Today was our last full day in Kenya. We got up early so that we could go out on safari. My group hopped into our jeep with our guide, Frank, who was super nice and funny. We went on a morning safari in which we saw giraffes, lion cubs and a big elephant family with baby elephants taking little baby baths. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to make the trade of my sister and I for a baby elephant that my mom requested (fortunately, I have negotiated Mike and Riley down to only trading my sister and keeping me). Alas, there's always tomorrow.
After having lunch at the hotel, we headed out for an afternoon safari. In my jeep, we prayed to see a cheetah in the next twenty minutes, and five minutes later, there he was. And then another. And then another. Three instead of one, we cheetahed nature!
Finally, at night we had our youth group tradition of appreciating each other, a practice dubbed "crying circle". Each person has a turn in which everyone on the trip has the opportunity to share what they appreciate about that person. It is always very sweet and often quite teary. And so it was tonight.
When we went on safari, we stayed at an isolated resort within the park. We were really shocked when we got there to see the place filled with tourists instead of the people who we had interacted with during all of our time in Kenya. It was strange to think that the people in this hotel had come all the way to Kenya, but never actually experienced it, at least not the Kenya we had. We had visited communities, natural landmarks, and met people who had spent their entire lives in Kenya. People who never left the resort the entire trip never saw what most of the country actually is. I've become so grateful to have gotten to meet so many of the incredible people who make up what Kenya is. Today was a wonderful day of meeting Kenya's more furry, feathery and water-dwelling residents, and it made me even more grateful to have met its human ones as well.
Anhai <3
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