Pointy-Toothed Creatures and Blue-Bottomed Baboons
It was early in the morning long before anything in its right mind would be up, even an ibis! I looked at my watch but could see nothing because of the thick darkness. I felt around for my flashlight and saw that it was 5:30 AM. Rain was crashing down on the roof of our American Isuzu with four-wheel drive and a steering wheel on the left/wrong side of the car. Mark, Ben and I were up early to make sure we made our appointment at noon. We seemed to be making good time when all of a sudden we stopped…
I had been spending the last week with 5 guys from Harding who have taken a year off from college to teach at a secondary school (High School) in a very rural part of Kenya called Chepkong´ony. I spent a week with them helping out with a youth rally at Tenderet in the Nandi Hills area in southern Kenya. When they heard that I have been to Africa three times but had never once seen an African animal except for cows and chickens and ibises, Mark and Ben decided it was time to load the car and go camping in the Nakuru Game Park for the weekend.
I don’t know what to say about the game park except that it was awesome. I got to see my share of African animals that made up for the other times I’ve been to Africa and seen nothing. It was incredible to see the glory of God and the beauty of his creation. It was a beautiful day and I saw rhinos, cape buffalo, giraffes, zebra, gazelles, flamingos, a leopard and some baboons… well I’m not so sure why God created baboons. They are evil creatures. A 150-pound, huge-toothed, bare-blue-bottomed baboon attacked us and tried to steal our mangos.
Right after the baboon incident we got a call from Larry Conway, a missionary in Nairobi. It turns out that Larry and his family was spending the night in the game park and had rented a cabin. They were nice enough to invite us to stay with them when they heard that we were also there. As much as I like the adventure associated with camping among wild and hungry lions, panthers and baboons we decided to sacrifice and sleep in the cabin.
After a cozy night in the cabin we got up and left before 6:00 AM in order to reach Eldoret by noon. Leaving at such an early hour assured that we would be there on time. Or so we thought. We left on time and began to make our way out of the park. There was no evidence of sunlight yet but fortunately the rain had slowed down before we left. As the rain cleared the fog took it’s place and it became hard to see anything except for the occasional glowing eyes of who knows what.
We turned onto the main road out of the park… or at least we thought it was a main road. It very quickly turned to just two tire muddy tire tracks; it was not much of a road. We figured that it was just a side road that would turn on to the main road any minute. We thought that for one minute, then for two minutes then five minutes. After about twenty minutes we were pretty sure that we would have to run into a main road before too long.
Even though it was dark and foggy with no way to see any landmarks we were confident that we were going the right direction. All of a sudden a huge puddle jumped out in front of us. Before we could stop we hit it. This was not just any puddle it was one of those holes that the cape buffalo, rhinos and other large animals like to make so they can lay in the cool mud. Well of course that was no problem for us we were in a four-wheel drive vehicle and if all else fails we had a winch. We shifted down into low four and the wheels turned but we remained still.
We got out of the car and saw that the vehicle was up to the frame in mud and was not going to go anywhere by itself. As the sun eventually began to rise we noticed three things. 1) The sun was rising on the wrong side of the sky. In other words, we were lost 2) There was nothing to attach the winch to. We were stuck. And 3) there was an uncomfortable absence of any sort of wildlife. Ben made the keen observation that the only reason there were no small furry creatures around must be because there were large pointy-teethed creatures around. Since we had no way to get ourselves out we just sat there for a while.
Eventually after the sun had risen quite a way (on the wrong side of the sky) I decided that I would be either brave or stupid and go look around. If you are reading this email it is evident that a man-eating lion did not eat me. But as I looked around it became evident that we were seriously in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately we had a cell phone, but unfortunately it was out of range, out of batteries and out of minutes. We were able to send a text message to Larry Conway that we were in trouble, but that was it.
Sadly it was only after about two hours of sitting and being bored that we came up with the great idea to pray about the situation. About twenty minutes later some South Africans drove by. I have no idea why they decided to drive down this particular road on this particular morning. When I asked them about it the driver said in his thick South African accent “it just seemed like the thing to do at the time.” I have a feeling that God had something to do with it. They were happy to pull us out of the mud but they were somewhat reluctant to use their nice new tow cable. We didn’t make our appointment by noon but that’s ok, it was just a lunch appointment and I’ve gotten used to not eating lunch anyways.
