I'm in AFRICA!!

Monday 12th August, 2am 

 I’m only in Dubai and I’ve already learned so many things, it’s crazy! I know this is probably just because I’ve only been on a proper foreign holiday twice (Not counting England!) and both times was to Italy so a lot of what I’m saying you luckier more travelled people might already know. Or maybe I’m just overly exciteable about everything…but who cares?! If you do, then why are you reading this blog??

So here are a few tips and things I’ve learned so far…

·         **Don’t purchase excess amounts of liquids after security in Dublin if you have a stopover in Dubai.

~ Ceara thought: I’m a genius!! 3 for 2 on soft drinks!! These will last me both flights and maybe even longer, ha!

~ Fact: You have to go through security again and unless you’re a beast that will drink all 3 bottles of whatever on the plane, they just get binned. . . besides, Emirates have an endless supply of FREE drink on board! THIS INCLUDES ALCOHOL :D

·         **Don’t purchase lots of food before an Emirates flight.

~ Ceara thoughts: 20 chilli cheese bites and a veggie bean burger should keep me going for a while considering it’s a 7 hour flight and Emirates give me just one meal, and I love food… and chilli cheese bites.

~ Emirates give you a HUGE meal and free biscuits and stuff, unless you’re trying to bloat yourself on purpose (why would you do that?), no need to buy food for the flight.

·        ** No need to bring your own neck pillow on an Emirates flight.

~ Ceara thought: I’ll just roll up my scarf and cardigan if needed, or sleep on my neighbour’s shoulder…

~ Fact: Emirates provide you with a pillow AND blanket!!

·         **You can get from Dublin to Dubai quicker on a plane than you can get from Donegal to Wexford via public buses…5 hours quicker…

·         **Dubai is HOT.

~ Ceara thought: Can’t wait to get off the plane and get some fresh air *steps out of plane* Jesus there’s some heat coming from the engine! No…wait…that’s just the air. Oh my god I’m going to collapse. Yeah that little ‘heatwave’ Ireland had there? Feckin’ NOTHING compared to this!

~ Fact: It was 37 degrees when we landed at Dubai. It was 00:22 and dark.  

·         Their toilet bowl water is even hot! (No, I didn’t touch it with my hand, it was that hot my bottom could feel it!).

·         **The taps in bathrooms are the perfect temperature to wash your hands in. WHY CAN’T IRELAND BE LIKE THAT??! Where one tap scalds and the other tap freezes, who’s the genius that thought that balanced things out?!

·         **There is no muck in Dubai, there just seems to be sand. . .Everywhere.

·        ** Duty free is non exsistent in Dublin. DUBAI do duty free. And they do it good.

·         **Gingers get stared at.

·       **  RyanAir do everything wrong. And we pay them ridiculous amounts of money while they do so.

·         **Dublin airport could do so much better.

·         **Emirates are fricken AWESOME.

And now…

That’s it for travel tips, as I type this sentence on the 13^th of August, 8:11pm local time (7:11pm Ireland), I’m sitting outside the volunteer house wrapped in a sleeping bag with a kitten sitting under my legs, wild monkeys all around me and the brightest stars I have ever seen over head. The moon though, the moon looks the same so that’s my window to home.

This place, is UNBELIEVEABLE. The amount of things I’ve seen already is crazy! I arrived at the sanctuary yesterday along with a German/African man and his two kids who were also volunteering for a couple of weeks. The drive here was surreal, I was trying to get it to sink in that I’m actually in Africa, I think now it has though! During the 2 hour drive from Johannesburg (everyone here calls it J-Burg by the way, I’m already getting hip and cool with local slang :P ) the landscape is so different. It goes on forever all around you, there aren’t rolling hills, or trees and hedges lining the roads like there is in Ireland. And the land is significantly less green. And the motorways are FIVE lanes across! And people just walk in the middle of them or stand on the side and try hitch, the german guy (Benedikt) laughed when I said you’d probably get arrested or something for doing that in Ireland…

Anyway, we arrived at the sanctuary around 3pm on Monday and were greeted by Sue, the project manager. Straight away I could see loads of monkeys running around the place. Turns out they are part of a wild troop that were released by the area and just hang around the grounds socializing with the monkeys in the sanctuary and waiting for the leftover food from feedings to be placed out for them. They also try to steal our food when they can, they’re fast and cunning little feckers!

There are other volunteers here as well, I’m sharing a room with 3 girls, 2 from England and one from Africa. ( I know it’s a big place but I can’t for the life of me spell or repeat where she said she came from O_o ). They’re all lovely! There are permanent workers here too, they’re the ones that have been putting up with my hundreds of questions and pleas for help when I have 7 baby monkeys hanging off me… One of the South African guys that is a permanent worker has to concentrate really hard when I talk as he can’t understand my accent! He understands the English though, what’s with that?? Imagine his pain if I had a cork or northern accent??!

