SAFARI

As many of you know, we recently made a trip to Benin to the Pendjari Game Park. To summarize, we had a BLAST! We were able to see lions, elephants, baboons (of which I am terrified), hippos, warthogs, birds, crocodiles, deer (roan, cob, hartebeests, bushbucks and duikers), buffalo, red monkeys and many insects (I think that flies are international, or rather, inter-continental). I shall start from the beginning.



We left around 8 am Saturday morning with the Ries’ and Crowsons. Harmattan had blown in overnight so it was quite cool. The road was good with some sight car problems (dad had noticed on his trip the day before that the clutch was acting up and the Crowson’s car was overheating). MacDonald’s seem to have moved their location, so the rest stops were few (HAHA to anyone who believed that). It took about 5 hours to get to the first water hole at which we saw everything except lions, elephants and buffalo. As it is dry season, all of the animals come to the water hole to drink, I believe it is daily. Although you know that they will come, its just WHEN they will come that determines if you will see them (my patience…after 5 minutes, I’m ready to move on). A snake had just caught a frog right beneath the tree house (there is one located at almost every waterhole, approx. 1 ½ meters off the ground) and was in the process of, yes, killing it! He had the backend in his mouth and you could hear the frog squealing! It was kind of funny, and yet gross. I don’t know how long the snake was as it was half hidden by the brush, but I’m assuming anywhere from 2-3 ft long. It was about an inch wide and had a lime green belly, so if anyone knows what type of snake that was we’d love to know.



Next we moved on to the hotel where we had a small issue (we had reserved 10 rooms for 36 of us, but the place where we had sent our reservations had not told the hotel until the day before, and by then they had given away 3 of our rooms, so we were left with 7 rooms for 36 of us (averaging 5 people per room). But after a while I think we got one or two more. It was not a big deal as our family of 6 could fit into one room (though a tad cramped…but it wasn’t like we spent a lot of time there).


We had also brought our own bedding as a precaution (the next nearest hotel was 2 hours away). That afternoon we went on a short circuit and saw an elephant not 30 ft away, hence the first picture. He was an old guy with only one tusk, and his mouth formed a rather odd shape when he reached up to get his food (thorn trees! Ouch!). I don’t think mum appreciated my illustration (with the help of the elephant) of how everything droops and sags when you get older. I mean, if he was in the form of a man, he would have a double chin, huge ears and his mouth would be a little cockeyed; the type of mouth where they only open one side to put food in. hehe. I named him Calvin, and his buddy Hobbes (there was another old bachelor with him).





When we got back to the hotel we were told that everyone else had seen lions! Of course, out of the group of 8 families we were the only ones that didn’t see them! But we continued to pray that we would see them. That night we all got our missionary camping stoves out and prepared our artificial food (with the exception of a couple families that have professional cooks as wives/mothers and had prepared home cooked pizza pockets or the sort to heat up! By the end of the trip the boys were ready to disown us and convert to Church of Christ for their food! We lured them back with the gamecube, Hehe).


That night was really fun as most of the adults just hanged around and talked for a couple of hours. Just us, and the stars. Another nice thing was that the building that us, the Ries’ and Koonce’s were in was separate from the rest of the hotel and about 75 meters off from the rest of the buildings. We also had our own aupatam, which was very convenient for cooking and hanging out.



The next morning we were up and ready by 6am and started off on the short circuit. Rachel Phillips (teacher for CoC kids in Kara) had decided to join us on the roof of our very sturdy and massive vehicle. May I also note that by this time the clutch had begun to wear out a little more, so dad was practicing shifting without the clutch.



So there we were looking, searching, probing, gazing for any animal; when up ahead we see a car stopped, looking at something. We inch forward, hoping it’s a lion. Indeed it was! But when we got within 50 meters dad stopped and told us to get down from the top and into the car. We proceeded to do as he said until he said, “Stop.”. The lioness was now crouching and looking at us (which was a bit innerving for many of us, especially me who was not in the car, nor on the top, but half way down). She soon lay back down and we quickly descended and hopped into the car.


We slowly went forward as to not disrupt her when we saw a male! They were lying around a buffalo carcass that they must have killed earlier, although not to must earlier as it was still fresh and hardly eaten. With the binoculars you could see blood on the paws and mouth of the male! He was huge too! The Church of Christ assumed around 2 years old, maybe 1.10-1.20 meters tall (head, not shoulders) and at least 250 pounds. His mane was not all the way in, although West African lions don’t have the big manes. Rachel and I named him Sampson, and another truck named him Mark, after a guy in their truck, so his name was officially Mark Sampson. I will just put all the lion stuff in one section, as to move on. During that first morning we heard a stampede. Indeed around 25-35 buffalo were trying to scare the lions off and stampeded them away from the carcass. It was quite interesting as I didn’t know that lions were scared of buffalo in mass (though I should have guessed, that and Lion King could have told me). We also watched the male lion chasing off a vulture from his food.


We were hoping for a dance number from the immense beast but he decided that since we weren’t willing to pay him anything but our time, we only deserved to watch him sleep (which was perfectly fine with mum). After we left one of the other trucks wouldn’t start, so someone else in that group had to push with their car (they didn’t want to get out and push…imagine…hehe). My lion obsession shall stop-NOW.


One of the most incredible and sweet things that we got to see was a cob nursing, it was adorable! We (Dad, Mum, Rachel, Ty, Sim and I) branched off in our car and went on a really long circuit (4 hours, on washboard…got a little long) and saw some more elephants (although only 8 total, not a lot) and some buffalo.


I was exhausted at the end of that and just crashed when we got back to the hotel. Oh yeah, did I mention that it’s like dessert there. Really cold at night (I’m guessing around 16-20 degrees C at night) and hot during the day (30-40ºC). Luckily past experiences taught me to put sunscreen on and I didn’t get a burn (although it takes a while to put sunscreen on your skull in between rows of hair!)



Throughout this trip dad had been having some trouble with his clutch and on the way home it finally gave out. We stopped at the waterfall (a funny thing, the dude there remembered us from 2 years ago and our bat experience. Hehe, long story, I think I still have the email, so write me if you want to see it) to eat lunch and when we were ready to go again, dad couldn’t shift. Naturally us kids were excited, thinking that we would have to stay at the waterfall and could have another day of fun, but dad got it started in first. What he explained to us “Now I can’t stop, or else you guys will have to push me to get me started again”.


Hehe, being the ridiculous and chaotic kids we are, every time dad missed a gear and had to crawl to 2 km/hour we would lean forward and hope that he wouldn’t make it, Haha, although we did get the chance to push twice. It’s not to much the experience of pushing that we enjoy (been there, done that… to much), it was the fact that we got to push and THEN run after the car and jump in that was fun!


Well, we had to stop at the border and one other time, and I must say, the border guards got a kick out of (1) seeing white kids push a truck, (2) seeing a girl push and (3) see a yovo’s car not working! Haha But we still made it home, despite hardly going out of third gear. Thank you Dad for being a good driver!



So now we are home and I am desperately trying to catch up in school (actually, the only way I can afford to spend so much time writing this is because I am also using it for an English project!) I would like to thank you all for your prayers and please continue to pray for school, as it seems like it will never end! Thank you! :D