Chobe National Park, Botswana: All day safari

Yes, I saw all of these animals with my own eyes, and took all of these pictures myself. There are several animals and birds that I could only see through the binoculars generously lended to me by Rena, the most interesting of which was a family of 3 black-backed jackals!

Impala

Two buffalo, and a sleeping hippo with a friendly bird.

Crocodile

Two open-mouthed crocs with an elephant in the background.

Me with a hippo family! Cute baby hippo. #hungryhungry

Elephants were crossing the marsh waters, and play-fighting as they went!

More play-fighting elephants!

Multi-generational elephant family. Love the babies!

Tribal negotiations.

Lilies! <3

This is a hornbill like Zazu from Lion King!

Bone yard - these are buffalo bones.

Why did the elephant cross the road? To get some food after a mud-bath.

Lazy hippo. #notsohungryhungry

Another baby elephant! <3

Silly giraffe.

Giraffe herd!

A lioness! Sarabi? She was a very old, sickly lioness lying beside a elephant carcass to protect her pack's food from vultures.

More giraffes!

These are called kit.

A stork flock!

One last elephant...there are over 50,000 in Chobe!

Victoria Falls Day 2: Cheetah Walk, more of Victoria Falls, and Zambezi River Sunset Cruise.

Okay, listen. Africa could not get more amazing.

Today, I got to hang out with cheetahs. No joke. I got to sit on the ground next to cheetahs and pet them. They licked my hands. They purred like house cats. Then, I walked one like a dog through the bush. Some people want to swim with the dolphins; petting and interacting with cheetahs was like that for me!

I got to hang out with Lulu first. She is only 2 years old:

Then I got to be with Lillian, who is 3 years old:

If that wasn’t enough to make my day, check out this rainbow over Victoria Falls. There are 4 trails on the Zambia side of Vic Falls, and I have now hiked all of them! I am thinking of finding out how much it costs to ride an ultralight over the Falls to see them from the air.

But wait, there’s more! I went on a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River today. The Zambezi is the water that feeds Victoria Falls, and it flows all the way to the Indian Ocean. We got to see HIPPOS! Legit, real, wild hippos. The sunset was beautiful, too.

Oh, and I saw about 30 different monkeys today. They just walked past me on the path. No big deal. There was everything from infants with their mothers to adolescents jumping around in trees to full adults.

Seriously. Y’all need to come to Zambia. You all need to experience Camp LIFE because it is a life-changing experience for you and 10 orphans, and you all need to go to Victoria Falls because God’s creation here is just phenomenal.

By the way, for those who are interested in animal rights: the cheetahs that I hung out with were rescued from zoos in South Africa. The company who keeps them has 9 cheetahs total: 5 males that have been transitioned away from human exposure, 1 male that is used in the Cheetah Walk but was too grumpy today for interaction, and 3 females that I interacted with today.

The plan for the 9 cheetahs is to transition them into a huge game farm that is 400m x 400m. They will live and breed there, and their cubs will be transitioned into the wild to repopulate the cheetah population. There are less than 10,000 cheetahs in the wild today, and under 100 in Zambia, so this organization is committed to changing that.

The Least of These: The urgent need for sponsors for 7 of my 10 girls.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Matthew 25:40

I was going to save this blog for when I was done with Victoria Falls and back in the States, but I feel an urgent need from God in my heart to share the final part of my mission with you. God gave me this urgency during my devotions this morning when I read Isaiah 8:1, “Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz”, which means “quick to the plunder, swift to the spoils”.

The entire point of Camp LIFE is to expose Americans like me to the lives of 10 orphaned or vulnerable girls so that we can understand their stories, and return to America to get sponsors for these girls. Sponsorship by an American (or Canadian, Australian, European, etc) means that the girls will get to attend one of the best schools in Zambia. They will receive a Christian education, a meal every day, uniforms as clothing, constant love and attention from teachers, a sense of order and gentle discipline, medical attention when necessary, food for their family as a reward for good attendance (so that their family doesn’t pull them out of school), and most importantly – A FUTURE!

Right now, 3 of my 10 girls already have sponsors. That means 7 of the girls do not have a future. Period. None of them have more than a 4^th grade education, and none of them are currently in school. Without a degree, they will be condemned to work in the slums for the rest of their lives. At worst, they will be married and/or pregnant by the time they are 16, and then they may become prostitutes to have enough money for their families. They may contract HIV or die before they are 57 years old, the average life expectancy in Zambia.

Education through Family Legacy means that these girls will have the opportunity to graduate grade 12, and then go on to university to become the teachers, pilots, nurses, doctors, and pastors that they want to be. However, that cannot happen unless someone sponsors them individually.