We were given a tour around the grounds by Sue. I’m pretty sure they have over 100 vervet monkeys divided up into different cages depending on their age, how they came to the sanctuary, how sick or physically challenged they are, if they will eventually be released back into the wild and then the troops who are in huuuuuuuuuuuge cages preparing to be released into the wild. They have one baboon who is absolutely stunning but can’t be released back into the wild sadly. Then there are 3 meerkats (SO CUTE) who can’t be released unless more meerkats join them, they won’t survive with only 3. A  new baby baboon was just rescued today from people who rescued her saying they think her mother what shot. I haven’t seen him yet but will tomorrow! Then you have the wild animals that living in the surrounding area. There’s a small herd of Zebra always in sight, a wild male Nyala that wanders around – he is absolutely magnificent to look at, but step too close and he’ll buck at you, hence his name is Buck Buck! – there’s a few peacocks around, I’ve seen an ostrich, a porcupine, oh! Did I forget to mention the wild baboon troop that lives a little away from the sanctuary and likes to visit quite frequently, running amuck and being very very loud? Well there’s them too!

I collapsed into bed around 8:30pm seeing as I hadn’t slept at all on the plane from Dubai and had to be up and ready to work for 7:45am. Here is a rough schedule of the day for everyone and how my first day went:

Tuesday 13th August

7:45am

 – Meet outside the main entrance. Decide who’s doing what tasks after feeding by pulling a piece of paper out from a bucket. Whatever task is written on the paper is yours!

I wasn’t that tired but felt somewhat naked as I had to take out ALL my piercings for work, otherwise the monkeys would take them out for me and I’d never see them again. The task I got was clinic cleaning. So when the time came, I was to clean the kitchen after both monkey feedings.

8:00am

– Go to your designated enclosure with a bucket of hot water and scrubbing brush and clean all the poo and food from all the surfaces.

-          Gather all leftover food together.

-          Clean the crates that were holding the food.

So I’m in the Handicap enclosure this morning. This is such a lovely cage to work in but really sad when you see the blind monkeys, brain-damaged ones or ones with arms, legs and/or tails missing and it’s all because of humans treating them badly by beating them if they misbehave as ‘pets’ [THEY’RE WILD ANIMALS FOR GOD’S SAKE ! THEY’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE PETS!] or shooting them, or doing absolutely disgusting things like feeding a monkey a banana with a firecracker inside it. This happened to one of the monkeys, called Kingsley. Part of his face was blown off and he was blinded completely by the cruelty. The skin around his mouth is similar to what it looks like when a human has a cleft lip. He has to be fed directly by us, otherwise we can’t be sure he can find the food in the cage or if other monkeys steal it from him. To see him try feel his way around the cage is so sad. Then you have Obstat, a monkey with epilepsy that tries mating with your head when you first meet him. Once you turn him down though he gives up and happily sits and chills on your lap while you groom him.

As soon as I stepped into the cage to clean I had about 3 monkeys on top of me, all trying to take the clips out of my hair, some succeeded! Since then, I’ve decided clips here are obviously a waste of time so I won’t be wearing them again… The AMOUNT of poo is crazy. I was covered instantly, there was wee in my hair, poo under my nails, monkeys on my back. This is the life!

9:30am - Feeding time for animals.

10:00am - Breakfast for people!

10:30am - Task duty & Project work.

I went to the clinic kitchen to clean but most of the work was done already by the permanent staff so I went on baboon watch instead. This involved me standing by the wild vervet monkeys where they were feeding and chasing away any baboons that came near with a rake!

1:00pm - Lunch

2/2:30pm – 2^nd feeding time for monkeys.

3:00pm – Tasks & project work

We will be having a bonfire tomorrow (Wednesday) so we had to go around collecting firewood for that. Once that was done I had some free time to go in with the baby vervets in the Pink Faces room. There’s a new monkey there that used to be someone’s pet and has trouble getting along with other monkeys. His name is Mango and he stays in this room with a few other monkeys so he can get used to being around them. These babies are so hyper and love to bite. I have bruises on my legs from when I wouldn’t let them take my camera and they went crazy! You see, vervet monkeys don’t like having things taken from them, it drives them nuts so to avoid that you should just let them take your things or just not have anything in your pockets!

5:30pm – Dinner.

And the rest of the day is up to us! Although we’re not allowed wander around the grounds in the dark as there are leopards around and if we walk too far people could prosecute us for trespassing! It gets dark quite early though, it’s usually dark by 6:15pm! And then it gets cold. It gets



really cold. It’s like the African winter has the hottest days and coldest nights! And I didn’t bring enough warm clothes :/ But I’ve solved this by wrapping myself in a sleeping bag whenever I’m sitting outside, simples!

I don’t get a whole lot of free time because I go to sleep quite early, monkeys just take it out of you. It’s taken me 3 days just to type this blog!! But I’ll try keep it short and simple and just include the best parts of the day but to me they’re all great, I love it here and the work I’m doing and I have all you to thank for getting me here, I can’t express my gratitude in enough in words. I love you all.

And I'll try keep this blog updated as much as I can, as I upload it now, two more days have gone by which I also have to write about, so bear with me people !! 

Ceara 

(: <3