HIPPOS ANYONE?

Lake Naivasha in the beautiful Rift Valley

CRWRC had a staff retreat to Lake Naivasha. We were blessed to be invited for a time of connecting, spiritual refreshment and many delights to the eye and the stomach! We enjoyed the times of worship and prayer and devotions focusing on maturity and servant hood.

Getting there: an hour and a half drive on basically good roads with the exception of one short stretch. We were the last to leave the office due to vehicle complications.

Arrival: The ‘resort’ (Elesmere) belonged to the people whose story was partially documented in the film Born Free. It is now used as a resort conservation centre and teaching centre for students.

Food: wow – that about sums it up – the food was amazing. There was even tea time at 4 PM with a full selection of sweets. Ron was in his glory! Lauris was happy she could not eat wheat – that kept her consumption low!

Our room: very nice with 3 particularly notable features: an air horn (you can decide why!), a sign saying ‘Please be careful. There are hippos after dark. They can be dangerous.’, and an information booklet stating that after dark, you must be escorted at al times by a night watchman. The latter was strongly reinforced at an orientation meeting – ‘do not walk to or from the dining room or your car after dark unless accompanied by a night watchman. Never stand between a hippo and the water – NEVER…. The animals roam freely after dark. Never approach in the papyrus area around the lake shore – there are hippos hiding there’…. So as you can imagine we are excited to see a hippo!!

Sights sounds and smells – the grass is very short and clearly not mowed but rather it is pulled up by the roots by animals . Sitting on the front lawn there is an odor of animal droppings. Birds flash about with exotic sounds – we are drawn to the bright blue starlings with breasts like robins. They are everywhere. We hear monkeys. Any rustling bushes get your immediate attention. The whoo whoo whoo of the monkeys reminds me of teaching our kids animal sounds when they were young – there monkeys really did sound like that!

Nature walk – we head off on a nature walk with Anthony – our expert guide. He takes is to see the Colobus monkeys with their beautiful black and white coats and amazing tails. The alpha male seems quite happy to show off. As we are walking we hear from a neighbor that 20 minutes prior a waterbuck had passed by. There are numerous fresh droppings around….

Night time events: the first night we see an eland on the lawn – it is very dark and we can just make out his shape. After we have gone to bed, we look out our window about 10 times throughout the night hoping to see hippos. The night watchman awakens us at 5 – we think he sees a hippo since we have requested a wake up call should one pass by – he unfortunately misunderstood and thought we wanted a prayer time wake up call. We crawl back into bed (sorry Lord) and pray from between the sheets since we had been awake so many times throughout the night. Over breakfast we hear that a hippo had passed by and had been heard by Chris.
The second night, most of our party of 12 requested a wake up call to see a hippo should one pass by. The time is 4:40 Am and Ron pokes Lauris and says – ‘Listen – I think there is a hippo munching outside.’ Lauris hears it too - loud crunchy munch sounds like a small engine operating in spurts. We are up and outside in a flash. He is absolutely right! This is one hungry hippo. We stand on the porch the enormous hippo is there just in front of our room …. It moves over to the side and Lauris start thinking about how the grass is chewed short right up to our steps. The hippo keeps its distance and we hear others people coming out of their rooms and the guard escorts a group to the safety of our porch for a good view. Some of our party get nervous and go inside our room to watch.
The hippo eats and eats and eats – there is a small pond where it drinks noisily - a thought occurs – the ripped up grass is what we have seen the birds delighting in – building enormous soft nests. So Mr Hippo is also preparing the next days work for the starlings… This is a wow experience.…

Next morning: The light is firmly established and we move freely about the property. For the first time since our arrival I am not carrying my camera and wouldn’t you know it – a hippo – late on its return to the lake walks right across the law in front of the dining room. It looks even bigger in the daylight – I am wondering where the rest of the group is as some had gone to the lake to try and purchase fish – thankfully we see them in a safe spot.

Outing: We all went together to crescent Island which is actually a peninsula. We parked in the designated area, paid our fees and embarked on a two hour guided walk in the savannah. It was so amazing – God has created so much of wonder and variety. We saw many creatures – giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, waterbuck, gazelles, dik dik, and a python home (he was inside resting)….. I loved when the guide said – lets walk over there – and pointed to an area loaded with wildebeest. And so we did. This area was used for filing parts of Out of Africa (the main place was in Masai Mara) and there is an airstrip, a hut and a small rundown airplane hanger still remaining. The airstrip had been recently used. It was pretty crazy to stand on that airstrip. The animals are shy and many – the sky was beautiful with rays of sunlight shining through….

Movies we will watch ASAP – Born Free and Out of Africa! we have seen them both in eh past but will watch with renewed interst.

Weavers – we stopped at the local weavers shop (Elementitia Weavers) on our return – beautiful work – a treat to behold. AND they had a flush toilet – that was an unexpected treat!

We are constantly challenged by the internet server so I will sign this off and try to post it!