The Lutjens in Kenya part 2

"Good morning!" After our day in Nairobi National Park, and mom's development of a special bond with the g-raffe, we stopped on the way home at the Giraffe Center which is kind of like a really nice giraffe petting zoo with a stone mansion where you can pay something like $500/night to stay where the giraffes poke their heads in your bedroom windows. Needless to say, we didn't stay overnight, just visited. My mom and I went in, she was in awe, and I had the pleasure of being the photographer of the event...so fun!
Reach! I was laughing hysterically to myself watching mom with all of these school kids...look at her reaching above all their heads and little hands to get her chance to feed the giraffe :)
"There you go! See, we really can be friends!"
It was this sign that made it possible for me to get my mom out of the giraffe center before the end of the afternoon...adherence to rules, evidently it's in my blood...
"Won't you be my neighbor?"
Admiration.
We spent one afternoon at the elephant/rhino orphanage - it's quite the place, really...26 orphaned baby elephants and this baby rhino (having a blast frolicking in the mud!). The staff reported their current number of "guests" has them bursting at the seams, they think due to poaching and the drought.
Here's a perspective shot, to give you an idea of how big a baby rhino is.
"I've fallen and I can't get up!" Reminds me of that med-alert bracelet commercial slogan I remember so well. But this little elephant hadn't actually fallen into that muddy watering hole, he/she had marched him/herself right into it and was now having a bit of a problem getting out...kind of reminds me of Tigger and the tree :)
The keepers are the guys in the green coats, they sleep with the elephants (each elephant has a little stall and each stall has a bed built into the corner with a warm blanket for the keeper), feed them formula with bottles as seen here...
and protect them from the sun, by putting the little red blankets on their backs so they don't get sunburned (usually as babies they stay in the shadow of their mom which protects them from the sun, but now orphaned their keepers end up functioning like their mom), and shading them with umbrellas. The elephants really come to know their keepers as their "mother" and follow them around, etc. It's really cute.

Well, that's it for today's installment of The Lutjens in Kenya. Tune in another time for more photos and stories.