Kuja's Trouble

Hi, all you wonderful grand children! This is Zelda the Zebra and I have a very sad story with a very happy ending for you. It’s about Kuja the puppy. If you don’t know who Kuja is just click here and you can learn all about him. Kuja is a German Shepherd puppy that belongs to grandpa and grandma and is living with all of us here in Africa.

We were all so worried when Kuja stopped eating, drinking and began to look so weak. He was so tired he couldn’t even stand up. He was sick to his stomach everyday for a week.

Kuja’s best friend and doggie trainer Suzie was the first to say …. “Oh no! I think poor Kuja has Parvo!”  That’s short for Parvovirus. Most puppies don't recover when the get Parvo. 

So we put poor little Kuja in a box and rushed him to a puppy doctor in town. A puppy doctor is called a Veterinarian. This doctor did not know what to think so he just gave Kuja some shots and sent him back home, but Kuja just keep getting worse. All we could do is pray to our Father in heaven to save little Kuja’s life.

Finally when we had almost given up hope one of Grandma’s missionary friends said she knew a very old and wise Veterinarian. His name was Dr. Cran. So we put poor little Kuja in another box and took him that very day to the doctor.

Dr. Cran knew right away what to do. So he took little Kuja and worked on him for 3 days. 

After each days treatment Dr. Cran would drive Kuja back home to sleep in his own bed and each morning we would bring him back to Dr Cran’s animal hospital for more treatment. For all his hard work he only charged us forty dollars. That's not much. Dr. Cran is such a nice man and he really loves animals. 

When Kuja woke up the fourth morning grandpa opened the garage door and Kuja ran up to grandpa and began wagging his tail and jumping up and down. Everyone was so happy. Kuja had recovered!

Kuja was still very weak for another three or four days, but now he’s doing just fine. All of us here (including Kuja) are still praising the Lord, thanking Him for hearing our prayers and helping little Kuja recover.

Today Lewis gave Kuja a bath and he smells so much better. 

This is Kuja 2 months ago.

This is Kuja today!

Grandpa and grandma are so happy to have their little Kuja feeling better and getting bigger and stronger.  He’s pretty happy about that too!

Good bye and lots of love …. Zelda.

Kuja!

Well, hello all you wonderful grandchildren! It’s me again, Zelda the Zebra. 

I have someone very special I want you to meet. He’s very small, very cute and Grandpa and Gema love him so much. One day he will be big and strong and guard everyone living at grandpa’s house but today he’s still just a baby. His name is Kuja. That means ‘come’ in Kiswahili. Kuja is a 10 week old German Shepherd. He really wants to talk with you ….so without any further to do, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s … Kuja!

Kuja! Kuja! Wake up Kuja!

Oh! Oh! Hello, everyone! My name is Kuja and I am a very small little dog. One day I will grow up and be a mighty guard dog, protecting everyone from the bad guys.

But not today. Today I would rather play outside...

 Lay in the grass and chew on peoples fingers.

 Fingers are like bad guys and I can chew them up!

My favorite thing is to hide in the grass. Can you see me? 

No I mean can you really see me?

This is my teacher Suzie. She teaches me everything. She taught me everything I know. 

She made a bed for me. She taught me to go out of the house before I use the bathroom. 

Sometimes I don't make it.

 I have lots of friends … here's two of them. Nikki and Zach. Zach likes holding me …. I think I’m his favorite puppy.

I wish you could be here with me.

Well, Grandpa and Gema wants me to come with them … so for now Kwaheri! (Good bye.)

Tweeter's Friends

Jambo (hello) wonderful grandchildren! I'm Zelda and my little friend is Tweeter. Tweeter and I just finished talking to your grandparents. Babu (grandfather) and Nyanya (grandmother) said to tell you they love you so much and miss all of you tons. 

Tweeter was just asking me to let him introduce to you some of his bird (ndege) friends, so I’m going to let him tell you all about them. 

Here’s Tweeter….

