An African Birthday

Today I turned 21! In the early morning, we went out on a game drive. We saw a beautiful African sunrise and we saw all the animals the park has (which isn’t very many). Below are a few pictures.

After breakfast, we joined the community project. We went to Mkoba, the suburbs of Gweru (where I am). There, we visited a primary school where African Lion & Environmental Research Trust (ALERT) teaches conservation education. We sat in on a lesson that other volunteers were teaching. The kids were learning about the importance of being able to distinguish animal tracks. The kids had a little competition where they had to draw the animal tracks on the board… Very cute!

On the way back from the ALERT conservation education center, one of the volunteers asked the kids if they could sing happy birthday to me. The whole truck full of kids (about 70 of them) sang happy birthday to me. It was the cutest thing! The whole ride back to the primary school, the kids were singing and laughing. I got so many hugs when it was time to leave!

In the evening, we had a night drive. The lion handlers took out four lions from the enclosures and we spent three hours following the lions. Unfortunately, there was no kill. The lions chased a hare and some impala, but didn’t go after anything… They kept sitting down wanting to sleep!

More later…