Friday May 28

Crocodile!

 Yesterday, we took 40 of the kids on a field trip to Kitale, which is about three hours from Eldoret. We visited a museum and an “orphanage” for disabled animals.  

The museum had various African artifacts and instruments and displays of insects. They also had some live exhibits of snakes, crocodiles, turtles, and tortoises. The kids seemed to have a great time! We left for our trip at 8am and got back to the village around 9pm. 

The animal orphanage was really one of the strangest things I have ever seen. I can't do it justice trying to describe it! There were two three-legged dogs that greeted us when we arrived, along with an odd display of statue characters. Then there was an elaborate display of many of the mountains talked about in the Bible, with statues and placards to describe the Bible stories that took place on each of them. They were huge piles of rocks arranged to look like a mountain, with statue characters in animated poses.

Our nature walk at the Animal Orphanage.

Dwarf cow

 They had sheep that had 

extra hooves growing out 

of their stomachs,

 a tail-less donkey and

 a hermaphrodite donkey, 

three dwarf cows, a 

number of cows and 

sheep that had deformed legs,

 and an eight year old steer 

that has three eyes and a

 malformed mouth. 

The donkeys...

His mother thinks he's beautiful.

All three eyes blink and appear to see, and he is huge and fairly healthy looking, which is miraculous in light of his mouth which doesn't look like he should be able to eat at all.

This cow's abnormality is some sort of shrub growing around her ear. (Ha! just kidding. )

Every animal orphanage should have a pregnant policeman statue!

This little guy lives in the house I'm staying in - we are becoming good friends!

The kids piling into the back of the play truck in true Kenyan fashion - it's not full yet!