Animal Orphanages

Today I went with some friends to the Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi. This is where baby elephants across Nairobi have been rescued, rehabilitated, and released. We had a crazy time trying to get there (making three matatu transfers, each time unsure of ourselves) and we ended up walking through the living quarters of the orphanage’s employees and through some dirt back roads full of baboons. There are also tons of little monkeys hanging around the area since it's so close to the reserve.

We made it just in time to see the baby elephants splashing in the mud, fumbling over each other, and gulping down bottles of milk. By chance we saw two British filmmakers I’d befriended when we’d visited the Maasai (we should be briefly featured in their documentary next year).

I then almost got run into by a warthog that jumped into the muddy pool right next to me.

We also saw a rescued rhino- it was amazing to be so close to these docile creatures!

Yum :)

 Baby warthog!

After the Elephant Orphanage we decided to go to the Nairobi National Park’s Animal Orphanage, which houses lions, cheetahs, leopards, monkeys, ostriches, and other Kenyan animals. Since there was a big soccer match today downtown we couldn’t find any matatus with seats (especially not for five of us), so we decided to walk, estimating it to be about twenty minutes down the road.

(midway through the trek between the Elephant Orphanage and the National Park)

Two hours of intense heat, direct sunlight, and insanely steep hills later, we were picked up by a good samaritan and dropped off at the park. We went straight to the café for a good Kenyan lunch-plantains, lentils, chapatti, chicken stew, and rice J

finally making it to the Nairobi National Park after two exhausting hours in the heat!

The Animal Orphanage was very different than I’d expected- where the Elephant Orphanage’s focus is on socializing and releasing the animals, the Animal Orphanage is essentially a zoo full of caged animals that have been rescued, many of them over a decade ago.

When we first arrived we were told that we could pet the cheetahs and play with the lion cubs. We were so excited until we realized that it wasn't an offered activity, but an under-the-table negotiation. We kept asking him th eprice until he came out and said he was asking for a bribe. Even though we really wanted to touch the animals, we all felt uncomfortable about the situation and left pretty soon after that.

(the cubs we could've played with)

All in all it was a wonderful trip, but it's too bad we ran into problems towards the end. It was an interesting experience, however, to see how the guide asked for the bribe in such a round-about way. We tipped him before we left, but we were definitely shooken up after he asked us to give each of the armed guards a "tip" in exchange for us being allowed to enter the lion and cheetah cages. We joked about the next day's headline: "Five American Students Arrested for Bribing Security Guard To Play With Baby Lions at National Park."  Nooo, thankyou.