#20 Black Lion Zoo

I know…it’s a boring title. Christmas Eve (Ethiopian Christmas that is) Tesfanesh and I took 15 children and Philipa and her three children to the zoo. Now coming from San Diego and having a world famous zoo I was expecting too much. I sent Tesfanesh down to Alembank to hire a minibus like a contract taxi…if they would have seen me they would have doubled the price. We piled into the van and it was surprising how many little people we could fit into it. After a 45 minute ride we arrived...by that time Matthewos, Helina and Melkamu were sleeping. We put Melkamu and Helina in strollers and took a couple group photos then it was off to the lions. They don’t call it the “Black Lion Zoo” for nothing you know. We entered onto a circular path and slowly made our way around seven cages…each holding a male and female lion. They were huge – no scratch that they were bigger than huge they were gigantic. We were about 3 feet from them when they would come close to the cage. Sometimes they got a tiny bit too close for the little kids liking. After the lions we walked a little ways up the path and saw 3 monkeys and two baboons. The kids really liked the monkeys because they were more interactive. Hannah kept saying “Monkey…Monkey…Monkey!” trying to get their attention – it worked once. And that was it. That was the zoo…three kinds of animals. No wonder it only cost 10 cents for each child to get in. I brought snacks for everyone so we had that. I was trying to spend more time at the zoo than in the car so Tesfanesh asked a man what else there was to do…he said that there was a kiddy park out front…indeed there was. I bought tickets for the 10 younger kids (Helina was so tired by this point so she didn’t go on) to ride a merry-go-round type thing. Dinkinesh, Mastewal, Alemu and Israel decided that they wanted to drive the big wheels Jeeps instead. They loved driving the jeeps around. Temeskgen loved the merry-go-round thing but Derartu looked scared the whole time. Tamirat didn’t know what to think about it and Matthewos took me by surprise and enjoyed himself…I could only tell because he jumped up and down when he took my hand. Philipa found an ice cream stand and was so generous enough to by all the children an ice cream as well as a couple of the street kids. As we waited for Tesfanesh to hire another minibus I broke open some trail mix and raisins…Helina didn’t like the feeling of raisins in her hand so she dumped them on the ground. I put one in her mouth and she ate it and then asked for more. Tamirat kept asking for more snacks and I finally had to tell him no more because he had about 3 times as much as the other children. I gave a street kid a power bar and some raisins…he really liked it although I’m sure he would have preferred an ice cream cone…if only he had come ten minutes earlier. Philipa had gone with Tesfanesh and went to the store to buy bread for everyone. Everyone climbed into the minibus and started chomping on their bread. Matthewos, Hannah, and Helina fell asleep on the way home all of them were only half done with their bread. All in all it was a fun outing even if the zoo only has three kinds of animals.