Kenya Diaries: Day 1 - Elephants and Giraffes and Crocs, Oh My! (Part 1)

Jill Richardson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:04:43 GMT

My first full day in Kenya was a HUGE TREAT. I got up close and personal with elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, and tortoises. This post only covers the elephants.

For previous diaries in this series:
Travel and Arrival
My poor, jetlagged body first woke up around 4 or 5am Nairobi time. I stayed in bed until 6 something and then got up. By 8am, Maurice arrived. Kaka the dog bounded into Kifaru House and promptly jumped up on my brand new beige shorts, leaving dusty paw prints all over. I ran back to the bathroom to wash them, having no idea just how pointless it was to do so, given where we were going that day. Maurice prepared me a lavish breakfast of eggs, toast with jam, fresh tropical fruit, Kifaru House's special Kifaru tea, and cereal. I asked for coffee too, knowing that the jet lag would certainly set in at some point and it wouldn't hurt to have a bit of caffeine in me.

While he made my coffee, I tried to sneak my papaya and banana to Kaka the dog because I didn't want to look rude for not eating them. I hate papaya. Kaka, it seems, hates it too. She took it in her mouth and spit it out. "Kaka," I hissed at her. "Eat that! You're going to get me in trouble." I attempted to toss it outside into the bushes. If Kaka didn't eat it there, maybe a monkey would. Unfortunately, I fell short, so there was a half-chewed piece of papaya sitting a few feet from the door and I'm sure it confused Maurice when he found it later.

Peter arrived around 9am and helped set me up on the internet with a plug-in wireless modem and some software he downloaded for me. This area is not wired up to have the cable modems and wifi devices I'm used to in the U.S. Then we set off for the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, an orphanage for baby elephants and rhinos. You must get there just before 11am because that is when they open for tourists. For a mere 500 shillings (about $6), tourists can watch the keepers feed baby elephants bottles of infant formula and even pet a baby elephant or two. I can't remember the last time I took so many photos.

The elephants sleep here, and the keepers sleep in a bed in the same room with them. The keepers rotate which elephant they are with to prevent any one elephant or keeper getting attached to one another.

Peter and I as we wait for the elephants

Here come the elephants!

Hup two three four, keep it up, two, three, four... I hate Disney so why is the elephants' march from the Jungle Book in my head?

"More milk!"

These elephants were all found in the wild as orphans. In far too many cases, their mothers were killed by poachers. You can hardly be in Kenya for a day before you hear elephant-loving Kenyans lament the lifted ban on the ivory trade, which has been a very bad thing for the elephant population here. Elephants are about 120kg at birth. The youngest one here is 3 mos old, and the oldest ones in this group are around 18 mos old. They need to nurse until about age 3 and these elephants would not survive in the wild without a mother's milk.

Because elephants cannot survive drinking another animal's milk and because you'd have to be insane to attempt to milk a wild elephant, these elephants drink infant formula. (Also, a mother elephant does not produce enough milk for more than one calf, so even if milking wild elephants WAS possible, it would jeopardize the lives of wild elephant calves.)

These elephants live much of their days in a wild environment, but they are fed every 3 hours and they sleep indoors at night. Around age 3, they will be reintroduced to a herd in the wild. While it probably is not optimal for them to be so exposed to tourists, no doubt the revenues raised from this operation helps provided needed funds to keep the rescue and fostering program going.

Elephant chewing on a branch.

Branch after the elephant was done with it.

Teeny elephant

Close up of teeny elephant

We also watched the elephants dust bath a bit. Unlike my chickens who roll and flop around in the dust, elephants fling it on themselves with their trunks.

At that point, the first group of elephants left. Check out how dirty my hand is after petting the elephants!

Then, a second, older group of elephants came. These elephants are around ages 18 mos to 3 years.

"I'll do it myself, thank you!"

Ahh, milk.

In this group, we watched each elephant quickly chug one bottle of milk after another. I think I counted them drinking 3 bottles each. The one nearest us would not relinquish his bottle once he was done. Instead he chewed the nipple right off it to make sure he got every last drop, and then spat the nipple out afterward.

Getting a drink of water

Kenya Diaries: Travel and Arrival

Jill Richardson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:34:50 GMT

As always, this trip began with a hellish plane trek that could have been a lot worse. No cancellations, and only one slight delay. A lot of harassment about the size of my very large carry on luggage, which they wanted to check and I wouldn't let them. And a man with long legs refused to let me recline my seat on the entire Chicago to London leg of the trip.

Strangely enough, the man next to me on the flight to London was the great nephew of Norman Borlaug. We talked about Borlaug a bit but he didn't know much about him other than what he was like at family reunions.
I was very worried about whether I could get through Heathrow to meet my connection in just 2 hours and 15 minutes, but since my flight arrived on time and I powerwalked the entire way, I made it with some time to spare. Check out this ad in Heathrow:

So there you go Africa (and Asia and Latin America). Western capital sees you as an "opportunity."

The flight from London to Kenya had surprisingly few black people on it. Mostly it was white people going on safaris. A British couple going to a wedding. A Finnish couple going to play golf. One man I spoke to was a food aid worker. A few people did appear to be African but I did not speak to them. I sat next to a young 20 something from Bristol who was going on a safari.

Despite arriving an hour and a half late, I was met by Samson and Peter of the African Network for Animal Welfare, an amazing group that has save countless wild animals here. They drove me to Kifaru House, ANAW's guest house. Kifaru is Swahili for rhino. Just as we left the airport, I saw a few zebras grazing in the median in the middle of the road and gasped. Then common sense got the better of me and I said, "Oh, they are statues." Samson told me that they were, in fact, zebras. "The herd's not far from here," he said.

We headed to the guest house, located in the tony suburb of Karen on 5 acres of natural vegetation leased from an elderly woman who is originally from the UK but has lived in Kenya since it was a colony. I'm told the land is home to Sykes' monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis) - known as Kima in Swahili - but I have yet to see one. At Kifaru House, we met Maurice, who had a hot vegetarian dinner prepared for me, with delicious vegetables that compare most closely with Indian food, I think, and fresh mango and pineapple as well. I have finally managed to time one of my trips so that it coincides with mango season!

We also met Kaka the dog, a dog who has not actually been a puppy for a long time but still has puppylike energy and bad manners. (She jumps up to say hi and doesn't know "Down" or "Sit" - or if she does, doesn't care to obey them.) Kaka is Brother in Swahili. I told my hosts it means Shit in Spanish. Not a bad name for a dog, really.

Samson showed me ANAW's "snare art." They remove countless wire snares set by poachers each year and then they employ the communities where the poachers come from to turn them into art that they sell to tourists. The money from the art goes back to the communities so that they will not need to resort to poaching. This is one of several ways that ANAW helps these communities cultivate alternate livelihoods instead of poaching.

An elephant made from wire snares.

Birdfeeders made from calabash gourds.

I went to bed after dinner and a shower. The next day, Peter promised to pick me up because they had a big treat planned for me - going to see baby elephants and endangered giraffes up close.

La Vida Locavore - Recommended Diaries

Kenya Diaries: Day 1 - Elephants and Giraffes and Crocs, Oh My! (Part 1)

Kenya Diaries: Travel and Arrival