Dirt Road Anthem

Today we got to enjoy a day off and be tourists in Nairobi.  We started the day with a game drive/tour of Nairobi National Park.  Although it is just on the edge of the city, it encompasses 110 square kilometers and has plenty of wild animals.  Lindsay told our tour guide that even though she's been on several safaris, she has yet to see a lion, so he raced all around the park (including off the dirt "road"), communicating with the other drivers to find one of the three prides of lions, which are reportedly very difficult to spot.  We were all very excited to find a lioness and a cub who appeared to be hunting in the distance! Then later in the day we were even more delighted that we got to see another pride hanging out right by the path! In addition to lions, we saw giraffes, warthogs, impalas, gazelles, rhinos, zebras, baboons, ostriches and many other types of birds.  They do not have any elephants at the Nairobi National Park because apparently the 110 square kilometers is not enough space for them - crazy to think how little space they get at zoos. 



A greedy baby elephant

Luckily we were still able to see elephants today, though, because our next stop was the elephant orphanage.  The orphanage adopts elephants whose mothers have died, mainly from being killed by poachers.  The smallest one they had was only a couple days old.  We learned lots of facts about how they take care of the elephants - they reportedly have a 98% success rate when releasing them back into the wild through a rehabilitation program where they can get adopted by an elephant herd. The elephants were quite playful and tried to steal each other's food (branches of leaves).



Pankti is thrilled to feed a giraffe

After the elephant orphanage, we headed to the giraffe park to see and feed some giraffes.  The proceeds from our tickets go to helping endangered animals in Kenya.  Feeding the giraffes was quite entertaining.  Pankti couldn't stop laughing; Their tongues are slimy and purple.



Aaron on his 2nds 3rds 4ths of ox balls

After visiting the giraffes, we were all starving - perfect for eating lunch at a popular restaurant called Carnivore.  According to their advertisements, the restaurant is "Africa's Greatest Eating Experience".  I'd say they lived up to their reputation pretty well.  We started with some appetizers and soup.  Then they brought out a tray of sauces with a flag on the top.  The waiter explained that we keep getting more meat until we surrender and take our flag down.  The meat options were plentiful as you can see from the menu.  Aaron particularly enjoyed the ox balls, and the waiter was very enthusiastic about their digestive powers.  Luckily for Pankti, there was a vegetarian menu, too!  I tried ostrich and crocodile for the first time.  I think they brought about 10 different meats.  After the first couple servings, I started giving half my portions to Michael because I couldn't finish them but I wanted to keep trying all the different kinds.  Lindsay was giving some of hers to Aaron too.  Once we were all stuffed, we had dessert.  I tried tomato ice cream!

Michael's plate after our surrender

Carnivore menu

Tomorrow morning we head out to Mombassa to start our observations at hospitals.  We've been having fun being tourists, but I think we are all excited to start working on field research for our projects.  Pankti and I will be focusing on fetal monitoring during labor and the currently-used practices to measure fetal heart rate.  Michael and Aaron are focusing on antenatal health screening tools with a focus on potential utilization of cell phone technologies, telemedicine.