Sabbath in the Mara

Clinics are over and everyone gets to sleep in a little on Sabbath morning! The drivers and I are up bright and early though, cause we are heading back to Siana to pick up the academy kids and bring them back for a pancake brunch.

When we get back to camp the adults have all eaten and are sitting under the big Fig tree talking, bird watching and reading. The days already feels different then all the rest of them. It's going to be relaxing and much slower paced!

The academy kids enjoy their hot showers before we pack up the two trucks, then we had a group worship and headed out to a game drive, with a picnic a long the way. We stopped at the Mara River where the wildebeest cross in July and took pictures of huge crocodiles laying on the banks sunning themselves. The Mara is green and the grass is long, so it makes spotting some of the cats a bit harder.

Because the sun is so warm we opted to just go to our campsite for lunch where there is lots of shade. Tonite we are at a new campsite, not the one that the group has been at for the past few days..... tonite we are camping on the edge of the Mara River out in the middle of nowhere! There are not fences, no guards, not people, just us and the animals. From camp we can see two female lions laying around, elephant wonder around the edges of our camp eating and you can hear their stomachs rumbling as they communicate back and forth with each other. Hippos snort in the river next to us - and we feel blessed by nature and all God's creations.

At 5pm we did a short game drive, stopped at the gate to the park which was not far away and everyone went into the bathroom, then on the way back to camp sat by the pride of lions in the area - there were 4 cubs that were full of energy, pouncing on each other and their moms. It was hard to pull away from them.

Back in camp we had worship around the fire as the sun went down, enjoyed fresh fruit and Raman noodles for supper and then some headed to bed while others sat and visited late into the night. The night was quieter than normal - other than an occasional hynea laugh, or a hippos snort. At 2am I got up and put more wood on the fire and a baboon alerted the others that someone was up and moving around. About 3am in started raining and rained the rest of the morning - several had wet sleeping bags by morning time.

It was fun! Most seemed to really enjoy it
kim