Sunday 8 September Elephant orphanage

For a change of scenery from the guesthouse we decided to have diner on Saturday evening at Village Market, the local mall. A tiny open air version of SkiStorSenter, but a version of OBS called Nakumatt. There is an place were 12 or so different bars serve different kinds of food, Chinees, pizza, kebab... So everybody orders their food, and are given a number sign, so the waiter is able to find you on the terras. We were David, MaryAnn, Stepha, Merijn and Me. David came up with the idea to go to the Elephant Orphanage the next day. It is at the border for Nairobi National Park, but he had managed to get hold of a taxi that would take us 5 there for 3000 KeSh. Picking us up at 10, because it is open for 1 hour per day. Stepha had breakfast in the taxi, while it was skraping its bottom at speedbumps. It resulted in that we ended up half way the que in font of the entrance, consisting mainly of white tourists. We were let in and passed some paddocks and huts into a field were a rope was hanging between a few poles. There were a dozen large botles with milk standing on the dusty ground about 2 meters inside this line. The group of orphan elephants were let inside and found a botle to drink readily. The youngest was 3 months old and the oldest about 2 years. One of the guards in green told the distinct and tragic history of each, those almost always had something to do with mankind. When they can feed them selves, they are transfered to other parks containing wild elephantherds and then it can take a decade or 2 before they are left to them selves, but elephants can become 70 years old.
Here we saw them play with water, dust and eachother. We were aloud to touch them if they choose to come close to the line. Besides the little elephants there were 2 rhinos of which one was born blind. The other was dagging its horn between the gate posts with such speed that I nearly lost my camera, but this gave me the chance to feel the horn that costed its fellow rhinos an early death due to some funny believes.

www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org