I had been spending the last week with 5 guys from Harding who have taken a year off from college to teach at a secondary school (High School) in a very rural part of Kenya called Chepkong´ony. I spent a week with them helping out with a youth rally at Tenderet in the Nandi Hills area in southern Kenya. When they heard that I have been to Africa three times but had never once seen an African animal except for cows and chickens and ibises, Mark and Ben decided it was time to load the car and go camping in the Nakuru Game Park for the weekend.
I don’t know what to say about the game park except that it was awesome. I got to see my share of African animals that made up for the other times I’ve been to Africa and seen nothing. It was incredible to see the glory of God and the beauty of his creation. It was a beautiful day and I saw rhinos, cape buffalo, giraffes, zebra, gazelles, flamingos, a leopard and some baboons… well I’m not so sure why God created baboons. They are evil creatures. A 150-pound, huge-toothed, bare-blue-bottomed baboon attacked us and tried to steal our mangos.
Right after the baboon incident we got a call from Larry Conway, a missionary in Nairobi. It turns out that Larry and his family was spending the night in the game park and had rented a cabin. They were nice enough to invite us to stay with them when they heard that we were also there. As much as I like the adventure associated with camping among wild and hungry lions, panthers and baboons we decided to sacrifice and sleep in the cabin.
After a cozy night in the cabin we got up and left before 6:00 AM in order to reach Eldoret by noon. Leaving at such an early hour assured that we would be there on time. Or so we thought. We left on time and began to make our way out of the park. There was no evidence of sunlight yet but fortunately the rain had slowed down before we left. As the rain cleared the fog took it’s place and it became hard to see anything except for the occasional glowing eyes of who knows what.
We turned onto the main road out of the park… or at least we thought it was a main road. It very quickly turned to just two tire muddy tire tracks; it was not much of a road. We figured that it was just a side road that would turn on to the main road any minute. We thought that for one minute, then for two minutes then five minutes. After about twenty minutes we were pretty sure that we would have to run into a main road before too long.
Even though it was dark and foggy with no way to see any landmarks we were confident that we were going the right direction. All of a sudden a huge puddle jumped out in front of us. Before we could stop we hit it. This was not just any puddle it was one of those holes that the cape buffalo, rhinos and other large animals like to make so they can lay in the cool mud. Well of course that was no problem for us we were in a four-wheel drive vehicle and if all else fails we had a winch. We shifted down into low four and the wheels turned but we remained still.
We got out of the car and saw that the vehicle was up to the frame in mud and was not going to go anywhere by itself. As the sun eventually began to rise we noticed three things. 1) The sun was rising on the wrong side of the sky. In other words, we were lost 2) There was nothing to attach the winch to. We were stuck. And 3) there was an uncomfortable absence of any sort of wildlife. Ben made the keen observation that the only reason there were no small furry creatures around must be because there were large pointy-teethed creatures around. Since we had no way to get ourselves out we just sat there for a while.
Eventually after the sun had risen quite a way (on the wrong side of the sky) I decided that I would be either brave or stupid and go look around. If you are reading this email it is evident that a man-eating lion did not eat me. But as I looked around it became evident that we were seriously in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately we had a cell phone, but unfortunately it was out of range, out of batteries and out of minutes. We were able to send a text message to Larry Conway that we were in trouble, but that was it.
Sadly it was only after about two hours of sitting and being bored that we came up with the great idea to pray about the situation. About twenty minutes later some South Africans drove by. I have no idea why they decided to drive down this particular road on this particular morning. When I asked them about it the driver said in his thick South African accent “it just seemed like the thing to do at the time.” I have a feeling that God had something to do with it. They were happy to pull us out of the mud but they were somewhat reluctant to use their nice new tow cable. We didn’t make our appointment by noon but that’s ok, it was just a lunch appointment and I’ve gotten used to not eating lunch anyways.
"It was early in the morning long before anything in its right mind would be up," and I looked at my clock on the night stand. " 3:30 am !!", it screamed. Loud bass vibrations making their way through my walls, on to my bed, and into my brain.
-that is the story of my life for now. The girls on my hall are being better about it now. Not've had to shush them all this week, so that is an improvement.
My life lacks all "spark of ambition" right now,and you'd better not feel sorry for me =p. You'd better not, because you may have the gazelles and ibises; but I have the mate!!!!! muahahahahaha!!!!
you'd better not be laughing at me now,either. I have mental brain waves which can cause you to have nightmares in your sleep. Ibises included. Thousands of them!
but, I am glad that you finally got to see exotic fauna. Keep keeping me up to date, it is one of the interesting things to read here with only an out-of-date library to succumb to.
God bless you and your work over there.
Denaughtynot
Posted by Anonymous | 12:52 AM