Lake Nakuru

The always-complicated process of getting tickets at the gate.  It's a different price if you are a tourist, a resident, or a citizen, and you have to show identification to show which you are, so it takes a bit of shuffling around.

On the Saturday of the Intermission Retreat, we got to go out and have a little fun.  We piled into safari vans before it was even light, clutching our packed breakfasts and lunches.  It took twelve vans to carry all of us, so we were quite a caravan!  It was about an hour and a half drive from the retreat center out to Lake Nakuru National Park, but it was an enjoyable trip.  I had purposely chosen to be in a van with people I didn't know or didn't know well, so we had a good time sharing stories and getting to know each other. 

The safari trucks and vans that are used here have a roof that lifts up so that you can stand inside and take photos without having to go through a window.  We headed into the park, which surrounds a large lake, in a long line.  

It was a beautiful day, if a little hazy.  Out in the open field on the hill above the lake, we saw a few buffalo, antelope, warthogs and zebra grazing, mostly at a bit of a distance.  We saw quite a lot a variety as we got down into the wooded areas that ring the lake.  The pictures I'm posting here are out of order, but it's rather a pain to rearrange them, so I'm leaving them as is.  I hope you'll enjoy them anyhow. 

We stopped for a break to stretch our legs on the lakeshore.  In national parks, there are designated areas that you are allowed to get out of your vehicle.  These are areas where the more dangerous animals tend not to go; you don't want to risk stepping on a lion's tail! 

The young boys quickly invented a game to play. 

Me on the shore of Lake Nakuru

Hello, friends!

There was a bit of a traffic jam trying to get photos of some sleeping lions.  They were so well camouflaged that it took a while for most people to see them.

It was a great day for giraffe spotting!  They are my second favorites (after rhinos, which are unfortunately rare at Lake Nakuru), and so photogenic. 

A dusty drive through the Kenyan landscape

Coming down the hill with a view of Lake Nakuru

Tiny baby zebra!

A family of warthogs in the foreground, with a buffalo herd in the shade in the background.

A closer shot of some Cape Buffalo.  They may look like overgrown cows, but they can be very aggressive and dangerous if angered.  

Antelope feeding along the shore.  It was also a great place for birds!

Zebras are so photogenic.  It's hard to take a bad picture of them.

I think Colobus monkeys are my favorite type of monkey.  They are so striking, and they have those great fluffy tails!

Look at this majestic bird!

Zebras in the shade, and flamingos in the water 

This big bushbuck was standing right next to the road, watching us.

He was so still and close that I got some great closeup shots of him!  What a beautiful bushbuck!

Flamingoes, Maribou storks, and other water birds on the lake, with the town of Nakuru on the hill behind.

When we stopped on the shore, we saw zebras fighting.  Carladean was the one who braved going to closest, so I got a shot of her taking a shot of them. 

Where are those lions?

The sleeping lions we waited around to seel

Mother and daughter

Impala crossing!

I loved the sight of the giraffes with the backdrop of the deep woods behind. 

It was such a great day for giraffes!

Okay, last giraffe, I promise!  But isn't he beautiful?

We headed home in the late afternoon tired and rather stiff from the jolting ride, but happy and with tons of pictures and memories. 

The view from the highway on the way home.

Intermission Retreat Begins

Heading into the dining hall

On April 19th, the Intermission Retreat finally began.  It was held at Brackenhurst Retreat Center near Nairobi.  It's late fall in this part of the world, or as close to late fall as you can get in a rainy season/dry season climate. The highs were in the low 70s, so it was in the 60s a lot of the time, which felt amazing and we hadn't had anything anywhere near that cool yet in Tanzania.  The first day of the Intermission retreat was pretty relaxed for those of us who arrived late the night before as we had time to explore the grounds and chat and eat (and eat and eat...the food at Brackenhurst is great!) while the rest of the crowd trickled in throughout the day.  

Intermission is a great ministry.  If you haven't heard of it, it is a mission run by four couple who are all former long-term missionaries themselves.  They realized that the lives of missionaries could be made much easier and more effective if there were more resources available to prepare them, encourage them while on the field, and help them work through reentry when they return to their home country.  It's a life with unique challenges, so it's nice to have people who understand and have studied intercultural communication, culture shock, the psychology of children who are third-culture kids (kids who have grown up in a culture that is different from their parents' home culture, and often end up with an interesting mix as a personal culture, and have challenges fitting in).  They do retreats in the US for recently returned missionaries that are incredibly helpful; so many people assume coming home is the easy part, but it can be really stressful as we have to start over again in a country we're expected to fit right back into but don't anymore.  I've been to two of the retreats in the US over the years, so I was really looking forward to this one. 

Besides the reentry retreats, they also do a retreat every couple of years or so in a different part of the world for missionaries in that area.  This year was our turn; at the East Africa retreat we had people who live in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi.  It's incredible to build a network of missionaries in our area, especially as I'm still new to the work here and hadn't met most of these people before.  I learned a lot from hearing their stories and experiences.  These are people that truly understand my experiences as an American in this culture.  

If you want to find out more about the Intermission ministry, check out their website, intermissionministry.org.  

We started the program late in the afternoon on Thursday.  Over the next few days, we had periods of singing together, sessions with speakers and group discussions on various topics related to missionary life (furloughs, family relationships across continents, communication with a home congregation, how to deal with burn out, etc.), small discussion groups, one on one prayer time with the leaders, and plenty of time to spend in fellowship over food.  It was a truly refreshing time. 

It was an especially great weekend for the teenagers.  Being a teenager is hard anyhow, but especially when you are always the odd one when living in another culture.  

Leaving Lamu

After a few days in Lamu, it was time to head back to Nairobi for the Intermission Retreat.  It's only a little more than a couple of hours to fly, so I landed in Nairobi by 1:45 in the afternoon.  I took one of the small motorboats back across the channel to the airport.  Since it's hot weather around here nearly year-round, the airport waiting room is open air.  It would have been nice to have a bit of air conditioning, but at least there's shade.  

 In the photo above, you can see Lamu along the coast of the island across the channel. The water was a beautiful color as we flew down the coast, although the pictures aren't great as the plane window was quite smudged.

Inland, it's dusty and dry.

Once I landed back at Nairobi Wilson airport, I had a while to wait because I had planned for someone from the Monduli crowd to pick me up as they passed the airport on their way up, as they were all driving up that day.  It was a bit stressful at first because I couldn't get my phone to work, even though I'd bought a roaming bundle that should have allowed me to use whatsapp in Kenya.  I couldn't get a Kenyan sim card because all the official sim card sellers are only allowed to sell sim cards to people with Kenyan IDs.  I'm sure it's possible somewhere to get a sim card without said ID, but the places at the airport follow the law.  Finally someone told me that there was a Java House restaurant down by the private jet area that has good wifi.  That was a wonderful move--the food was great, the wifi was strong, and they didn't mind at all that I stayed for six hours since they weren't too busy.  I splurged on the crazy sundae below.  My waiter was really nice; they close at nine except for a side part for private functions, but he offered to let me stay anyhow rather than sending me outside at night.  Fortunately, I had been in contact with the Monduli crowd and Ralph and Twyla Williams had agreed to stop and get me, and they would be arriving soon, so I headed back down by the airport entrance to meet them.  It was pretty late by the time we arrived, after 11 pm.  Tomorrow Intermission begins!