How Lucky Am I?

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Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi

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My view from the table

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My Lunch

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Playing with the kids

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One Epic Day

*Note:

It can also cause this:

(yes, it hurts as bad as it looks.)

Is it Bad if the Elephant Starts Charging?

I'm single mom again this week.

Eric and Lisa are off galavanting (aka following up with doctor check-ups) in Kenya, so I have all 4 of the kiddos by my lonesome. I'm staying at their house in the guest bedroom which has been lovely.

So, things we've done this week:
1. watch movies
2. make/eat caramel popcorn
3. watch more movies
4. I've given 2 of the boys haircuts. (!!)
5. watch even more movies

(Eric, if you are reading this, read "movies" as educational nature documentaries.)

I was trying to think of other fun things to do, and I heard that our local Wildlife Conservation Association was hosting a day trip to Vwasa Marsh for only $13 a person. Supposedly, there are some elephants there, but my friends had never seen any whenever they've gone. They said we would probably only see hippos.


(Sidenote: I think its pretty cool that in America, when we babysit, we take our kids to the zoo; but in Africa, I take my kids on a safari. whhaaaaat.)


My expectations weren't high, but at least we would get out of the house.
They were taking a bus, so at least I wouldn't have to drive.
And, I would only have the 4 Laffoons kids so look after, so it wouldn't have to be constantly worried about them at a nature reserve.

----Now insert everything African that can happen in this situation----

So, come to find out, when the South African friends heard we were going to Vwasa, they thought...hey! we should send our kids too! Lauren can just watch them all!

And that's how I ended up with 7 kids to keep up with.

And when we arrived at 6:15am at the meeting spot to get on the bus, the driver hadn't thought ahead of time to get diesel.

And that's how I ended up driving the 7 kids in a borrowed small pick-up truck the 3 hours to Vwasa Marsh.

We finally arrived, tired in and in need of a toilet, but the coolest thing happened. Almost as soon as we parked the car, right in front of us, we saw this:

 

A whole family of elephants crossing the river! 

It really was a great surprise, especially because we didn't think we were going to see anything really.

And older couple who have hopes to being and run Vwasa Marsh also came with us. They were great with the kids, talking to them about all the animals and birds.

Then, he tried to help us get sausage fruit down from the Sausage Tree:

See the sausages up there hanging down?

One of the nature conservationists came to give a tour around the park.

Guess who got to drive the car around with 9 kids in my car?? ME! There is something so awesome about driving your own car around a game park with no fences. 

I felt like the Disney World African Safari Driver. 

(spoken in British Accent) : "We've got to find the poachers! Let's go friends! Hang on!"

We were getting ready to go down into a big ditch. Downshift to 1st, and hang on!

We were about 2 minutes into the drive, when we come around a corner, and I slam on the brakes because we ran into another family of elephants!

It was so cool! They were RIGHT THERE! And in the big tree, there were a bunch of baboons running and jumping around them. Then, a warthog came up and joined the fun.

It did get a bit old after a while though. We can't move or make lots of noise, or else the elephants will charge us. So, we had to sit there in a hot car for about 45 minutes until they elephants finally decided to turn around.When we did begin to creep ahead, one of the male elephants decided to turn around and start charging us.

Don't worry, we escaped in time. (Remember, I'm a professional Disney Safari Driver)

We continued on our journey and saw MORE elephants, hippos, Kudu, antelope, Bushbuck (ironically enough eating bushbuck jerky as we drove).....

Aww, baby hippos!

Totally beats the zoo any day.

Kudu

Kudu. Kind of looks like a pretty llama, huh?

....and the most annoying of the day, Tsetse Flies.

Okay, so maybe going to the zoo is safer because you don't have the threat of a fly biting you and getting African Sleeping Sickness.

Did I mention they swarmed the car and we had to constantly try to kill them?

Did I also mention I got bit? 

So, if I don't blog again, I may be asleep with my sleeping sickness.

So, since I was The Disney Safari Driver, I felt I needed to do all the right safari type things...you know...to track the elephants.

I investigated the elephant footprints.

Jeremy kept on the lookout for them.

I even smelled the elephant dung to see how recent they had been there.

However, we could never figure out quite where they were. 

But all kidding aside, we really did see probably around 100 elephants that day.

When we came back after the safari to each lunch, there were about 3 different herds either eating or swimming across the lake. It was amazing. There weren't any fences between us and the animals. So cool!

See the little baby elephant in the front? When they got into the deeper water, they pretty much disappeared to our eyes,  only to pop up again further down! 

You can't tell, but this was a Bull, one of the biggest, with is nose sticking out as a snorkel. :)

So, all in all, a really good day.

No body was trampled by elephants, and I came back with all 7 kids that I left with. 

I now also have something to put on my resume for working at Animal Kingdom.

Saba and Sheroze

My two students that I have been tutoring over their summer break is coming to a close this week.

I have seen them every week, spent countless hours with them at their home, and have gotten to know them very well.

The month of August is Ramadan, so they were fasting most of the time that I saw them. However, whenever I went to their house, they were still so kind as to make me food and let me eat it right in front of them while we worked on school.

We played Scrabble almost any chance they can talk me into it, and I've forced them to write and read when they haven't really wanted to.

I've gotten to see their mom's wedding video, and tasted authentic Pakistani food, and watched them say their prayers.

Most importantly, I've gotten to at least share with them what I believe.

Pray that God uses that in the future.

They were very scared during the Riots. Their store was not broken into, but their sister's was. They had to flee their house because people started jumping their fence to throw stuff at their house.

She called me that day and asked me to pray for her family.

So, you can pray for that too.
Pray that their hearts will be open.