After a month of spending much time with my family I have finally caught up on my work and have gotten back into the blog scene.
The first order of business is to say THANK YOU! I was astonished how quickly the Amazon wish list filled up, and couldn’t believe all the stuff that my family brought me when they visited last month. These things are helpful in so many ways, and we will never know the impact that one basketball, for example, can have on the lives of children, but I promise this diversion from poverty and street life is invaluable.
Please, don’t be humble and let me know what you ordered from the wish list, I would very much like to thank you personally, these small purchases have been very moving for me.
As mentioned, my family was recently visiting Africa. Chad and I spent two weeks between hiking volcanoes in Rwanda and trying our hand at rafting the Nile River in Uganda. Turns out both of these were fairly challenging tasks, but I’ll assert that we prevailed. Between these we also spent quite a bit of time around the center doing a little bit of farm work, traveling to Lake Muhazi with the boys and schooling some kids in basketball (after we put the new nets on the rims Chad decided the court was worthy for his presence). To speak for him I think he enjoyed his experience and learned quite a bit, including a very important crash course in African English.
My parents then arrived to finally unite the Lincolns after a 9 month separation. After the jubilation of reuniting with their sons, we got to work exploring Rwanda, visiting a rustic lake house and hiking to a waterfall, a couple genocide memorials, Kigali, and hiking in Rwanda’s rain forest. We had some problems with bathroom facilities, modes of transportation and an absence of Diet Coke, but I think the Primus beer, brochette snacks and eat-with-your-hands tilapia made it an overall wash.
After doing everything we could in a week in Rwanda we flew into Kenya for an amazing safari. We visited three parks (Masai Mara, Nakuru, Amboseli) and saw simply amazing wildlife. I won’t name everything we saw, but some of the highlights include; giraffe, lion, zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, cheetah, white rhino, hyena, flamingo, elephant, gazelle, antelope, topi, various monkeys, baboon, hippo and scores of other birds and animals. Chad and I didn’t see our goal of a lion taking down a zebra, but we did see a pride of lionesses stalking a lone wildebeest (the wildebeest escaped) and a cheetah eating a wildebeest (although we didn’t see the kill).
Please forgive me for not having better pictures, and in fact incomplete pictures (Rwanda isn’t included) because I was letting my mother and amateur photographer take most of the photos with her flashy new camera (pun intended). But don’t worry, I know she is already planning occasions to show off these pictures!
This is one of the 3000 elephants who reside in Amboseli. He kindly posed in front of Mt. Kilimanjaro for me for this photo.
A parliament of giraffes in Maasai Mara. Yes, two or more giraffes is technically a parliament, my new favorite thing about giraffes.
A heard of wildebeest making their annual migration from Tanzania to Kenya.
A pride of lions with three adult females and their 12 cubs, seen here playing in the road.
The African Buffalo. Yes, he’s just as ugly as he looks in the photo.
So I look forward to personally sharing all my photos with my friends and family when I get home! Which by the way, is getting nearer by the moment and I’m having one of those “oh crap where has the time gone? moments. I’m leaving Rwanda in less than two months. Not only are we leaving but the whole community is changing so there is very much a “pack it in” attitude at the center that I’m fighting hard to resist (its harder now that I have a date that our two “replacement” volunteers are coming in August). But its still easy and satisfying for me to work and to be with the youth of the center – the reason I am here – so I’m soaking up every minute of my time with them!
