Belated Easter news!

 For the week leading up to Easter, including Easter weekend, we had our second "R and R". We went down to Nairobi again and had a restful and interesting week. It seems a while ago now, but here are some photos from last month's R and R!

We took the children to some of the attractions in Nairobi which we had not explored during our 6 months there last year.

This was our first tourist outing:

 At the Kazuri Bead factory we had a tour to see the employees at work, using clay to make the most stunning jewelry. This lady had been working at the factory for 40 years!

After seeing how the ladies shape the clay into beads, we visited the workshop where artistic ladies paint the beads with intricate designs:

We were shown the kiln and marvelled at the amazingly hot temperatures that it uses to blast the clay. The kiln heats up to temperatures of 1000'C, which would make Juba seem positively arctic!

It was fun to end up at the factory's shop, where we could see the finished product close up!

The factory was started in the 1970s as a community venture to provide employment for local ladies and has gone from strength to strength. Their products are sold world-wide! (For more information, you can see their website: www.kazuri.com/ )

 On the Wednesday, we set off at a dark 05:45 am to drive to Nairobi's National Park and see some of the 4-legged locals. We arrived just after the gates opened at 6am and enjoyed a drive around the beautiful African park.

 The strange thing about Nairobi National Park is the urban back-drop! African National Parks are usually situated out in the bush, but this park is surrounded by high-rise buildings and busy highways! We snapped this odd-looking bird surveying its surroundings with a vista of city life spread out in the distance:

The children also learned the unhappy truth about ivory smuggling as we stopped at the park's monument, built to condemn ivory poaching. This stone monument explained Kenya's stance against the illegal trade:

The pile of burnt ivory below is one of several heaps of ivory which has been seized from poachers and smugglers and burnt as a sign that the trade will not be tolerated. It was good to see this point being made, but sad to know that each pile of burnt ivory tusks represents hundreds of dead elephants, butchered just for their tusks. The children were upset by the facts- it was a very real way of comprehending how the ivory trade does so much harm.

We came out of Nairobi's National Park for lunch and the children were delighted and amused to find some wild warthogs who had wandered out of the park and up the road to the cafe! It was amazing to be able to get so close- but we didn't want to go any closer, in case they woke up (they can be aggressive) and because of their rather horrible smell!

We ended the day with a visit to the Animal Orphanage outside the National Park. It was fascinating to see big cats close up...

This cheetah seemed agitated and unhappy, with his limping leg- what a shame that he has to be cooped up and has not been able to be free in the wild.

I have always wanted to see a leopard:but I would rather see him in the wild than locked up in a cage. I felt uncomfortable and sad to see so many majestic animals ending up caged in an animal orphanage because their parents had been poached or illegally hunted.

Ben and Esther got to feel the weight of the antlers of buffalo.... heavier than you think!

Joel preferred to look at the blessbok antlers, rather than carry the heavy buffalo antlers!

  We ended our week with our Easter Day meal, in the MAF team house where we stayed. Joel's preschool teacher Carolyn was in Nairobi with us the same week and joined us too: