We learned that Mara means “spotted” and refers to the appearance of much of the land – vast areas of grass with dots of small trees and bushes here and there. Whatever, we had a wonderful, inspiring and refreshing visit to the national park known as Maasai Mara. The “Maasai” designation reflects the fact that this portion of the Rift Valley has been grazing land for the Maasai people for generations. The Maasai people agreed to set aside a portion of the land to preserve the natural landscape and animal populations. Not so long ago the land was mostly brown from a serious drought, but the rains this fall and winter have made it lush and green. The animals seemed fat and content.
I would like you to meet Landa Tanyassis, our guide and driver from 8:00 AM Friday till Noon on Monday. A Maasai himself, he was both skillful and experienced – and kind to old white people as well. I don’t know how many muddy miles we put on his van in those three days, but it was many. He managed to introduce us to the varieties of landscape within the park as well as many animals. I would love to show you all our pictures, but I doubt this blog would allow such a deluge.
Even before reaching the park we saw herds of Giraffe and Zebra.
At first it was a bit startling to see these creatures which I had only known in zoos wandering around with no keepers or warning signs.
However, by the time we were headed home, it seemed quite natural. Amazing!
Interspersed with the “wild” animals were large herds of cattle, sheep and goats. The Maasai are pasturalists and much of their lives are centered around their animals. We would see hundreds of animals grazing in the distance or near the road, accompanied by a lone Maasai shepherd in his red garb.
The last hour and a half of the four and a half hour journey was over hard scrabble dirt roads that threatened to destroy the van – or so it seemed to us – and we were glad to dismount at the Siana Springs Lodge with plenty of time to clean up before 
before lunch. We fell in love with our “luxury” tent. We had all the comforts of home along with the delights of nature all around. Except for times when we took picnic lunches, 
we had our meals in this happy, open air dining room. We found both the food and service to be excellent, though perhaps a bit too familiar (a lot like home, if you know what I mean.)
We shared the compound 
with Bush Bucks, Vervet Monkeys
and Colobus Monkeys.
One night a Baboon managed to enter which led to quite a stir as lodge staff showed him/her the way back over the fence. We were warned to tie our tent flaps securely to prevent a disaster of cosmic proportions should a band of Vervet Monkeys manage to get inside our tent.
After lunch we were given an orientation to Maasai culture by two young warriors, JJ and Patrick. 
JJ introduced himself as a living example that people can complete college and continue to live the traditional Maasai way of life. I was glad we heard from them. It helped us understand what we were seeing as we drove by Maasai villages and often, through their herds of livestock coming and going to the Mara.
There is no way I can put that experience in a blog. I will share several more pictures and stories and hope you are blessed with some small measure of the awe we experienced and by which we were so refreshed. We saw several kinds of Gazelles, several elephant families,
a couple of warthog families, ostrich families, many very large hippos
sharing the River Mara with scarey crocodiles, more giraffes, zebras, wildebeast, hartebeast, water buck, buffalo, and heyena.
And we enjoyed a close encounter with a pride of lions.
Five lovely ladies strolled out of the tall grass and right up to our van as
they went out to find some lunch for several youngun’s back in the bushes.
They were absolutely beautiful, though I wouldn’t want to meet them outside the van.
One of Donna’s favorite sights was the Secretary Bird. She casually asked Landa, “Are we likely to see a Secretary Bird here?” Maybe five minutes later he called out, 
“There’s your Secretary Bird, Donna.”
Landa took us off the main roads onto tracks that often turned out to be too soft to traverse. Several times he had to stop and leave the van to check before driving on.
He managed
to avoid getting stuck, though he did come to the rescue of others who weren’t so lucky. 
We spent more than an hour of our last afternoon helping get a jeep out of a ditch where it became mired trying to free another van. [The white van was actually here from Tanzania. It got nose down in a ditch with its frame partially grounded. The brown 4WD Jeep got stuck trying to pull it out. The white 4WD Jeep eventually pulled the brown one free and it had to make a long journey to come from behind the van to pull it free.]
We returned a bit early Sunday afternoon in order to do a bird walk with Patrick around the compound. We had gone out in the dark at 6:00 AM with packed breakfasts and lunches. By the time we hiked around the compound with Patrick and learned the songs of many new birds as well as other Maasai nature lore, we were ready for some quiet time in the tent before supper.
All through this adventure we kept thinking of people we would like to share it with – starting with our grandkids! We were sad for packing time to arrive. The staff were friendly and helpful, and we felt like God smiled on us. It was raining when we left Kikuyu Friday morning and we had a light shower in the park that afternoon as we headed for the lodge. Then we had sunshine until our van climbed out of the Rift Valley west of Nairobi Monday morning when we encountered more rain. We learned that torrential rains had caused serious flooding, especially in the northern part of Kenya where Joseph lives. He and his son Ike had started for Maralal but never made it. The roads were underwater and mud. I believe a dozen people were victims of fast flowing waters and much property and crops were destroyed.
I want to report that the CPE group had a very fine mid-unit review day last Thursday. I found them to be at least on a par with comparable students in the U.S. Lyle and Terry made the trip to Nairobi to the nearest pizza parlor and returned with five large pizzas. Happily, it turns out that these Kenyans liked pizza! We have now begun the second half of the unit. The students have new ministry assignments in the hospital and some different writing assignments. After consultation with Donna, I decided that a good use for some of the “pastor’s purse” funds provided to me by First Presbyterian Church of Columbus was 
assistance to the two students who seemed most in need of help with their fees. So, FPC Columbus paid Ksh 7,500 (about $100) of each of their outstanding fees. The whole group breathed a sigh of relief. I was very grateful to have that discretionary fund to help out. Here is the picture we took at the end of the day last Thursday – a very happy group.
Standing left – right: Gladys, Cal, Patrick, Daniel, Lyle, Susan, and Joseph
Seated: Donna, Leah, Terry, and Lucy
As we made our way back to Nurok and the across the Rift Valley again, our friends the Giraffes came out to bid us farewell. It was a very special few days beginning with our CPE Mid-unit review and having a dream adventure to Maasai Mara. Peace, Cal Brand 
