Mt. Kenya wildlife conservancy and Ol Pejeta conservancy

Over spring break, we went to an animal orphanage near Mt Kenya. The goal of the orphanage was to breed bongos which are found only on Mt Kenya and the Aberdares.

[Additional pictures are found on the "more pictures from Ol Pejeta" page of this blog.  As usual, you can see the pictures at a larger size by clicking on them]

Caracal at Mt Kenya wildlife conservancy

Bongo at the same place, there are only 100 of them left in the wild

Cylindrical bushpig 

Cheetah that likes being petted

People at a campsite

Elephants across the river from the campsite at Ol Pejeta

Instructions for elephants "ELEPHANTS ARE THEREFORE REQUESTED TO CROSS TWO AT A TIME ONLY"

Rescued chimpanzees, one of which is named George

Baraka the blind rhino

More life in and around Nairobi

At the school in Mukuru, they've received some assistance to put in a new high-efficiency stove system.  There are two stoves, that use wood for fuel, the big one on the left and small on the right.  This will save them money on fuel costs, previously they used charcoal.  The women artisans here were joking "have you ever seen women building things like this?!"  Indeed, that's a bit unusual to see in Kenya (but of course good to see)

I bring a newspaper along when I visit Mukuru, which is always in high demand.  Here teacher Martin (left) is with the WaSH staff - Dennis, Irene, and Elphis.

Charcoal balls normally used for cooking.  With the new stove, they won't have to use these anymore.

Cristina knitted an afghan for Alex's birthday.

On the way to Mathare school, there are always herds of goats to dodge.  Mathare is apparently located between the market, the abattoir, and grazing grounds (although goats aren't picky about what they call grazing grounds!)

Weaving through some of the narrow alleys to get to Mathare

Meat?  Often a good question...

Evan is 14 toilet paper rolls tall now

The birds have found our feeder, and we're enjoying them immensely.  Here a female Baglafecht Weaver.

Firefinches are some of the common birds at our feeder.  They're not very skittish and beautiful birds to watch.

Fellow MCCer Jodi (education coordinator) and I (Doug) ran a weekend workshop for teachers on science teaching and WaSH.  Here an exercise on designing good experiments.  The idea was to get teachers interested in designing small projects with students that address WaSH issues, increasing the effectiveness of science teaching, while boosting student engagement of WaSH.

At the workshop, teachers designed mini-projects and made a poster with their results.

One group's poster on their miniproject.  They surveyed residents on how they handle garbage.  100% of residents said they had garbage picked up for disposal.  Interestingly, another group assessed amounts of trash in the same area and found (not surprisingly) that piles of trash are very common.  So there's a discrepancy in what residents say about trash, and what actually happens to it!  This highlights some of the challenges of collecting information, for instance getting good survey data.

A Christmas gift for the boys was a trip to the go-kart place.  Alex is on the right, Evan on the left, with a couple of friends.

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Weekend camping trip on the savanna

[A post from Evan!]

Children escaping attack by a deranged eland (They were in the tent when an overly friendly eland smashed part of the tent.  So they spent the night in the safety of the truck)

Ugly marabou storks

The African savanna

Our campground after being ravaged by an eland

Our tent pole, bent by a deranged eland

Beisa oryx (our first sighting of an oryx, so exciting!)

A herd of impala

kori bustard with it's feathers out

The wild gnu

vulture waiting for something to die

Giraffe in the distance

 (Never without his books)

 Alex the fire starter
 

No driving on the polo ground, but wildebeest are free to roam on it!

Oryx with fuzzy baby

As usual on safari, Alex gets some practice driving.  He did a good job being the tour guide!