There is a zoo here, believe it or not. The habitats were better than I had expected, and they supposedly do some conservation as well. I generally feel conflicted about zoos, but couldn't really say no to take a group of the neediest kids in the city. It turned out to be a great day!
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Ready to go! |
Since there's no such thing as permission slips or waiver forms, we basically counted the 21 kids there that day and then hit the road. We had to take the city bus to get to the zoo area. The Nepalese all act like brother and sister, so we had some "strangers" holding onto our tinier charges. The kids thought the ride was hilarious and had a really good time. We probably could've ridden the bus for an hour and they would have been as happy as going to the zoo.
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Insanity. |
We saw many kinds of deer, rhinos, hippos, tigers (those habitats were a little small), tons of little birds, hyenas, storks, cranes, bears, monkeys, and we sort of snuck into the red panda area and saw one poke his little head out.
There was a play area with slides and tubes for the kids to go in. There's also a huge pond with boat rentals in the middle, but we didn't have the money or courage to do that with all the kids. They still had a great time watching.
The kids taught me a lot of the animal's Nepali names. I can't remember any.
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The slide queue waits for no one. |
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Rhinos look like Kinder Surprise toys. |
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Can't stop laughing at this one. |
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Cool, but kind of sad. |
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Stork |
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Insisted on climbing. |
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With one of our newest little ones. |
We enjoyed a take out lunch of MoMos and chow mein, which was a really big treat for these guys. It would be fun to be able to do this more than once a year.
It's also the beginning of the new Nepali calendar, so the oldest children will be going on to their government school. Sanga-Sangai provides some sponsorship for their school fees, and also provides ongoing support to check in on attendance and progress. You can contact me for information on how to sponsor a child's school fees for a year if interested.
We played ball and other games until it was time to go home. It turned out to be a really long but worthwhile day. The weather is really heating up here, getting up to the high 20's in the afternoon, and not really cooling off in the evening. There are flash thunderstorms and rains. I can only imagine what monsoon season is like.
Taylor, are you ok?!!!! Just heard about the earthquake!!! OMG!
ReplyDeleteAll peaceful before the life-changing earthquake. I'm sure you will miss these little guys tremendously :(
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