Painting at Danai

For the last few weeks we’ve been working on a painting project at one of the children’s homes. They’ve recently had an extension built onto the home that gave them a few extra bedrooms and an office for the social workers that work there.  We’ve been going a couple of days a week and we usually paint in the morning and then play with the kids when they get home from school in the afternoon. We’ve had a few mishaps with not having the right color or enough paint and sketch ladders to work with so it’s been a little slow but we are getting close to finishing now. Hopefully we will finish the last bedroom and the rest of the exterior by Friday. The kids love to help us paint too. As soon as they get home it turns a little chaotic but it’s fun to see them get involved and have fun with us.

We’ve also started a routine with the kids at Danai, splitting them into two groups by their ages and having a devotional time. Tara has been doing devotionals with the older kids that seem to be going really well. They go through scriptures together and she’s even introduced prayer journals to them that have been effective. Some of the other girls and I take the younger kids during the devotional time. There are 11 kids under the age of five so our group is much more rambunctious but we still have a lot of fun with them. 

Antelope Park

Our last stop on our week long trip was Antelope Park in Gweru. It’s a place that has a big lion conservation program and lots of once-in-a-lifetime experiences to participate in. The first night we got there, Caroline, Emma, and I went on the night encounter. We went on an open truck with a red spot light that took us night hunting with four of their lions that were in stage 1 of the program. There were 2 females and 2 males all about 2 years old. At that stage in the program they take the lions out at night to teach them hunting skills. The spotters help the lions find animals and try to get them interested in stalking and hunting them. Most of the time the lions were lazy and just playing with each other but at one point we got to see them go after a group of impala and we followed them in a high speed chase through the bush that made the trip worth it.

The next morning we all went to watch the elephant training. They have four elephants that have all been orphaned at other parks. There are 3 girls and 1 boy that range in age from 22 to 25 so they are all still fairly young and too young to breed. They have the same training routine every morning that starts with letting the trainers check their feet and includes tricks like sitting down, letting the trainers stand on their backs, and even kicking and throwing a soccer ball. It was so fun to watch. Then immediately after that, Tara and I went on our 30 minute elephant ride. We each went with a trainer but we had our own elephant. It was surprisingly really smooth and comfortable. I didn’t want to get off. Tara rode behind me and her elephant kept handing me presents with her trunk like rocks and grass. It was so cute!

The others did other activities like a carriage game drive and cub feeding but the next thing I did was the lion walk. Before we went on the walk they gave us a safety talk and each of us a stick that they told us would be used as an extension of our hand to point at the lions and say no if they were doing anything that they weren’t supposed to. The walk was amazing though. We were completely out in the open just walking with two female lions that were 15 and 16 months old. There were no fences or collars or leashes, just the lions and us with our sticks. The lions had just been fed so they wanted to be really lazy and just lay around for pictures and the trainers had to make them walk a few times.

The last activity I did at Antelope Park was the lion feeding. They place a pile of meat right in front of you just on the other side of a chain link fence and then they let the lions out at the opposite side of the enclosure and you watch them literally sprint right at you. It’s pretty exhilarating and it’s hard not to just run away when you see them coming. I’m really glad we decided to do the lion feeding because it was so worth it and something I will likely never see again.   

The whole week was absolutely amazing and I did some of the craziest things I’ve ever done in my life. We have been so blessed to get to experience all that we have here.

Victoria Falls

Next stop was Victoria Falls on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. In the morning we took a tour of the falls first and they were absolutely breathtaking. The size and power of the waterfall is unreal. We had to speed through the tour a little bit to get to our next activities on time but we still got a bunch of good pictures. Next we went to the adrenaline activities. Three of us signed up for the half day package of activities so we were doing all of it. They were all in the same area at the top of a huge cliff near the Zimbabwe/Zambia bridge with nothing below us but rocks, rushing water, and a dead hippo. The first thing was the Flying Fox (the least scary of the three activities) where you are attached to a zip line on your back and you run and jump of the platform superman style. It was exciting but not terrifying. Next was the zip line that Caroline and I did together. This one you go down in more of a sitting position but there is a pretty significant drop at the beginning that is scary. I screamed the whole way down but it was a lot of fun. Last was the most terrifying thing I have ever done—the gorge swing! Again, Caroline and I went together. I watched John, and Tara and Jaclyn go before us and I had decided there was no way I was doing that. The man hooking people up on the platform was all sweet to me and told me he would just hook me up to look over the edge and if I still decided I didn’t want to then I didn’t have to. He told me, “I’m not here to push anyone, just to give them courage.” I got to the edge and told him I couldn’t do it and I was yelling no as he pushed me off the edge. It was by far the scariest thing I’ve ever done but I’m glad he pushed me. The initial free fall was 70 meters (so whatever that is in feet) and then the total swing was 120 meters down. When we were swinging at the bottom I only noticed I was still screaming when my throat started to hurt. It was CRAZY but so worth it!

