set as a wonderful husband and ‘papa’ to all the girls. Nobody is ready for him to leave, most especially not me!