A Birthday Gift from God

Today has been a memorable birthday for me. Our schedule and Jeanie’s schedule worked out best to go to the Yankari Game Reserve today, which happened to be my birthday. The beginning of the week had been pretty busy, so it was a nice day off. What a great day it has been! We left early this morning to make the 2 ½ hour drive to the main gate with another 30 minute drive in the park to the main facilities and swimming area. We first took a 2 hour safari drive through the park. Within 15 minutes of driving, we came upon a herd of elephants. The safari group that had gone just before us had not seen any elephants, and indeed some of our missionary friends have yet to see elephants at Yankari, even after many trips. We were right in the midst of them and only 20 to 30 feet away at times. It was fantastic! The safari was a great success. We encountered : a snake, elephants, water buck, bush buck, dik dik, crocodiles, baboons, wart hogs, guinea fowl, water buffalo, many birds, and tse tse flies. Seeing both water buffalo and elephants on the same trip is unusual. Hannah noted, “Dad, God gave you a birthday present today.” And indeed it was a much appreciated gift.

After the safari we had lunch with the wart hogs, which are very docile and have no problem begging for food.

We then went to the Wikki Warm Water Spring just down the hill, where we had a delightful time swimming.

We had heard stories of mischievious baboons stealing clothes, but we were lucky, we did not have any problems with the baboons, though we did get quite close to them just as we were about to load up to leave the park. Camille unknowingly rang the dinner bell so to speak when she rattled the plastic container containing peanuts. We had ten baboons scurrying to the back of the van. We shooed them away and were able to leave without incident.

We made it home before dark and most importantly before 7 pm curfew.

Michael Mitchell, MD

P.S. Interesting clinical pictures coming soon. I had quite a case this past Monday.