Good afternoon, Friends, I write on Friday, December 1, on a day with temps in the mid to high 70s and I am surrounded by blue skies and lots of flowers. So different from what many of you are now experiencing. It is a stark reminder for me of how life is in the southern hemisphere of the world. Our hottest months will be the next three, the heart of summer for us. I had planned on making my annual retreat (8 days mandated for every Jesuit every year) in Mombasa, a port city on the Indian ocean abut 250 miles from here during Christmas week and the first few days of January. But some Jesuits who visited there recently said, "Wow is it HOT^ there and humid too." That comment made me change my mind right away. I cannot do any work at all, let alone pray and make a retreat, when my skin is wet and I am perspiring so, which would be the case in that city. It is great for tourists. Many Kenyans who have at least modest money will take their children there over Christmas time to play in the water, which is truly wonderful I am told. So, like the last four years I am staying here for my retreat and have whatever resources at hand I will need. Besides, this setting is really beautiful for making a retreat, especially if you can be under a tree during the middle of the day. I have just finished leading 17 people through an 8-day retreat in which I gave the talks, two a day, and made myself available for numerous one-on-one conversations with any of them who needed that. I had many, many pages to xerox and staple. I established the theme for each article, then gave it to them as a summary and points/topics to pray from. The entire retreat was about who is the Spirit of God, what does that Spirit do in each of us and in the world. It seems many Christians have little or no knowledge of who is this Holy Spirit, so to provide instruction on this fundamental of our faith -life seemed fitting, reflected in how glad people were to get instruction and be able to pray much more deeply in regard to the Spirit. They loved the retreat from what I can see, but wow, was I ever tired when we finished yesterday. This past month of November has been a demanding one for me. Besides the retreat I was host, taxi-driver sometimes, and tour guide for part of two weeks for three American friends. The highlight of the two weeks was the four of us going to Masai Mara, the spacious game park in western Kenya, a 6 hour drive from here, an hour and a half of it over very bumpy roads. IN two full days and parts of two other days we saw so, so many wild animals. In one day we saw what are called the big five: lions, elephants, leopard, water buffalo, and rhinos. All in all, we saw 31 lions, all of them up close (maybe 40 feet away from our four-wheeler), some 25 feet away; 14 giraffes (so elegant!), one hyena, one rhino, countless water buffalo, wildebeasts, heartebeasts, and zebras, a few crocodiles, a dozen or so cheetahs, countless antelopes, gazelles, impalas, guinea-fowls, baboons, and many, many hippos, two of which came to the back area of our lodging and were so loud when munching grass. I woke up at 4:30 AM two of the mornings we were there because of the noise thinking it was an elephant up close to my bedroom window; instead it was a mother hippo with her baby munching in a rhythmic manner. What a site. They were probably 35-40 feet away from me. One of the most dramatic scenes was two female lions eating a wildebeast. We had come upon this scene maybe 20 minutes after the chase and kill. One lion was the mother of the other; she was gorged and lying almost on her back sound asleep. The daughter lioness, maybe 2-3 years old, had the wildebeast on its side and was feasting on the rib cage area and then worked hard to turn over the victim to get at more of the flesh yet to be torn off and eaten. One of the wildebeast's front legs was sticking straight up in the air while being worked over by this pretty large lioness. All of this happened in the middle of a shallow river; the wildebeast was lying on a sandbar and part of its body in the stream with the water running by gently. For me a bonus was the enormous vistas one gets at that park. I think it must be 50-70 miles in all directions; you can see in all directions over very gently rolling meadows with some mountains that form boundaries at opposite ends, 80-100 miles away. Very few trees over these vistas. It was so impressive to spot zebras, water buffalo and herds of elephants at different parts of the park at great distances. Binoculars really helped. One other very impressive scene was a herd of elephants up close with a baby elephant perhaps 2-3 weeks old. It was so interesting to watch the baby stick very close to its mother and be on the other side of her away from us. We would stop, turn off our engine, and stare for like a half hour. A moment of great humor came when I spotted on the side of our road in the park what is called a dung beetle. It is about the size of an adult's thumb. It rolls into a ball the dung of animals in the area, like that of the impalas and antelopes, and pushes with its rear legs this ball while pivoting off its front legs. It was hilarious watching how vigorously this beetle was pushing, doing its job to provide food for its eggs. I need to go, friends. Another batch of retreatants comes in this evening, so I go back to work with six people to guide in one-on-ones conversations each day. A blessed Advent and Christmas to each and all of you. Bernie Owens