Children Travel to Ruaha, the heart of East Africa's largest National Park
Children Travel to Ruaha, the heart of East Africa's largest National Park
This was an exciting moment for all of the youngest children in the orphanage: on their side preparations for this Safari started three days earlier: everybody was asking when, what time, etc.
The mamas started to prepare the delicious lunch packages the day before, they worked all night to finish them. So early in the morning (5 am) everyone got dressed and eat breakfast while it was still dark outside. Especially the smaller children were very excited and also a little bit afraid when they got on the two tour buses.
The long safari to the national park started at 5:18 am some children took a little nap while others watched outside the window at the stars and how the sun raised. After three and a half hours and two short breaks, we finally arrived at the gate and now everyone was excited to enter. So while we did the paperwork, the children and the mamas got an introduction from one of the four guides who went with us on the Safari. The children learned about its history, the animals in general and, that the Ruaha National Park is the biggest in East Africa. The introduction came along with important dos and donts of while in Ruaha national and children listened silently so as to get a quick permit.
The first stop was at the Ruaha river, there is a bridge where we could also get out of the car and watch the crocodiles and hippos, which was really scary for some children but with the help of the guide and the workers we could calm them down and they watched with us. We went on with the trip we saw elephants, nearby and far away, antelopes, giraffes, zebras, and buffalos.
When we arrived at the places where we ate our lunch everyone was hungry and we enjoyed the food. It was a really hot day so everyone was happy that we had water but it was never enough as initially planned so the reserve mineral water was distributed every after a while. We went on and saw some more animals. Even though we haven’t seen a lion, we had a really nice time and the children were excited about kind of everything.
Children were really happy, that the guides explained with easy language so that even the youngest could understand what they said. The most surprising facts for them was that crocodiles can reach the age of 70 years and elephants destroy trees while preparing for fights because we saw a lot of trees of this kind.
Then at 5 pm, the time to go back home was reached and everybody was looking through the windows to spot just a lion, but none was seen. On the way back to Mbigili, everyone was tired and most children on the tour bus slept. After a long day, we arrived and it was dark again.
This was the travel of their lifetime and their first moment in the national park!
Wilson J Rando
Project Manager AOHM
Dear sponsors,
On behalf of the children department I am sending my sincere thanks to you for giving us the chance to visit our parks.
The children enjoyed a lot and they will never forget in their life what they saw like giraffes, elephants and other animals! Thank you for those Happy Moments!
Wish you all the best!
Grace Mosha
Head of Children Department
