Don't Pet the Cheetah!

Today I got to experience something truly out of the ordinary... a Nigerian Zoo. Now, I grew up going to the zoo, so I thought I knew what to expect. But it turns out that this zoo was a bit more.... umm... interactive than I ever expected. You know how in the US a typical zoo will have a small "petting zoo" area? Well I felt like this entire zoo was like that. Expect instead of feeding and petting sweet little goats and lambs, there were chimps, gorillas, camels and cheetahs!! Haha ok, so I may be exaggerating, but only a little! I'll let the pictures tell the story...

We have just entered the zoo and are so kindly greeted by a skinny camel and a poor little horse. Aww!! How sweet, right? Wrong! They first try to steal all of our food (which by the way, you can bring anything to feed to any of the animals!). Then, when we deny them all of our watermelon, they try to ram us into the chimp cage!

Here they are attacking Corrie... I know that horse may look like he is sleeping, but he was really fierce!
Now I know this next picture looks like a calm day at the zoo, but only seconds after I took this, that camel rammed Gus (in the blue) into the cage and a chimp grabbed him and started biting his shirt!! All chaos broke loose after that! Corrie was yelling for Grandma to save Gus, the chimps were all rattling the cage, and the camel looked on dumbfounded at the scene that he had caused. No fear, Gus came away unharmed. However, sadly his new staff shirt was torn by the chimp. Phew! What a day... oh wait, you mean there's more to see?

Following the incident of Gus getting attacked by the chimps, we were graced with a song and dance by the gorillas. These two were by far my favorite! They would do tricks and then hold out their hands to you to feed them as a reward for their performance!

Aww! How could I resist a face like that! Of course I gave him a banana!

Here is one guy that I would not suggest feeding. I went up to the cheetah cage and was shocked that there was no other fence or barrier other than the fence you see in the picture. I was literally a foot away from this guy. When I stood next to the cage his hair stood on end, he showed me his teeth and growled at me! It gave me the shivers! I would hate to run into one of these in the wild!

Well, there are a few highlights from the trip to the zoo! I am learning that everyday is an adventure here in Nigeria, even a simple outing to take the kids to the zoo! Tomorrow we are headed out to do some ministry in the village and in the children's home, OLA, that B2B serves in. Tomorrow we will not be fighting off killer chimps, but you never know what lies in store!Please keep us in your prayers :)