Saturday 22 May 2022

After a stay over in Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, we started our journey to Nakuru ready to start our work at West End School tomorrow. A long four hour drive.

But first we would visit one of my favourite places, the David Sheldrick Trust, which rehabilitates elephants that have been injured in the wild. For those who don’t know, my Mum, who passed away 17 years, loved elephants and she never had the opportunity to visit places like this. So it is always an emotional trip.

Not only am I a people person, I really love animals too. We have three dogs at home and despite my denial to my wife, I wouldn’t have it any other way. For me, I don’t understand how you can hurt not just people in anyway, but also animals too.

The elephants are only allowed out with human contact for one hour every day. The keepers do not want them to be surrounded by humans in preparation for their release, which can take up to three years after being rescued. The host would tell the stories of each individual 23 elephants and why needed rescuing. We got to hear heartbreaking stories of elephants who have been speared, snared and orphaned by poachers killing their mothers for her tusk. I simply don’t understand why people still continue to kill these beautiful creatures.

On our journey down to Nakuru, we saw the beautiful surroundings of Kenya, the scenery is stunning. We visited the Great Rift Valley, a series of contiguous geographic trenches, approximately 7,000 kilometres in total length, that runs from Lebanon to Mozambique, which can also be seen from space!

We saw giraffes, zebras and baboons freely roaming the lands, eating leaves, grass and in some cases, whatever other things that can find.

Since becoming a business owner myself since the last time we visited Kenya in 2019, I notice more and more the wooden huts on the side of the roads, selling all sorts of items; fruit, vegetables, tiles, shoes and so much more. They are doing something they love, to earn a wage to pay for the bills that we in the UK have to do too.

Upon arrival to our hotel at 6.30pm, we were ready for dinner and an early night. It’s been a long couple of days and we needed to be ready for the excitement of tomorrow, our first day at West End Academy.