Feeding the rhinos

June 6th, 10:08 PM

Can words really describe everything I saw today? No.
But I will attempt to describe some of it. The rest will be said in pictures.
First let me mention that Right Now a warthog is snorting and squeaking very nearby.

Anyway so yesterday was my first day at the office. After introductions and a description of the planned work for me, Elodie let me know that she had set up an outing for the next morning (which would be today).

So at 8 o’clock this morning I met Jane from Maine, who is also staying here for two weeks. We headed out in a ranger roverdriven by Ngori, a ranger who has worked here for 11 years, and Abdi, a volunteer who is a wildlife management major, hoping to get work as a ranger in the future. The plan: to watch the rangers feed. Jane and I squeezed in the front seat and Abdi sat in the open, back part with bales of green hay.

Mount Kenya:
We drove around for hours over wild terrain looking for Stumpy, a 41-year-old black rhino with her 2 ½ month old calf. We saw many other animals along the way, as well as beautiful vistas of Mount Kenya’s peak and the Lewa grounds (which are huge by the way!).

Ngori feeding the rhinos:
Finally we found the old gal (apparently 41 for a rhino is quite elderly), and took pictures as the rangers quickly threw down the hay. They told us that Black rhinos are territorial, so that even when it rains in another territory they follow the rains like the other animals, they just stay put. Abdi also told us that black rhinos are dangerous, whereas whites are more docile, so while I got pictures up close of the white rhinos, the the black rhinos kept their distance, and when we came close they hit the “road”.

Stumpy and her baby - she is very skinny for a rhino, and the rains haven't come, hence the need for feeding. See how her backbone is curved, as opposed to the white rhino, which has a second hump on it's back:

Taken through the car window, when they decided they'd had enough of us:
We also saw elephants, zebras. ostriches, impala, waterbucks, a hawk of some kind (actually lots of different and beautiful birds), gazelles, and other deer-like creatures.
White rhino (see the wide mouth that distinguishes it from the black rhino):

OH MY GOD how could I forget – we also saw lions! They were the SO impressive. We found a couple sleeping under a tree shaded from the midday sun, and we drove right up to them. The male just rolled over and went to sleep, and the female looked at us lazily and then did the same – they didn’t give a hoot about us… They must have been full.
The people at my camp told me that lions are only a danger around here at night. I have heard them “talking” at night to one another. It’s not a full roar (Jonathan, the CEO, said if it were the ground would practically shake), but one was very close to my tent for two nights, and then you could hear others farther away answering back. Jane asked me what it sounded like, but the only way I could describe it was like people with Very deep voices having sex. That is SO not accurate, but what can I say?

Anyway, after that terrible description, the lions we saw really were majestic Really, and not like the lions you see in the zoo. They were amazing.

Later on I walked over to Jane’s cottage (and almost walked into a giraffe). Jane works in accounting and finance for the Nature Conservancy, and she is also a pastel and coloured pencil artist at home. She and I had a lot in common and I really enjoyed her company, as she did mine. Tomorrow we will be going on a game drive together.

After dinner I went to sit by the fire of the team who are setting up for the marathon here. There will be a huge marathon here on the 27th of June, so this production group comes in and sets up tents and infrastructure. They are a great bunch of people, who have done work for films, and rich people just camping, and all sorts of events.

Anyway that is my long update. Perfect timing, as the electricity just turned off (thank goodness for batteries!).
Lala salema (good night in Kiswahili).