Sitting quietly at the end of the day, with Diesel my dog, at one of my favorite view sites at Nitani, I contemplated some of the events in 2008. The tragic loss of my wife, lover and best friend, Ade. Her spirit will always live on with us at Nitani, the place that she loved so dearly and where she touched so many peoples lives with her knowledge, wisdom, love and extraordinary gift with animals.

Then the sheer joy of being part of the lives of Zeus and Tashka, our two hand reared Serval cats. We got them to the point where they were catching their own food and enjoying a life that is wild and free. We haven't seen them in a while but our philosophy was always for them to go free, even if that meant them contending with all the forces of nature and having a shorter but wild and free life. I am hoping that they are just exploring Nitani but like any good parent, I have to give them their freedom. Lastly, I thought about the many guests who have been changed by the magic of Nitani and who have become our friends.

The last embers of the setting sun were just visible and with a gentle breeze blowing in my face, it reminded me of being alone at sea on a yacht - except this was better as I was surrounded by an undisturbed horizon of African wilderness. In the distance I heard the crack of a branch that an elephant bull was breaking, in search of fresh leaves. I watched a herd of wildebeest (Gnu's) with fifteen young calves lazily grazing on the plain below where I sat. I listened to the ever hopeful calls of the male Cassina frogs trying to lure a willing female, as well as two thick knees calling their lovely call to each other and a lone hyena's whooping call echoing into the dusk.

The sickle moon was just off the Western horizon with Jupiter keeping her company. I then looked up at the heavens above me, with the stars slowly becoming visible and began to feel insignificant in their grandeur (some of you know my passion for astronomy). To think that, in relative terms, the little spec of dust called planet earth that I was sitting on and our entire solar system, of sun and planets is only the size of a dime or 10c piece placed on the whole continent of Africa! This is only our size in relation to the "milky way galaxy", which is where our spec of dust resides. Onward went my thoughts to the fact that there are hundreds of billions of other milky way galaxies. If we were to count just the stars in our own milky way galaxy at one star per second, it would take 2500 years to count them all! As the Psalmist wrote "lift your eyes to the heavens and see that God created every star and knows each one by name and that he measures the whole universe with the span of his hand".

As we all know our majestic human bodies are made up of seventy five thousand billion (75 Trillion) cells and that fifty thousand cells in our bodies die and are replaced every four seconds! I sat there humbled and dumbfounded by the magnitude of it all.

One certain thing came to mind and that is death will come to each individual on earth at some unknown time. Then I thought of the many millions of busy folks sitting in their cars going to or coming back from their busy offices, that some of those stressed folks will come to Nitani to renew their souls and take back with them the memories of an African wilderness that has changed very little since the beginning of time.

I realized just how privileged I am to be able to share this special piece of our planet.

From all of us at Nitani, thank you so much to our old friends for your support during the past twenty four years and to our new friends who are visiting Nitani for the first time this year, we wish you all a year filled with joy, growth and peace.