Orphanage grounds, Egerton Castle, Baraton

After a nice breakfast we headed down to the orphanage to walk the children to school.

They were all ready in their uniforms

The lady in blue is Anne Marie from England. She is a play therapist who comes down about 5 times a year to work with the boys and girls. Many of these kids have lived through extreme emotional trauma, sexual and physical abuse and neglect. Anne Marie and her organization, Play Kenya, work with the children to overcome these traumas. She's an incredibly loving and caring person who the children adore. She has done wonders for many of them here. She spend alot of her time here training teachers and youth workers on the techniques of play therapy.

Just a short walk along a trail to school.
Very nice new school.

Very caring teachers.

Infant II class. The teachers are great and the discipline is well enforced-lovingly.

After dropping the kids off at school, we went to visit the second orphanage on this site. There are about 40 older children who used to live in a building in Nakuru. There were many problems at the orphanage, so this group built a new building and have taken in these children. These children do not currently mix with the MIA children, but are an independent group as of now.
After walking through this new building, we headed for the garden where they grow vegetables for the kids to eat and to sell at the local market.

All the labor is done by hand. In the background is a cart with dried beans that will be placed on the ground, walked on and the shells and beans separated. After this visit we headed back to the yurt and packed up our stuff to head out to Baraton.

We stopped at Egerton Castle along the way.

Coat of Arms above door.

View from the top

Felt very Alice in Wonderlandish!

Had a wonderful lunch on the grounds.

Back into the van and a longish drive to Baraton. It was a beautiful drive through lush green farms.

Past several brickmaking areas...

Then the clouds moved in...

and the rains came!

roadside vendors took cover...

the water gushed down little streams...

and we crossed the Equator at about 9100' with the rain coming down...

and just beyond was hail...lots of white hail on the ground! Who would have thought!!

The rains stopped once we got over the pass but the clouds persisted. It was still beautiful landscape!
and before long we found ourselves at the University of East Africa-Baraton Campus.

We took a quick drive through campus before we settled in and saw these Crowned Cranes.

Then to the dining hall and the dorm next door. We got a little settled and then it was time to eat! The dorm room was very much like the CSU ones many years ago!
We had a very good dinner and then retired next door and
some watched an Africa video and others headed to bed!
Another great day!