SEQUIM — Traveler’s Journal will feature Suzanne Anaya presenting “Massai Mara, East Kenya” at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Anaya, a member of the Olympic Peaks Camera Club in Sequim, will also offer photos of her trip during the lecture at the Dungeness River Nature Center, 1943 W. Hendrickson Road.
The suggested donation is $5. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. Attendees are encouraged, but not required, to wear a mask.
Anaya’s parents visited Kenya when she was young. In her seventh decade, she visited Kenya, spending most of her time in the Masai Mara, a game reserve in Narok, in a small, tented camp called Bella Mara.
“Every day I was there on safari was beyond my wildest imagination,” she said. “My last adventure was at the Lentorre Lodge in Southern Kenya.
“Seeing for the first time African animals not in a zoo or in a circus brought tears to my eyes,” Anaya added.
“I learned about our global responsibility to help keep these animals for generations to come. Loss of habitat and humans are their worst enemy. Education is the only prayer they have not to become extinct.”
Anaya, who worked as a critical care nurse for three decades and has been a volunteer nurse manager in Sequim at Dungeness Health & Wellness Clinic, said she has been an artist all her life.
“I majored in art, painting large scale abstracts,” she said. “I used African designs to paint tabletops. I have always been involved with animals, large and small.”
“Seeing the world through my eyes and being able to portray it photographically is my heart and soul,” Anaya said.
She retired to Sequim eight years ago.
In addition to volunteer work at the clinic, she has volunteered at the Sequim Information Center and has photographs shown at the Blackbird Café, Studio Bob and Sequim Museum & Arts.
Traveler’s Journal, a presentation of the Peninsula Trails Coalition, raises funds to buy project supplies and food for volunteers working on Olympic Discovery Trail projects.
Coming up is “Will there be refreshments? Hiking the Pyrenees High Route” with Carol Bernthal on March 23.
For more information, email Arvo Johnson at amjcgj@gmail.com.
A Kenyan goat herder is hard at work. (Suzanne Anaya)