Jambo (hello) little ones! Habari Gani?  
(How are you doing?) Remember me? My name is Tweeter and I am a Yellow Billed Oxpecker, and though my beak is yellow with a red tip, I don’t always peck for bugs on oxen. In fact, I'll sit on anyone that won't eat me! 
My favorite place to sit is on Zelda. 
Zelda always thanks me and I get a free lunch!

I am one of over 1162 kinds of birds (ndege) that live in Kenya. So I would like you to kaa chini (have a seat) and meet some of my friends (rafiki). Your babu (grandfather) and I took these pictures of my friends and I want you to know that it wasn't very easy to get them to sit still. So sit back enjoy the show and maybe even learn a little of Kenya’s native language Swahili as well.

We bird’s (ndege) here in Kenya come in all shapes, sizes and colors. So from the biggest of my friends to some of the smallest here we go.

My first friend is Ollie the ostrich. He is the biggest, fastest, heaviest bird of all my friends. In fact he’s the biggest bird alive!  He can grow up to 9 feet tall, weigh up to 346 lbs and can run 43 miles an hour. I think he has very pretty eyes but looks aren’t everything …because  he can’t fly like me.

Next is Stan the Maribu Stork. We aren’t very good friends because the only reason Stan likes me is he wants to eat me. Stan is almost 5 feet tall, can weigh almost 20 pounds and stretch his wings out to 10 feet.

The only other bad thing about Stan is that he will eat anything… garbage, dead animals, shoes other birds and like I said…me if he catches me.

Then there are my beautiful flamingo friends. They are so graceful as they walk through the maji (water) to find algae and brine shrimp to eat. The big ones are called Greater Flamingos and their shorter brothers are called Lesser Flamingos. You can even tell by their beaks who’s who. The Greater Flamingos have pink beaks with black tips and the Lesser Flamingos have dark red beaks. 

They have to be very careful of the hyenas. Hyenas love to eat flamingos. Here is one now looking for a flamingo flat bread sandwich.

And then there are great the hunters like the Fish Eagle with his beautiful white head or his totally brown friend the Tawny Eagle. Mostly they hunt for fish. You will find them in the top of the trees looking at the lake for good fishing spots.

Your Babu (Grandfather) likes watching them go after the fish. With their sharp talons they can skoop up the fish before they know what happened.

I really do have lots of friends, like Harry the ‘Hadada Ibis’. He looks so pretty in the sunlight and when he talks it sounds like …ha-da-da!

Or Henry the ‘African Grey Hornbill’ who likes your kind of ceral too.

Now I have friends that are my size, and of course they’re not as pretty as me, but they do look nice.

Like Sam the ‘Superb Starling’ who I really do think looks superb…

You'll find Sam all around Nakuru and in other cities as well. He loves to walk around looking for scraps of food. 

Or his cousin Steve who is a ‘Ruppell’s Long Tailed Starling’…

We all live in different kinds of nest … like Wendy Lou Weaver the ‘Eastern Golden Weaver’.

She likes to take grass and reeds to  weave her little round house by lakes. 

Her cousin Wilinina, the Black faced Weaver doesn’t like the water but makes the same kind of house in the woods with all her friends.

The great eagle hunters like to build their big nest in trees bythe lake so they can see where the best place to fish is.

Oh, and I can’t leave out Peter the 'Pied Crow'. He is very noisy but always let’s you know if someone is coming.

There are so many more, but last but not least is one of my best and smallest friends. He is a tiny little ball of red called Freddy. Freddy’s a Red Billed Fire finch.  

Well I guess I got to go because all this story telling is making me hungry and I see a big fat fly (inzi) right next to Zelda’s ear.          Mmmm-mmm; good stuff!  

Here are all the Swahili words we learned this time. Practice them with mom and dad and you’ll be speaking like a Kenyan in no time.

Well thanks for learning about some of my friends. Zelda and I will see you next time.     Love Tweeter.                             

                                     

                                Swahili Words to Learn

Jambo… Hello

Habari Gani… How are you?

Babu…. Grandfather

Nyanya… Grandmother … and also means tomato.

Ndege …. Bird or birds

Maji …. Water

Rafiki … Friend

Kaa chini … Have a seat.

Fly … Inzi

Kwa heri …. Good bye!