I have just come back to the village this last Thursday after 3 fabulous days at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary located in Northern Kenya not so far from my home in Ngurunit.  According to their website, Reteti is “the first community owned elephant sanctuary situated in Northern Kenya”.  The wonderful thing is that I found that this is true.  The community there is so involved in the care of their wildlife.  I was there with my daughter in order to see firsthand how conservancy and wildlife rehabilitation project can be as she may be
heading into that field of work in her future.  My husband joined us our last day there to also see this community initiative. It is sad that so many elephants are orphaned or separated from their herd due to various issues, but to see them so well cared for with the hope of returning them to the wild once they are grown is encouraging.  Many of the babies were rescued from wells that they have fallen into and their herd was unable to get them out so eventually had to leave them.  Climate change with the more frequent droughts exaggerates this issue as the water table drops and the wells get very deep. 

Sometimes a baby is orphaned after human/wildlife conflict leads to the death of the mother or the baby getting separated from the herd or injured.  

Reteti also takes in other species and while we were there had an orphaned buffalo, a gerenuk, a very tiny ostrich chick and several giraffes, big and small.  One very young giraffe had just been brought in about 4 days previously having been attacked by dogs and was less than 2 weeks old.  

She was treated and was starting to get used to her new living situation and had another young giraffe friend to hang out with who was around 1 ½ months old.   As for the elephants, at the moment there are 40 babies living there and being cared for by the community elephant keepers.  They are kept in three different groups.  The tiny under 6 month old are 8.  The middle group of around 2 to 3 years are 19.  And the bigger elephants of around 3 to almost 5 years are 13 in number.  

They are all cared for day and night with milk and supplement feedings every 3 hours.  In between feedings during the day, they are taken out to walk and graze in the bush, even the tiny ones, so they are accustomed to the environment that they will eventually be released into after the age of 5 years.  There is more detailed information on their website here, including how to “adopt an elephant” and make other donations to this amazing community effort.  https://www.reteti.org/

Other news in my life right now is an update on my children’s book publishing efforts.  It was officially published on June 21^st 2022!! Yay!!  I have several more websites that it is now available on.  Amazon (Why Hyena Limps: An Original Tale Told in the African Style https://a.co/d/7jpio7L) as well as Barnes and Noble (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/why-hyena-limps-laura-lemunyete/1141693279#) carry it now.

 I am still waiting on a couple other sites, such as Ingram from which libraries and bookstores do their ordering, then will really start on the marketing push.  The other day I woke up from a nap with the storyline of a second book running through my head.  Will this also come to fruition?  Only the future will tell.  Watch this space….

For today that is all.  My head and heart are still full of the animals and people from Reteti Elephant Sanctuary that I spent the last few days with.  There is so much wrong with the world, yet also so much right when one by one, we all work to show kindness and care wherever we can, each in our own space.  May we all Love what we can and show kindness to whoever and whatever we meet as we travel our paths through this world.  Peace and joy to you all till next time…