SNAKE PARK

Today was the day we took the children from my orphanage, Bethlehem, to the snake park in Messerini, Tanzania. Katie, Gabby, and I met up in the morning and went to the local market to buy food for our picnic. This was actually the first time I went into the food portion of the market and brought food. Everyone is trying to get you to go to their station, it is pretty overwhelming. We ended up buying 14 bananas, 5 mango's, 10 oranges, 2 packs of muffins, 1 pack of rolls, 1 loaf of bread, and apple and pineapple juice. All this to feed 12 children, Mama and her son, and then 4 volunteers. We figured it was better to have too much food then not enough, esp since this was a treat for the children. Once we got to the orphanage, the children went crazy. They did not know exactly where we were going but they knew something was going on since they were all dressed in their matching shirts from the orphanage. They started dancing and singing songs and were going crazy. It was a bit hard trying to get them all dressed and ready but eventually 1 hour later we were ready to go. We hired a dalla dalla to take everyone so that we wouldn't have to try to change buses in the middle of town with all of the children. It is a religious based orphanage so on the way to the snake park bible songs were on. They were in Swahili so I could pick out some words but not all, but they children loved it. They were singing and clapping the whole way. On the way to the snake park we pass Arusha Airport, which is just a small local airport. We ended up going around to the front of the airport and stopping since the children had never seen a plane or airport before. It was so exciting to them. They all tried to crowd against the window so they could see better, and they were screaming something which probably meant plane. I wish we could have paid some money and tried to get them to even look at the plane up close or take a picture by it, but we didn't even think about that until we passed it. One sad part is that we passed a small pond and the children thought it was the ocean. We eventually made it to the snake park, about 1 hour drive. The kids were so excited. It was pretty reasonable, price wise, to that mama and the children, but even though we are residents and have that stamp in our passport saying we are, because we are white we had to pay 10 times what we paid for the others. That is the one frustrating part of being here, that everyone looks at you and because you are white, you are rich, even though we all know that is not the case. We went into the park the children were mesmerized. Some of them were a little, okay a lot, scarred. Ibraham and Happy would not even go near them. When the snakes would move then all the other children would get scarred. We walked around to where the crocodiles were. All the children thought they were dead because they were not moving. Then one walked up close to the fence and ALL the children ran away and some started crying. It was so cute. We went around to all the other animals and then there is a part where you can hold a snake. All of the children did it, although some were not happy about it. You hold the snake around your neck. There is another part where you can hold a croc but only adults can do that, and I did. After all this we had our picnic. The children were so happy, because they normally do not have all the food that we brought. They didn't know where to begin. It was awesome to see all the smiles on their face. After lunch we went to a Maasi museum to learn about the culture. They were all really interested. After the museum, we went and saw the camels, and some of the children rode on the camels. It was adorable watching their faces when the camel went to stand. They were all intrigued by the camel. After this the children were exhausted so we took them back home. It was an amazing trip. I think that this provided an opportunity to learn about what is outside the walls of the orphanage and see some of the things that we take for granted in everyday life!