Elephants, zebras, and wildebeest, oh my!

This weekend was spent traveling out into the savannah and going on a safari! We all had an absolutely incredible time. But before I get to that, let's talk about the orphanage that we went to on Thursday.

There are so many orphanages in this area (I'm sure it's this way all across Africa), and some of them are very well-run and take good care of the children, while others are not so fortunate and end up having malnourishment or other issues with the children. We visited one of the better run orphanages that is near TCDC to learn about how it is handled and also to spend some time playing with the children. When we got there, the kids and babies were just waking up from their naps, so we slowly started interacting with the sleepy heads as they came out to meet us. They warmed up to us pretty quickly, and we played and played with them for a couple of hours. 

The kids loved playing with us and everything we brought along with us, but they especially loved our cameras and other electronics. 

Some of us had brought toys from the US with us, so we handed those out to the children as we were interacting with them (I had brought tennis balls, and Wesley ended up tossing them back and forth with the two little kids he was playing with for awhile). We also brought soap and a donation to the orphanage, so it was nice to be able to contribute to the children's welfare rather than just visiting for an afternoon.

The orphanage works mainly in conjunction with a hospital next door. The vast majority of the children are taken in after their mothers have died during childbirth. A couple of them were brought into the orphanage when women from a psychiatric ward got pregnant but were unable to take care of their children after giving birth. They are then taken care of at the orphanage until they are 5 or 6 years old, then they are sent to boarding school. 

We were told by our TCDC mama and Dr. Prichard that a different orphanage that is next door to TCDC is not well-run; it struggles with funding and the children are malnourished. So we were lucky to see a more fortunate organization that more successfully caters to its children. One of the girls was even currently going through the adoption process, and she's going home with an American couple this summer. 

The little girl getting adopted (who also walked over and took my glasses off of my face and put them on hers)

Overall, it was a good experience, and quite a lot of fun to play with all of the children for the afternoon. 

The little one who sat with me almost the whole time. He particularly loved my iPod and played with it for quite awhile.

Wesley gave the kids his notebook and they all loved writing in it. He was a hit!

On Friday after class, we left for our safari weekend! It was a fairly long drive through town and savannah and mountains (have I mentioned that Tanzania is very ecologically diverse?) to Karatu, where we stayed for the next two nights. It was our first time really getting out of the city, though, and the drive was consistently beautiful all the way to Karatu. 

One of the many beautiful trees we've seen.

After getting to our hotel in Karatu, we were greeted by hotel staff with fresh juice and an eagerness to help us to our rooms. After putting our bags in our rooms and showers all around (which was a welcome change for those who are staying in homes where a bucket filled with water is the closest they've been to a shower in a week), we had a wonderful dinner at the hotel. We thought we could escape our host families' insistance for us to constantly eat more, but the head chef just took over the job instead. The food was great, though, so nobody complained. After dinner, we all headed back to our rooms and crashed for the night, because we had a nice and early 6:00 am breakfast to look forward to before heading out on our safari in the morning.

The outside of our room at the hotel.

Our room at Eileen's Tree Inn--yeah, we were really roughing it (the first thought that came to my mind when we walked in was "My mom is going to hate me"--she's already jealous of this trip, and I'm sure she wasn't expecting us to be getting spoiled like this, either)

The next morning after breakfast, we all piled back into the three Land Cruisers that were taking us on safari and headed off! Our day took place in Ngorongoro National Park. We were told that Ngorongoro gets its name from the sound that the cow bells make on the herds that belong to the Masai peoples who live in and around the park. 

Our first stop was at Olduvai Gorge. This gets its name from what we call the cisal plant, but the Masai word for it is Oldupai. The reason for the Olduvai/Oldupai discrepancy is that apparently the first person to record the name misspelled it, and that report got sent out, and the misspelled version of the name is what has stuck for most publications. But whichever way you choose to spell it, the gorge is a magnificent sight to behold. It is also full of history--many archaeologists have conducted in depth studies there, including Mary and Louis Leakey, the discoverers of Lucy. It is really an incredible place, and absolutely beautiful, to top it all off.

Jennifer and I at Olduvai Gorge

After this, we went to see the shifting sands, which is a hill of slightly magnetized volcanic sand that retains its shape but moves across the land at a speed of about 17 meters per year. It's just a huge pile of black sand in the middle of a cream-colored sandy region, so it's pretty incredible to see.

After this, we descended into Ngorongoro Crater, where we saw an absolutely incredible array of animals. There were elephants (my personal favorite), giraffes, antelopes, zebras, wildebeest, warthogs, various bird species (including flamingos), lions, hippos, and more! There was never a dull moment. 

Zebras so close we could almost touch them!

Giraffes in the distance.

A sleepy hyena on the side of the road.

The day was full of constant amazement. It was a truly humbling experience. Being surrounded by towering mountains while also being able to see across huge expanses of savannah, all while viewing large herds of just about every type of large mammal that is in the area really reminds you of just how small you really are. It was so wonderful to see so much of this beautiful creation in front of us, and it was a reminder of how blessed I am (well really, this entire trip has been full of reminders; this particular one just came in a different form). I've always believed that there is no place better than nature to view God's work and feel close to Him, and Ngorongoro was certainly no exception. It was incredible and humbling, and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

After nearly 12 hours since leaving the hotel, we started our journey back there. Once again, we showered and ate and headed straight for bed, all of us tuckered out from a very long, fulfilling day. We got a wonderful late start the next morning (our latest since arriving in Tanzania--breakfast wasn't until 9:00 am!) and then began our journey back to TCDC. We stopped along the way at a Masai women's co-op to hear their story and buy goods from their shop in order to contribute to the community they were from. 

Some of the Masai women we heard from. They also sang and danced for us (and got Taryn and Alyssa A. to join in at one point).

We stopped one more time on the way home to eat lunch and view another Masai organization. A few people in our group even decided to take a ride on the camels that were there. After this, we all headed back to our respective homestays to relax and rejuvenate before another week of daily classes and excursions.

Our trip this weekend was a beyond incredible experience. There are no words to describe the beauty present in the gorge and the crater, and even pictures do no justice. I will definitely remember this weekend for the rest of my days.

Kwaheri!