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!

Habari Gani? (How are you?)

Hello! (Jambo) all you wonderful children. This is Zelda, your favorite zebra (Punda milia) and all my friends. Habari gani? (How are you doing?) All of us who live here in Africa have missed you so much!

Well it’s that time again. Grandpa (Babu) and Grandma (Nyanya) are getting ready to come over and stay with us for a while again. All of us in Kenya have missed them so much. We can’t wait for them to arrive.

 Zina my daughter and I with all our friends are going to tell you everything that happens while Grandpa and Grandma are staying with us here in Kenya.  But that’s not all we are going to do.

We also are going to teach you some of our African Language called ‘Swahili’(Kiswahili) and introduce you to all our friends. Some of those friends you already know like; Gabby the goat (bebera) or Marley the monkey (kima) or Tweeter the bird (ndege). But we have a bunch of new ones we know you’re going to love to meet.  

We are going to send you pictures of where we live and tell you all about what we do. It will be so much fun! If you want me to send you a letter each time I write have mommy or daddy sign you up as a follower.

Well, we have to go get things ready for Babu (grandfather) and Nyana (grandmother) so goodbye (kwa herini) to all of you for now.

 See you soon! (Tutaonana)

The Cave!

Hi beautiful grandchildren! This is Zenia. Your Paw and Gema had fun hiking to caves on the hills of Nakuru. I was in school so I didn’t get to go but when they came home they told me to gather my friends and they would tell me a story. Everyone gathered around – Zelda, the Zebra (my mom), Gabby the goat, Tweeter the bird and even the monkeys and baboons from the park came. This is the story as they told it to us:

Waaaaow!! What an incredible weekend!

The Cave! Sounds like a suspence drama. It was just that. Friday we were tricked into going on a short ¼ mile hike which turned out to be a 4 MILE hike to the “holy” caves. The Kingdom Hikers talked us into a hike. I think they wanted to see if we could do it. We should have known when George drove off leaving us at the gate. Well it was really the village of the guards of the prison and their families. They wouldn’t let us pass through so we had to take the long way around. That meant up hills through cow pastures and cow pens full of dung.If we had known how far this hike would be we probably wouldn’t have done it. But in the end we were all glad we did. It was not only good exercise and fresh air but a time to get closer to the young people. Our troupe was made up of me, Paw, Doug, Tara, Yahshana, Brandon, from the good ole USA, and Simon, Kenford, Flora, Diana, Evelyn, Modesta, and Janet from Kenya. Simon and Kenford won the most likely to succeed award – a plate of ‘chips’ (aka French fries) - which they had to share by the way.  They kept running off, up and down the valleys and hills. It made me tired to just watch them. They would disappear but were always there to give us a hand when we needed it. The girls were fun and giggly all the way there and back.

We started out in the van with our faithful driver, George. When we reached the gate where we could no longer drive he just sat there, didn’t say a word, and waited for us to get out. Curiously enough he didn’t get out.

That should have given us a clue. But we were bewitched by the wonderful hikers telling us, “it isn’t far”. That became the most popular phrase spoken the whole hike. Ok so we got out and told George to come back in 2 hours. He knowingly said for us to just call when we are back. Second clue.  So off we went, Paw with his hiking stick, us with our water bottles, Brandon with his camera, girls with their giggles, and Simon and Kenford with their secret.

As we strolled along we gasped at the beauty of the hills. Just like Maria in the Sound of Music we wanted to sing and dance. But as I said we were gasping for air as the altitude increased.

We came to our first of many challenges. To get to the other side we must pass through a cow pen, no cows but full, and I mean full, of obviously well fed cows and what they leave behind. Use your imagination and hold your nose. We had to go down a steep slope and you didn’t want to slip and fall so we let the young men assist us down.







We were going higher and higher with no cave in sight. Simon said, “just around that hill, not far”. So we pressed on taking time to sit down and rest ever so often. Janet, Flora and Diana told us it was farther than they are saying. But it was too late to turn back.

We came to a little opening where Simon was pointing down into it. He said, “This is the first cave”. It sure didn’t look like a cave and upon closer inspection it was only an animal’s hole. Simon likes to tease us.

Then I came around a bend and Kenford was scooping up water in his hands from a hole by a tree. We were thirsty but it was too muddy to drink and I didn’t bring my Sawyer water bottle. Next time I will.

We found pretty flowers and mushrooms along the path but no dragonflies. We miss the dragonflies in at Rose Creek but we did see little white butterflies. They are so cute!

Finally we got to the first cave. But before you can go in you have to go down on your knees and repent.

When we got to the entry. We had to climb straight down on tree roots to get into the cave.

Then you go into a wide open entry way. It was soo dark you could hardly see. There were people camping there and praying. God’s creation will always make you feel close to Him if you are paying attention. We liked being there. It was nice and cool.

After a while Simon, our guide, said it’s time to go to the next cave. We asked, “How far?” He said, “Not far….” This time we didn’t believe him. It was a long way up hill to the next cave but we had fun getting there.

When we got down there was a huge vine that the girls liked to swing on. We walked around and saw people sleeping and praying for God to heal them so we tried to be quiet. We met some little children playing and gave them sweeties (candy). They liked to play with us. We rested and took pictures until it was time to go back. 

We met a sweet little girl named Nancy.

We rested.....



We climbed up and out of the hole. I felt like Alice in wonderland coming out of the rabbit hole.

Walking back was easier because it was downhill and we took a short cut.We got to the gate to wait for George. We had hiked for four hours! We were so hungry. Next time we go we will bring snacks. We decided to go to Kokeb, our favorite restaurant, to get some samosas, (little meat pies, Gema says we can make some when she gets home and eat them all up!),

....Stoney’s (ginger sodas) and chips, (that’s what Kenyas call french fries).











.......and fruit punch (Paw and Gema had fun sharing one),

It was so much fun we were glad we didn’t know how far it was but we will definitely go again one day!