Notes from Stephen, Wan, Kweilin, and Li

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Nakuru National Park, car collision, Lake Naivasha, Nazareth

We did a game drive in Nakuru National Park this morning. We saw tons of pelicans and flamingos and some buffalo, zebra, gazelles, impala, water bucks, and a white rhino! The pelicans glide so gracefully just above the water. The adult flamingos are pink and the children are white. We saw lots of dead, dried-out flamingos on the lake shore. The white rhino was lying in the shade of an acacia tree among 20 buffalo. We heard that the park has lions and leopards but we didn't see any.

We saw two hippos wallowing along the lake shore among the flamingos. We were lucky: people rarely see hippos in this park.

The attraction for all the wildlife in this park is Lake Nakuru. It's a "soda lake." Here in Rift Valley, there's not good drainage, so rain forms shallow lakes like this one. Evaporation creates concentrated water where blue-green algae grows. I think the algae supports the fish and krill, which in turn support pelicans and flamingos.

During our drive to Nazareth, we came upon a head-on collision that must have happened just minutes before we arrived. Bystanders had extracted a man and baby and laid them on the grass outside the car. They were both bleeding but conscious. Bystanders were working to extract the driver of one of the cars. His side of the car was smashed in, crushing his legs. Daddy took his pulse and found him talking and breathing. Bystanders tied opposite ends of the car to two trucks using cables and freed the driver.

Daddy said the driver could die from a ruptured spleen, other internal bleeding, or an infection from his legs' protruding bone fractures.

We overtook cars more conservatively after witnessing the accident. The cause of the head-on collision seemed to be that an overtaking car didn't get back into its lane in time.

We took an hours' detour to see Lake Naivasha on the way to Nazareth. We strolled around the well-kept Lake Naivasha Country Club grounds for half an hour.

We arrived at Nazareth and Mommy greeted everyone as we entered the hospital grounds. She knows the guards, sisters, village vendors--all the locals.

posted by Li at 1:01 PM