RJ left for a few days so it was just me, Minnette, Terre
and Jackie doing all the shifts and project work. But it was okay, I had
bonding time with Terre and Jackie as we sorted through crates and crates of
mouldy fruit. Minette moved into the other room in the volunteer house (that
room has wifi!!) so I moved in with her so I wasn’t on my own anymore and the
guy volunteer that was coming could stay in the room I left so it all worked
out. J It’s certainly much nicer than staying
in a room by myself that used to be full of volunteers!
Minette’s monkey,
Heleenatjie, has been sick the past few days though. Minette was looking after
and raising this baby for a few months and only put her sleeping outside with
the rest of the babies 2 weeks ago, but she came down with a fever as her
temperature is way up. So she’s sleeping with Minette again which means she has
to put up with me being in the room and she doesn’t like me one little bit!
This might get her used to me more though, and maybe eventually she’ll stop
screaming when I go near her…. O.o
On Friday I got a
day off and was able to go into town with Sue as she picked up bits and pieces
for the farm and I got to do some shopping for myself and get anything the
other volunteers, interns or workers wanted. I knew we were really short
volunteers though and I knew Terre would be in Handicap by herself so I decided
to help her out cleaning the cage, I was awake anyway with nothing else to do!
After a little
fiasco with some of the baboons fighting on top of the kindergarten cage, we
left just before 11am. The trip into town was nice; I got to get some souvenirs
and stock up on necessities like ice-cream! When we came back I got to relax
which was weird. It gave me a chance to catch up on some blogging and photo
editing though!
Saturday arrived and Chantelle decided to boost my spirits
during lunch by asking if I wanted to head out in town that night with her, Belinda and Zandrie. Of course I said yes, I need to experience the South African night
life while here! So for the rest of the day in between feeding and shifts I was
non-stop asking Minette and Chantelle what the night life is like here. I was
told I don’t need to dress up; jeans and any top would do. I won’t need that
much money as drinks are very cheap. And seeing as Zandrie was driving in and
out, we won’t have a curfew for the night either! So there won’t be a problem
with us going out as long as we’re up and ready to work at 7:45 the next
morning. I was SO excited!!
I'll break this down a little further for you... I bought 4 shots, 2 bottles of cider, a bottle of Smirnoff ice
and a double vodka and dash for less than ten euro.
I’m just going to leave that sink in with you for a minute…
…
So. You can imagine how drunk I got! We danced for hours
non-stop. We danced with some lovely old men in there too! And Ronny the bar
man is a legend, the bachelor in gold leggings was also pretty cool, the guy
who did the splits in an attempt to show-off but ended up hurting himself and
running away also deserves a mention. We had many laughs and made drunken
memories and just had a really good time. :] And the girls didn’t make me feel
bad the next day despite the ‘drunken state’ they saw me in. ;) Thanks for that girls!
We arrived home at 2.30am and I went straight to bed. I woke
up the next morning feeling absolutely fine! ...Until I sat up. My head was
still spinning a little but I powered on through the morning regardless!
Let me tell you, scrubbing monkey pooh while hung-over is an experience I won’t
forget. Especially when the effort of not trying to throw up is added in. Of
course considering the fact that it’s Sunday and knowing my luck, I was on
dishes in the volunteer house AND clinic cleaning that day! But I got
everything done and when the evening came I practically just ate, washed up,
and passed out.
Monday I woke up feeling perfect! Seeing as Jackie was in
the Pinkface room every morning last week and Terre was in Handicap with me,
the ladies decided to swap around so they could have a taste of both worlds. So
I and Jackie took to the Handicap cage to clean and I showed her how we go
about it. She learns quick so we had the cage scrubbed and raked and clean in
no time! =]
There were new volunteers’ coming today too which was
exciting. They arrived separately late in the afternoon. Their names are
Caitlin and Marley, both from England, both staying for a month, but they didn’t
come together! They’re cool though, it’s nice to have more volunteers my own
age around too. : )
The next morning Caitlin joined me and Jackie in Handicap.
Everything gets done sooo much quicker with three people. You can get much more
done in the morning and then you have less to do in the afternoon. Marley was put
into kindergarten as the baby monkeys in there (who can be quite aggressive)
genuinely are nicer to men, but for whatever reason, some of them decided to
pick on Marley anyway while he was trying to clean and he got a few bites! So
he was taken out of the cage and put to cleaning the toys from kindergarten.
They’ll try introducing him into the cage again tomorrow morning.
With the arrival of two new people, the duties of the
volunteer house can now be split up more and for the first time in over a WEEK,
I wasn’t on dishes today! This I was very happy about. More time to do project
work really! Tomorrow - Wednesday - monkeys will be taken out of various cages and put
into a larger one together where they’ll be observed as they’re introduced to each other. This is the beginning of the long process to forming a troop so they can be released into the wild! So project work for today consisted of cleaning out the cage they're moving into. We raked the cage of all old leaves and vigorously searched for bits of wire and screws that may have been dropped when the cage was being checked and made monkey-proof. Then wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of leaves and rocks had to be dumped. I took this job on myself, I'm pretty sure my biceps have already expanded ever so slightly! Once the cage was done I had a pink face shift and then it was dinner time.
