Safari Day

Kayla writes
Today we woke up really early and got ready to go on our safari. On our way to the park Jonathan had to go to the bathroom so we had to stop at some random persons house and ask if he could use the bathroom. The woman graciously let him in and even offered some of her plants for toilet paper (he didn’t take her up on that offer). When he got back into his car I just kept thinking how that would’ve never happened in America. And I was just thinking how different we are compared to the people here. We always expect the worst in people. But that’s another topic all together. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get to the park and even before we entered the park we started seeing animals. We started to see zebras, gazelles, and antelopes. We had to take 2 cars because there were so many of us. The tour guide came into our car and was telling us all of the different facts about all the animals we saw. The first animals we saw were water bucks and gazelles. The roads were so bumpy!! But it was so much fun!! We kept having to go off the road to see all the animals. Then we saw more zebra and antelope. There were so many zebra and antelope and gazelle!! Then we went off the road again saw a HUGE herd of water buffalo!!! It was kinda scary because we were so close and there were so many of them!! Needless to say we all stayed in the cars! All throughout the ride we kept seeing 3 warthogs and we kept trying to chase them and get a picture of them but they ran so fast it took us so long before we could get a picture of them! Kevin was trying so hard to get a picture of them and our tour guide was like ok lets get back on the road now and Kevin wouldn’t listen and was trying so hard to get a picture of them. It payed off! Then we saw GIRAFFES!!! I was so excited!! My life is now complete!! The first time we saw them there were 2 adults and 2 babies! They are so pretty and it is so much cooler to see them in person and up close without a fence between you like at the zoo. But we couldn’t get too close because we didn’t want to scare them off. Then on our way back our tour guide asked if we wanted to see them again so we turned off the road again and found 6 or 7. After we saw them and took pictures we got back on the road and just for fun Kevin tried to hit all the potholes and go through all the puddles. It was fun!! When we got back to the main office we had lunch and headed back home. On our way home, we threw candy (bon bons in kinyarwandan) out to all the little kids we passed by. We started handing out water bottles to some of the kids too. There was this one boy who was filling his water jug with water from a stream and the water looked awful so we stopped and gave him water. He looked so confused but definitely very grateful!! It was an amazing day!!