Sponsorship through Family Legacy costs $44 a month, with a one-time enrollment fee of $95. Again, simply sacrificing that relatively small amount of money can change the course of the lives of these 7 little girls:

Abigail lives with her mother and has never met her father. Sometimes her mother locks her out of her house, which really hurts her feelings. She is a quiet girl who likely has more to her story that she was too shy to share. She wants to be a teacher, and also told us she really wants to go to school.

Regina used to go to a school run by the Zambian government, but she was pulled out after grade 4, and she doesn’t know why. Her mother is alive and lives with her older brother, but she was sent to live with her auntie when she was around 2 years old. She has 5 cousins that live with her, and one of her older female cousins beats her. She understood some English and could write her name from when she was in school before.

If you are interested in sponsoring one of these beautiful little girls, please click this link: https://web.familylegacy.com/give/ambassadors/60401

*No longer in program. Please pray for her.*
Ruth, a small, shy little girl who at 9 years old looks more like a 5 year old. She has lost both of her parents already, and has never been in school.

*SPONSORED. Thank you Taylor and Amber W.*
Gift, a bright shining star who heard about Jesus for the first time this week, and already wants to be a pastor. She has also lost both of her parents and her cousin died only this past week. She is so ready to learn, and soaks up everything you tell her.

  

*SPONSORED. Thank you Jessica S.*
Dorcus is 11 years old, and has never been to school. She has also lost both of her parents, and her older sisters have moved away. Her older sisters chase her away when she tries to visit them. She never knows how much she will get to eat on any given day.

*SPONSORED. Thank you Rob and Maria S.*
Sylvia’s parents are both alive, but they live far away in the tribal village outside of Lusaka. Sylvia was sent to take care of her sick grandmother – at 9 years old. She only gets to eat once per day in the morning, and she dropped out of school after grade 3.

*SPONSORED. Thank you Anna I.*
Veronica’s father died when she was 4 and her mother died when she was 5, meaning she remembers them. She lives with her auntie, uncle, a younger brother, a cousin her own age, and 3 older cousins. Her cousins make fun of her to her auntie, which makes her very sad. She wants to be a nurse, and told us that she really wants to go school.

Victoria Falls Day 1: Zebras, Impala, and over 287,400 gallons per second.

The missions part of my trip is over, and now I get to have almost 4 days of tourism to see God’s creations in Africa. I am blessed that I was able to save up the money to go to Victoria Falls on the Zambia side. For those who do not know, Victoria Falls is one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World and it is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is classified as the largest waterfall in the world, though it is neither the tallest nor the widest. This is because the combination of both makes it huge. It is 1,708 meters (5,604 ft) wide and 108 meters (354 ft) high. It flows at an annual average of 287,400 gallons per second, though I am here in peak season, so it is probably going faster. It lies on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Both the sound and the amount of mist that Falls release are amazing. The Falls runs into a gorge between two land masses, and I hiked along the land mass opposite the Falls today with my travel companions (Amy and Clare). Clare and I got absolutely soaked just by the mist that splashes up from the Falls. It was totally awesome!

The mist is unreal. We couldn’t even see the entire Falls because the mist obstructed the view so much. There were rainbows forming everywhere in the winter sun, and the jungle around the Falls is extremely lush due to the constant mist of water. It’s like a rainforest, except the rain comes from the Falls.

 The hotel I am staying at is only a 5 minute walk from the Falls, so as I sit in my hotel room, I can hear the Falls right now. When I walk up to my block of the hotel, I can see the mist from the Falls floating above the trees and buildings. The hotel is also in the middle of the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park of Zambia, so we have several animals that simply walk through the hotel grounds. So far I have been mere feet from wild zebras and impala, and I have seen one monkey. Apparently giraffes and other monkeys walk through the grounds as well.

By the way, Mosi-oa-Tunya means “smoke that thunders”, which is the indigenous name for Victoria Falls. David Livingstone, the famous missionary and explorer, named the water “Victoria Falls” after Queen Victoria. On the Zambia side, the Falls are technically in the city of Livingstone, but the city on the Zimbabwe side is called Victoria Falls.

Tomorrow I will get to walk cheetahs on leashes. These are young cheetahs that have been raised in captivity, but will be released to the wild to help maintain the cheetah population. We will walk them in the bush to help them get used to their wild environment. I also have heard rumors that I will get to pet them and watch them run, but I will let you know tomorrow if that is true. My brothers and I used to pretend we were cheetahs all the time, so it is cool that I will get to be right next to them!

I am also going on a sunset cruise tomorrow on the Zambezi River with Amy, Clare, and 12 other people who were at Camp LIFE this week. Then, on Monday, we will all go on a day trip safari in Botswana, one of Zambia’s other neighbors! I can’t wait!