Learning Beyond the Classroom

The last two days have been absolutely amazing. Back home in Switzerland, Assunta made a flyer about a city during one of her English lessons. The assignment was simple: create a flyer highlighting the city. She chose Nairobi and added a section called “City Highlights.”

Looking at her list yesterday, we realised something quite funny, in just two days we had already visited four of the six places she had written down. It felt a little like we had accidentally turned her homework into our travel plan.

Because the last few days have been quite full, we decided that this week we would keep homeschooling simple and mainly focus on our morning routine. That includes some German reading and writing, as well as a little bit of basic maths.

Yesterday morning Julius surprised me in the best possible way. He woke up first and immediately sat down with his morning routine folder, happily starting his work. I was so proud of him. The evening before I had only mentioned the idea briefly, yet the children simply remembered and started automatically. When the girls woke up a little later, they also quietly worked on their reading and maths.

Around nine o’clock we had another lovely breakfast with our wonderful host, who continues to make us feel completely at home.

After breakfast we set off for the Giraffe Centre, which was absolutely lovely. At first it seemed quite small, but the children were completely fascinated by the giraffes. They fed them and even gently stroked them.

When I asked what it felt like, Assunta said thoughtfully, “It feels like a dog with very short hair.” We all thought that was quite a funny and surprisingly accurate description.

The centre works to protect the Rothschild giraffe, a species that was once close to extinction. Through their breeding programme they have successfully reintroduced many giraffes back into the wild.

Afterwards we visited the Karen Blixen Museum, where the author of Out of Africa once lived. A friendly guide showed us around the house and gardens. The children were very patient during the tour, although I suspect feeding giraffes earlier in the day might have been a little more exciting for them.

From there we decided to walk “home” to our friend’s place, which was only about fifteen minutes away. It was a lovely walk. Back at the house the children went swimming again and finished their morning routine work.

In the evening we had a relaxed dinner together with our dear friend, who has been incredibly kind and generous in making us feel so welcome here.

We went to bed early, because we had an exciting plan for the next morning.

Today we woke up before sunrise and entered Nairobi National Park at 6:45. Watching the sun slowly rise over the landscape was already beautiful.

The first animal we saw was a bird that reminded us a bit of a turkey — a guineafowl. Soon after we spotted our first impalas, a type of antelope, and then another giraffe, this time a Maasai giraffe, which looks slightly different from the Rothschild giraffes we had seen the day before.

Just before lunch we visited the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, where young orphaned elephants are cared for. At the moment they are also looking after a rhino and a zebra orphan, and the two of them have become “best friends,” always staying close to one another. They were among our children’s favourites. We first watched the rhino and the zebra being fed, and then the little elephants arrived and were fed as well. We even had the chance to gently touch one of the young elephants. The children noticed that their skin felt quite rough and a little hairy, but they were absolutely fascinated by them.

Afterwards we continued our drive through the park. We saw a lioness attempting to hunt an impala, learned about the difference between white and black rhinos, and at one point even had an ostrich standing right in the road, blocking our way.

There were also countless birds everywhere — some brightly coloured, others with long elegant tails, big ones and very tiny ones. It felt like there was something new to discover around every corner.

Towards the end of the day Polyxena became especially fascinated by the clouds in the sky. She started pointing out all the shapes she could see in them. And I have to admit, they really were quite spectacular.

We returned home around five o’clock, jumped straight into the swimming pool, played a few games, enjoyed another lovely dinner, and then happily fell into bed.

What a wonderful day it was. Join us on our 88-day adventure and sign up for new stories here!