Other Touristy Stuff

Another day we rented a taxi and went all over Nairobi doing touristy stuff. First we went to this famous bead place called Kazuri, which means “beautiful, small things” in Swahili. Women handmake these beautiful beads. They also make pottery. We got to see the process.

Here the women are molding beads out of clay.


Then they cook the beads and paint them and cook them again. Here are some finished beads.


The finished beads are turned into jewelry and shipped all over the world.

After visiting Kazuri we went to the Elephant Orphanage. The orphanage finds baby elephants that have been abandoned by their mothers and brings them to the center to rehabilitate them and then reintroduce them into the wild. Once a day they let visitors come and see the babies and hear about how they take care of the babies.

The youngest babies were 5 months old. They were very playful and kept escaping their roped off pen and coming into the crowd to make friends with the guests! Here the speaker explains that the babies need to wear these blankets to stay warm. In the next picture, a baby is drinking water.


Next, they brought out the older babies. These elephants were between one and two years old.


They had to feed them with bottles.


Here I am with the elephants!


After seeing the elephants, we went to Limuru, Kenya to a tea plantation. We were feed a huge meal (that included fresh raspberries and homemade ice cream for dessert!) and then were given a tour of the plantation.

Here is the farmhouse and tea plantation.


I learned a lot about how tea is grown and even managed to drink an entire glass of hot tea (which is quite an accomplishment as I absolutely hate tea!)

At the house, there was a family of monkeys that hung out on the roof hoping to be fed. They were quite entertaining to watch!


We had quite a fun trip to Kenya!

Giraffe Center

One day we were able to meet up with my friend from home, Becka Dutton. She is volunteering at a school about two hours outside of Nairobi and was able to come to the city to visit me! She helped us maneuver the public transport and we went to the Giraffe Center. At the Giraffe Center you can feed the giraffes! They are friendly as long as you are paying attention to them; one giraffe head-butted Becka because she stopped feeding her!

Here’s Becka feeding a giraffe.


We got up close and personal with Daisy.


Anyone ever kissed a giraffe? I have!

Kenya!

After Women’s Conference, Kelly, Crystal, and I stayed in Nairobi for a few days to vacation. Here are some pictures of the sights around Kenya. Look at how green everything is compared to Botswana!

Women's Retreat

At the beginning of May, the CESA region (Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa) had a women’s retreat in Kenya. It was a fun time to meet women who are serving all over Africa! Our speaker was Cynthia Heald, a Christian author, and she talked about contentment. We participated in group worship, workshops, and other fun activities like going to Nairobi for the famous Masai market and having a banquet in which you dressed in the traditional clothing of your people group. Unfortunately, my camera was broken so I don’t have many pictures of the meeting, but here’s one of Brackenhurst International Center where the conference was held.