Later that day we had booked to go on a sunset cruise. I was expecting it to just be relaxing and that we wouldn’t see many animals but we did. Right away we saw some crocodiles and then a bunch of hippos. We even saw a group of elephants on the edge of the river. The sunset was beautiful on the water too.

Then that night we went to the Boma for dinner. It was a huge buffet of meat like crocodile, eland, warthog, impala, and even worms. All of the food was good but the best part was the entertainment. When we first walked in they gave us traditional looking wrap type dresses to wear and a little bit of face paint. While we were eating, a group came out a danced and sang for us while one man walked around and painted animals on people’s faces. They also had a fortune teller and a hair braider you could go to. During the second performance, they gave us all drums so we could play along and then it ended with us all up at the front dancing in a big group. We all had a good time.

Hwange National Park

Last week we had a bit of vacation time where we did as many tourist things as we could. We left on Tuesday from Harare and our first stop was Hwange National Park several hours away. We stayed there one night and went on a game drive through the park the next morning. I was amazed at how many different animals we did see with the park being so big and us not having that much time. We saw a lot of kudu, some giraffes, springbok, impala, zebra, and wildebeest. We saw one huge kudu that looked like it was dying and there was a hyena and a jackal close by just circling it. Later we saw a group of elephant cows and calves on one side of the road and we sat there for a minute and realized we were in the middle of a big group of them because there were even more on the other side of us. We were blocking them from crossing so we backed up and the group passed right in front of the car like no big deal. It was unreal to see elephants that close.

Father's House Weekend

The weekend before last we had a fun weekend with the kids from Father’s House. They live in a more rural area about 30 minutes out of Harare so we brought them all to the city to have a sleepover weekend with us. We had so much fun! We picked them up on Friday and took them to the Ruthless concert at church, which was an awesome night of praise and worship. On Saturday we had fun around the house playing games and doing skits and then we all went to play putt-putt golf at a place nearby. They also had a big jungle gym and trampoline that we all had fun on. That night we had a braai (aka BBQ) and invited the pastor who supports the home and his family to come join us. The kids all made cards of appreciation for him as well as their mother, Mary, and presented the cards to them after dinner. The older boys made speeches that were all very sweet. After the pastor and his family left, we had two giant piles of blankets and mats that we all cuddled up on together and watched the Lion King until we fell asleep. On Sunday morning we all went to church and the kids had prepared a song the day before to sing in front of the church. Takunda, who is 8, led the group with his precious voice in Light of the World. All 11 of the kids at Father’s House are each so precious and we were blessed by our time with them as well as Mary that weekend.

Update

During the week we have been busy at children’s homes and having a wonderful time getting to know the kids! They’ve asked us not to take pictures for the first couple of weeks and focus on building relationships instead so I have no pictures with the kids to share yet but I promise we have been doing things other than the tourist things that I put up pictures about. We have focused on two of the children’s homes primarily and we’ve started a routine of telling them a bible story, teaching a little lesson on manners (at one of the homes especially,) helping them with homework, reading with them, and then organizing games either indoor or outdoor. No matter what we do, we always have a good time just being with them and getting to know their individual personalities. One day last week we were sitting around coloring pictures with the kids and little Takunda, who is 8, started singing “How Great Is Our God” while he continued to color and some of the other children joined in. It was the most precious thing and nearly brought me to tears. Each of them are all so precious and they are teaching me much more than I could ever teach them.

On Friday mornings we have also been going to St. Catherine’s (a school for children with disabilities) and participating in their assembly. We sing songs with them and then act out a bible story for them. We basically make fools out of ourselves but I think they enjoy it and we are always blessed by our time with them.  We weren’t able to go this last week because they kids were out of school but hopefully we will get to continuing going there again soon.

On Sunday we went to a safari lodge called Chengeta that was awesome! We each got to choose two activities to do so we picked things that we won’t get to do later at Antelope Park. We chose to canoe down the Seruwi River and to do a game drive.

The canoeing was so peaceful and beautiful. It was one of those times where the beauty of God’s creation is thrown at your face and you can’t help but appreciate it. We saw lots of cool looking birds and even had an eagle flying with us for most of the trip. After canoeing we ate lunch and then went on the game drive through the park. He told us the park was 7,000 and something acres and they have all kinds of game, with the cape buffalo being the most dangerous animal there.

 We stopped at the lions first, who were actually in an enclosed area and were up close to the fence so we got to take pictures with them. Our guide warned us that we had to keep an eye on one of the big males while we were taking pictures because he gets protective and when Jaclyn went to take her picture he charged the fence coming after her and scared us all to death. After that adrenaline rush, we got back in the land rover and headed out to the rest of the open park to look for game. We saw warthogs right away and then some giraffes. It’s so much cooler to see them in the open than it is to see them behind a fence at the zoo! We also saw impala and a big group of wildebeests. We had to cut the drive a little bit short so that we could get back before dark but we still got to see some good stuff. Our guide’s name was Richard and he was so sweet and knowledgeable. I had so much fun and would go back right now if I could.