Wednesday was bound to be exciting and busy with the forming of the new troop. Little did I know the action would start in my cage, the Handicap cage! We were told to clean as quick as we could so the 3 monkeys that would be moving from the cage to the enclosure could be caught. This ended up happening while we were cleaning though, as a lot of monkeys needed to be caught from the other cages too. Tsosobe was caught quite easily. As soon as the cage to capture them was place in the entrance, he went to have a nosy at it and see what it was. So Belinda then locked herself in the entrance with him, caught him with a net, and put him in the cage. The other 2 monkeys weren't as keen going into the entrance to see what the story was with Tsosobe with Belinda being there. So she left for a while, and then it was my job to close the inside gate if one of those monkeys went into the entrance and call Belinda. This happened only a few minutes after she left. I saw that one of the monkeys that needed to be caught was in the entrance so I quickly went over and closed the door behind him and called Belinda to come back and capture him. We had the cage cleaned and prepared for feeding before the last monkey was caught so I didn't see that happening. These captures went on through all the cages monkeys were being recruited from. In the meantime we got our morning jobs done and had breakfast.
After breakfast I went up to the cage all the monkeys were being moved into to stand-in for anyone who wanted to go get breakfast. I took Sue's job which was minding Silke's camera and spraying any wild monkeys that came up to the cage and caused trouble with a hose. Sometimes the monkeys inside the cage needed spraying inside too! The wild monkeys around were bound to cause trouble because to them, these new monkeys are moving into their territory, as the cage has been empty for quite sometime and to them, so they own the cage! So they would occasionally come up to the cage and start fighting with the monkeys inside or making them agitated. When they did this I just took the hose and sprayed them with water so they'd stop. Sometimes it didn't work though and we had to physically threaten them. It was all to try make the move for the monkeys as easy and stress-free as possible, otherwise a monkey could get seriously hurt. I was there for about an hour and a half. It was amazing watching these monkeys get introduced to each other in this lovely huge enclosure, knowing that eventually they'll be united together as a troop and released into the wild in a few years.
I had to leave at 12 so I could do Chantelle's shift in Pinkfaces. There was no time for us to take lunch today as when we weren't doing shifts in the pinkface room, we had to scrub one of the cages that housed a small troop of monkeys before they were moved into the big cage. This was a lot of work! We had to scrub every surface completely clean of faeces and dried food so that the new smaller troop that will be going into this cage will have a nice clean one to move into and no other monkeys' scent. There were 6 of us changing between cleaning the cage and pinkface shifts though so it wasn't as hard a project to get done as it could have been. Eventually the day finished for us volunteers.
After dinner we headed up to the weekly bonfire. I didn't last long at this one though as I was wrecked from the crazy busy day. I must say fair play to Andries though who had to sleet outside by the big cage for the next couple of nights so if any of the monkeys started fighting inside, he could separate them. If I had to something like that, I'd most likely sleep through it!
Thursday returned to a normal routine day. Friday and Saturday were full of surprises though! I just need to finish writing about those two days and I'll have it posted up asap. Then you'll hear about the escaped monkeys and emergency trip to the vets...
<3
Wednesday was bound to be exciting and busy with the forming of the new troop. Little did I know the action would start in my cage, the Handicap cage! We were told to clean as quick as we could so the 3 monkeys that would be moving from the cage to the enclosure could be caught. This ended up happening while we were cleaning though, as a lot of monkeys needed to be caught from the other cages too. Tsosobe was caught quite easily. As soon as the cage to capture them was place in the entrance, he went to have a nosy at it and see what it was. So Belinda then locked herself in the entrance with him, caught him with a net, and put him in the cage. The other 2 monkeys weren't as keen going into the entrance to see what the story was with Tsosobe with Belinda being there. So she left for a while, and then it was my job to close the inside gate if one of those monkeys went into the entrance and call Belinda. This happened only a few minutes after she left. I saw that one of the monkeys that needed to be caught was in the entrance so I quickly went over and closed the door behind him and called Belinda to come back and capture him. We had the cage cleaned and prepared for feeding before the last monkey was caught so I didn't see that happening. These captures went on through all the cages monkeys were being recruited from. In the meantime we got our morning jobs done and had breakfast.
After breakfast I went up to the cage all the monkeys were being moved into to stand-in for anyone who wanted to go get breakfast. I took Sue's job which was minding Silke's camera and spraying any wild monkeys that came up to the cage and caused trouble with a hose. Sometimes the monkeys inside the cage needed spraying inside too! The wild monkeys around were bound to cause trouble because to them, these new monkeys are moving into their territory, as the cage has been empty for quite sometime and to them, so they own the cage! So they would occasionally come up to the cage and start fighting with the monkeys inside or making them agitated. When they did this I just took the hose and sprayed them with water so they'd stop. Sometimes it didn't work though and we had to physically threaten them. It was all to try make the move for the monkeys as easy and stress-free as possible, otherwise a monkey could get seriously hurt. I was there for about an hour and a half. It was amazing watching these monkeys get introduced to each other in this lovely huge enclosure, knowing that eventually they'll be united together as a troop and released into the wild in a few years.I had to leave at 12 so I could do Chantelle's shift in Pinkfaces. There was no time for us to take lunch today as when we weren't doing shifts in the pinkface room, we had to scrub one of the cages that housed a small troop of monkeys before they were moved into the big cage. This was a lot of work! We had to scrub every surface completely clean of faeces and dried food so that the new smaller troop that will be going into this cage will have a nice clean one to move into and no other monkeys' scent. There were 6 of us changing between cleaning the cage and pinkface shifts though so it wasn't as hard a project to get done as it could have been. Eventually the day finished for us volunteers.
After dinner we headed up to the weekly bonfire. I didn't last long at this one though as I was wrecked from the crazy busy day. I must say fair play to Andries though who had to sleet outside by the big cage for the next couple of nights so if any of the monkeys started fighting inside, he could separate them. If I had to something like that, I'd most likely sleep through it!
Thursday returned to a normal routine day. Friday and Saturday were full of surprises though! I just need to finish writing about those two days and I'll have it posted up asap. Then you'll hear about the escaped monkeys and emergency trip to the vets...
<3
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