Living Among Wildlife

We spent the weekend on another trip into the Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

And once again, it felt magical.

Our first stop was the Equator. As the Equator runs directly through the conservancy, there is a place where it is clearly marked. It felt strangely exciting to literally stand and walk on and across the line dividing the northern and southern hemispheres. The children loved it, and we all immediately agreed that we should return with Leo-Ferdinand and Wenzel when they arrive next week.

We saw so many animals up close that at times it almost stopped feeling real. Unfortunately, I only have my phone as a camera, so some of the most beautiful moments remain slightly blurry, both in the photos and perhaps a little in our memories as well.

At one point, I found myself wondering why we are all so fascinated by these animals.

Partly, of course, because we simply do not have them in Europe. But also because they are wild animals that you can encounter so closely.

Back home in Switzerland, I still remember how excited I was the one time I saw wild ibex close to our house in the mountains. In six years of living there, that happened only once.

Here, wildlife seems to appear everywhere.

The children noticed it too.

“I think impalas are becoming normal now,” Assunta said.

And somehow, that sentence perfectly captured how extraordinary this experience has become.

The impalas are still beautiful, but after seeing hundreds of them grazing across the plains and wandering past our house every day, they no longer feel unusual in quite the same way.

Although, as soon as two bucks start fighting, everyone suddenly stops and watches again.

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When we spotted a waterbuck, Polyxena studied it carefully and said:

“They look a bit like the deer we have at home, just with different antlers.”

And while we were observing the zebras more carefully, Assunta suddenly said:

“They all have different stripes.”

A little later she added,

“There is one with the letter ‘A’ on its front leg.”

We started discussing how, if we stayed here long enough, we would probably begin recognising the zebras individually and eventually give them names.

This time, we did not find the lions again, but we discovered giraffes near the river at the far end of the conservancy, which felt just as special.

We also came across baboons. They were hilarious to watch.

Julius suddenly exclaimed:

“They are eating the grass!”

And indeed, they were calmly sitting there grazing, completely unbothered by us. Some passed surprisingly close to the car, moving with total confidence, as if we were simply another harmless creature sharing the landscape with them.

Honestly, we could have stayed in the conservancy forever.

But we could clearly see the rain clouds approaching, and we decided it was probably wise to begin heading back towards the house.

What should normally have been a one hour drive slowly turned into almost three hours.

Partly because we kept stopping.

Everywhere we looked, there were young animals. We found ourselves watching elephant families with tiny calves, rhinos with their young, and countless antelopes and gazelles standing protectively beside their babies.

The rain arrived briefly and disappeared again just as quickly, leaving the whole landscape shining afterwards.

The rest of the weekend we spent simply watching the animals from the house.

On Sunday, we suddenly heard a loud barking sound outside.

“What is making that noise?” Polyxena asked.

It was an impala, barking warning calls into the bush at something hidden beyond our view.

We also enjoyed swimming, slow afternoons, and one particularly creative evening organised entirely by the children.

Polyxena and Julius invited Assunta and me to what they called a “Games and Fun Night.”

It began with a treasure hunt through the house and garden, followed by Twister, and ended with the children throwing ribbons down from the balcony while Assunta and I tried to catch as many as possible. Naturally, the competition became very serious.

At one point, we realised that when Assunta stretched herself as tall as possible, there were only one or two centimetres between us.

She is growing up far too quickly.

And perhaps that is what stays with us most.

Not only the wildlife or the landscapes, but these small moments in between.

The laughter.

The wonder.

And the feeling of living, for a little while, inside a world that still surprises us every single day.