The Masai Mara

Our group has had the privilege to spend the last 2 days at the Serena Lodge on the Masai Mara reserve an expanse of 1510 km in south west Kenya and bordering the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. As we travel in our jeep with the roof up, warm wind blowing in our faces, the bright sun shining down on us and look out to the expanse of greens from lime to the dark greens of a forest, the acacia trees all lined up horizontally, tabletops for the giraffes you cannot but feel like a small cog in this thing called life.

Our friend Faraj worked hard to chase down all kinds of animals for us to see. As Judie described it is was like a rolling movie. It started just as we crossed the bridge into the reserve with the big, red mouth opening of a hippo, to snoring lions along the side of the road, so close that when one rolled over you wanted to get out and scratch its big cat belly. We were blessed to hear the crack of branches as the elephants pulled them with their trunks outside our balcony window, giraffes standing tall and proud with their beautiful mascara lined eyelashes munching on trees. There were ostriches, zebras, warthogs galore, baboons, buffalo, topis, gazelles, impala, crocodiles and so many more to mention. Although, Faraj was unable to find us a leopard to see the big 5, we did get to see cheetahs and lions eating their prey, and a rhino.
We are thankful to Faraj for his persistence in hunting down so many animals for us to see that we lost count. And a heartfelt shout out to Micheline and Jeanine for taking amazing pictures so some of us got sit back and truly experience the moment.

On our way back we stopped at a Masai village and were able to experience a whole different way of life, one with no running water, electricity, tv or internet but very proud and happy people. Tomorrow the real excitement – back to Compass school, the teachers, the children, the excitement of a new school year.