The Park by the City

We’re coming to the end of a 2-week internal audit in our Finance department. It’s internal rather than external, which to me means that they’re here principally to help us, pointing out weaknesses in our internal controls etc. The Internal Audit system within SIL relies on volunteers, obviously with relevant skills and experience, giving of their time, and finances (they pay for their own flights) to come. I think they’re amazing! We have two people this time – Krista who works in the finance department with SIL in Papua New Guinea, and Bob who’s a CPA in Orlando, Florida.
However, this blog isn’t mean to be about the audit, though it was on account of the auditors that I made a long overdue trip into Nairobi National Park on Saturday (so that they’d see a bit more of Kenya than our office!). As I live on that side of Nairobi, it only took about 10 minutes or so to get there in the morning (it can be more like 45 minutes later on in the day!). As soon as you pass through the gates, you’re in a different world, away from the traffic and noise and pollution. Quite a tonic! It was exceedingly dry, the grass though reasonably high, a bleached brown colour. And we weren’t long before we saw our first animal – a giraffe eating acacia leaves, somehow managing to negotiate its tongue around the sharp, long thorns. And from thereon, we did so well with animal sightings. Masses of zebra, hartebeest and gazelles. Great herds of buffalo, their black shapes distinctive against the brown grass. And groups of giraffe, their necks at an acute angle to the ground. It seemed to be ostrich time, the males being particularly visible with their black and white feathers (the duller females blended into the landscape rather more!). The first treat was a group of 3 male lions lying 100m or so from the side of the road, barely visible were it not for the group of vehicles indicating that there was something there! Thankfully for us, they raised themselves up after a while, and whilst one evidently figured he’d had enough and sauntered off, the other two posed rather magnificently. Better still was coming across our own lion (plus at least one lioness, though she was somewhat obscured by vegetation) at the southernmost end of the park, with no other cars in sight. That’s always more gratifying! A rather grislier sight was a flock of particularly argumentative vultures tearing at, what appeared to be, a relatively fresh zebra carcass. The noise they made was quite something! It was obviously all a bit much for some, as they stood off at a distant, not joining in the fray, perhaps waiting to get their share when the noisy ones were done!

What a magnificent pose!

Our auditors enjoying a picnic lunch - rather close to where those lions had been earlier!!

The vultures' very noisy and argumentative lunch!

Wildebeest



Still some water at least in one of the rivers



The game of 'Who's going to get off the road first?'!

It had been quite a while since I’d last been in the park. In my first few years here, I went in regularly, making the most of what used to be an affordable annual pass. However, in just 6 years, that quadrupled in price, such that you need to go about 23 times to make it worthwhile (rather than just paying for each time separately). Partly because of that, I hardly go at all these days, which is a shame, as it really is very beautiful. I hope that the Kenya Wildlife Service and the government continue to ensure that these areas are protected from development, and that the corridors that the animals pass through are kept open (Nairobi is a migratory park). It is a huge asset to have on the city’s doorstep, and it was good to see a number of people making use of it on Saturday. Mind you, these days, some inhabitants of the park have moved, there having been many sightings of lions in a residential area nearby!!