Akagera National Park

Yesterday was Roger's birthday, and we celebrated by having Douglas' family over for a delicious dinner (thanks Faith!) and brownies for dessert (thanks Perkeys!).

Birthday Dinner!

Dessert!

After dinner, while we were passing out the brownies, Tara felt something run across her foot. Thinking it was a dust bunny, she glanced downwards ... only to see a VERY large spider (~ 3" across including legs). She screamed and lept onto one of the recliner chairs (where she quickly grabbed her camera and took a picture, is anyone shocked by this?!). Kelly was able to kill it by screaming and chucking her shoe at it (yes, we are SURE the screaming contributed to the successful killing). From our research, we are pretty sure it was a poisonous spider -- thank you Jesus for our safety!

Kelly to the rescue!

Evil, scary, ugly spider.

 Once that excitement was over, it was time for bed. Tomorrow the REAL celebration began!

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Everyone was awake and ready to go at 6:20 this morning, as we headed out to the Akagera National Park to continue celebrating Roger's birthday. A 2 hour drive from Kigali, this National Park covers 463 square miles and runs along the border of Tanzania. It contains savannah, mountains and swamps and a variety of Africa's wild animal population make their home here. The land is not fenced in, so animals may come and go as they please. But they are safe on this land, and probably know it :) As soon as we entered the park we spotted what we thought were large nests in a tree. It wasn't until we actually stopped to look at them, that they moved. BABOONS!

The entrance

Not nests, BABOONS!

We knew that this was going to be another great adventure! We stopped at the front gate to pick up a "guide" then set off in search of some animals. As we said before, the animals are free to move about the land, or even off the land. So when you want to see them, you REALLY have to hunt for them. Thankfully our guide had a GREAT eye for spotting them and a cell phone which she used to check in with other guides in the field to see who had seen what and where. It took us a little hunting, but soon we were up close and personal with a variety of animals we would NEVER see in the United States (outside of a good zoo): Buffalo, Bushbuck Antelope, Giraffes, Lapwings, Marabou Storks, a variety of other birds, termite mounds, Impalas, Mongoose, Nile Crocodiles, Warthogs, Vervet Monkeys, Baboons.

Our friendly neighborhood Giraffe
(yes, we were THAT CLOSE!)

Impalas! He was quite the stud, 27 women all to himself!

A face only a mother could love...
Marabou Storks

Termite mounds the size of small trees *shudder*

Vervet Moneys - sooooo adorable!

Warthogs - Hello Pumba!

Baboon - Look close and you can see the baby underneath!

Now, after seeing ALL of this, while driving around in AFRICA ... you'd think we'd all be happy. But Roger, Tara and Kelly looked like a bunch of sulking kids who hadn't gotten what they wanted on Christmas morning. Don't get us wrong, we were having the experience of a LIFETIME celebrating Roger's birthday. But we'd all REALLY wanted to see one thing .... hippos. We'd gone to every known hippo spot in the area, and found nothing! The guide was so upset, she knew how badly we'd wanted to see them. As we were heading back to base camp she decided to check the initial stop one last time. And guess who decided to play peek-a-boo with us? HIPPOS!!!

Hello HIPPOS!

We were all so giddy, racing out of the car to go take pictures. Suddenly, we realized we were RIGHT NEXT TO THEM. One of the deadliest animals in Africa, and we're snapping pictures?! Haha! But the guide was fantastic, and informed us they wouldn't get out of the water till dark, so we could go as close as we wanted. And we did -- and they were amazing!

We happily headed back to base camp. Faith and Roger wanted a coffee, so we headed to the lodge for refreshments. Roger found a Igisoro (Rwandan Mancala) board, and Faith set to work teaching him how to play. We watched for a while, but it got a little too complicated for us :)

Rwandan Mancala

Before too long it was time to head back to Kigali. As we came out to the car we noticed baboons had invaded the parking lot! They were pulling trash and such out and ripping it up, looking for food. Kelly and Tara were snapping pictures while Fait hand Roger headed for the car. Suddenly, our guide showed up out of nowhere and started shouting for Faith and Roger to get in their car. A large baboon came around and lunged at the car! We'd heard they could be aggressive, especially if they think there may be food. Kelly and Tara retreated back towards the lodge. When the baboon could not get into the car, it decided to leap on top of the car to try and find a way in. Poor Faith was looking out the window when it lunged for the roof, scared her so badly she screamed! Now we were really stuck, as we were on the lawn, and Faith and Roger were in the car with a baboon on top. We weren't going anywhere anytime soon... Thankfully our guide stuck around, and began shooing them away. The one still on the ground ran quickly, while the one of the roof got quite upset. Another staff person showed up to help and, seeing he was now outnumbered, the baboon decided to depart. We all dove for the car before any more could show up. Talk about an adventure!

Trying to get the baboon off the car.

Finally deciding to leave...

We had a wonderful time enjoying the creatures God created -- His handiwork is quite amazing! And we are thankful for our safety. From huge spiders and hungry baboons! Tomorrow we have multiple assessments set up with Kigali children. We'd appreciate prayer as we try to educate these parents on how to best help their child at home, as further research has shown us there is one SLP in the country currently and she is tied to an American school.

Until our next adventure ... turongera (pronounced: too-ron-gay-rah/see you next time!)

Um, we're standing in Africa. And there is a giraffe
behind us ... does it get much cooler than this?!?!

- Tara and Kelly