Visiting a maasai village

Yesterday, I visited a maasai village because I am sponsoring a child through World Vision named Solitei. He is part of the maasai tribe which is one of the 42 tribes of Kenya. The maasai is a nomadic tribe which means that they move around following the buffalo herds but, right now, Solitei and his family are at a permanent location. To get there, we were picked up by some
World Vision staff in a land rover, then we drove down the high way for about 2 hours and then on a VERY bumpy dirt road for about an hour then we arrived at Solitei's school right in the middle of the bush. All of the children seemed very excited to see me. They ran uptp me and wanted to touch me and shake my hand. The girls all touched my mom's hair a lot. The classroom was very simple. It was just a cement room with a chalk board and lots of desks which were just wooden slats. My mom told them a story about a zebra and i taught them a song about hippos that i leaned at Camp Bimini.
After the school we drove for another half our through the bush to Solitei's home. He lives in a small hut that is made of mud and cow dung that cover a stick structure. Inside the hut it was very dark and small. It had a fireplace. Solitei and 8 others slept there, but it was smaller than my bedroom even! They had a lot of animals; there was a cat, three dogs and about 10 ten chickens that roamed wild. I enjoyed chasing the chickens, and I even got to hold one. His family were very appreciative of us and gave us gifts of Massia beaded necklases that they had made. We gave them some games and clothes. They also gave us tea and rice with meat. We sat under the trees and chatted with the for some time. When we left, Solitei's father said some really nice words of appreciation for our sponsorship.
We also went to see a water project built by World Vision, that our money supports. It now gives water to 417 famiies in the area.
It was a very fun day. I will try to post photos later.
Today we will be going to the Luo village to the community centre - not sure when I will be able to post again!

Elephants & Giraffes!

Yesterday I went to an elephant orphanage. At the orphanage they help the orphans grow unti they are three years old, then they send them to a rehabilitation camp for 5-9 years or until they are accepted into another heard of wild elephants. Right now there are 14 elephants at the orphanage. The youngest is only 11 months old. Soe of their stories are: one fell down a man-hole; one was found in a forest when he was only 2 days old, and the people who found him wanted to eat him, so he had to be smuggled away from them! The elephant keepers have to feed them with milk out of a big bottle every 3 hours, 24 hours a day. I thought it was really cool and the elephants all semed very happy.

I also went to a giraffe centre.  At the centre they breed Rothschild giraffes which are almost extinct because the dictator Idi Amin from Uganda allowed the soldiers to use the giraffes as shooting target practise.  Did you know that the only living relative to a giraffe is an Okapi which has legs like a zebra, a body like an antalope and it waks like a giraffe!  It's very confused isn't it?
I thought the giraffe centre was really cool and I even kissed a giraffe.