The Story of Us: Kruger National Park

Why We Adopted From Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, approximately 1 in 10 children die in infancy, and nearly double that number die by their 5th birthday, due to infections, tetanus, and diarrhea. Ethiopia is considered the 3rd worst place in the world to be born, better only than Burkina Faso and Djibouti. Of the children who survive, many will lose their mother in childbirth and many more will lose one or both parents to HIV/AIDS.

As more and more parents die, the capacity of extended family members to take care of orphans shrinks. Ethiopia has reached the breaking point where orphaned children are now forced into the streets, into difficult working conditions and/or into heading their households.

In 2001, 13.2% of the population (3.8 million children) were orphaned. In comparison, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda resulted in 500,000 orphans and the 2004 Tsunami in Southeast Asia resulted in 10,000 orphans.

(courtesy of www.ethiopianrelief.org)

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Kruger National Park

We have been pretty busy getting settled here in White River, but yesterday we were able to spend the day in Kruger, which is just a few minutes down the road. It was well worth the $$ to get in ($50 for our family). We spent most of the day driving around and looking for animals with a few breaks in between at some different camp sites. It was hard for the kids to be trapped in the car all day (the only protection you have out there from the animals), but they LOVED the animals...most of them came right up to the car or were right next to the road since they are pretty used to cars going by...what a cool place!

We saw so many different animals. The only one we didn't see that we were looking hard for was a lion. We saw the other four out of the Big Five (the most dangerous animals in Africa)..leopard, water buffalo, rhino, and elephants...plus lots of impala, monkeys, giraffes, hippos, baboons, etc...we had a crazy list by the time we left.