Finding My Way To Africa!

Friday, 20 September 2013

Cheap Drinks, New Volunteers & Busy Days!

Hello again! This post documents the last week and a half I had at Bambelela. It follows on from the last one so if you feel you missed any, just have a read over them! J

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!!

After dinner I got ready as quick as I could (which still wasn’t quick enough!). We left quite early, around 7.30pm. We headed to a local pub (equipped with dance floor) and had an UNREAL night. It was so good! The place wasn’t too packed so I got talking to loads of people and told anyone I talked to that I was Irish. They were all wondering why I was in such a small town! The drink is unbelievably cheap. I can never afford to do rounds in Ireland but here I had no problem buying anyone drinks! Shots were the equivalent of ONE euro. One!

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, 11 September 2013

Zebula Part 2, Sad Times & Cake...

Greetings, greetings one and all. I shall continue this blog post on directly from the one previous as I promised!

Me with Tarzan!

So we're at Zebula, eating, then comes time for our cheetah interaction! We were eating for longer than planned though so our time was shorter with the cheetahs but OH MY GOODNESS, what a time that was. There are two cheetahs at Zebula called Tarzan and Jane ( I love those names! ). They were kept as pets by a woman who thought it was fine to raise 2 cheetahs as pets in her house so they're completely at ease with people. When we walked into their enclosure the first thing I noticed was 1) they are much more slender than I thought they would be and 2) even HD television does nothing in comparison to seeing these animals up close in person. Absolutely magnificent. They're so soft to touch and when they lick your hand their tongue is just as rough as a cat's! But the purring. The purring. Oh my god it's almost indescribable. Their purrs sound like the rumbling engine of a car, it's so cool! I took a video of Tarzan to try catch him purring but for whatever reason blogger won't let me upload the video to the blog, but seriously, youtube it or something. Although even videos won't do it justice, just fly your ass over here and listen for yourself! We learned a few basic facts about them when we were in there and got to take photographs with them. I don't think I'll ever forget that encounter!

Afterwards it was time to head to the part of the reserve where the elephants live. We were slightly late for this too but the staff waited for us before they began their talk which was nice. :] We were told about the elephants and how they came to be a part of Zebula. They were rescued from a culling operation (I'll depress myself writing a description of that, if anyone who doesn't already but would like to know what it is, look it up). They are now a part of this game reserve and have been trained to do some tricks as part of a show people come and pay for. As they all stand in a row in front of you, you can't help but notice each one has a chain around their back left ankle. After being questioned about the purpose of this, we were told it's simply because they are wild animals after all and can be unpredictable. If anything was to startle them, the chains prevent them from trampling anyone to death. It was interesting hearing them justify this. Personally though, I'd prefer if they just let them roam free all day and night and have people come and watch them from a distance. This they said they can't do either as they destroy so many trees and vegetation which other animals in the reserve also depend on. So at night, the elephants are herded into a big barn where they eat and sleep until the morning when they are let out again to roam the land until people arrive for their 2 shows a day.

After each elephant performed their own personal trick ( such as kicking a ball, giving us a kiss with their trunk, talking food from our hands so we could feel the suction of their trunk, spraying us all with water etc), it was time for a 30 minute back ride through the bush. Me and Leona decided to go together and Benedikt went with Adrian. Each elephant had 3 people on it's back, one of them being a staff member that led the elephant. There was no saddle with stirrups or anything as such, just a light, flat cushion-type thing strapped to it's back. We just sat on it holding onto two straps and our feet dangling over the side of the elephant! This didn't feel like much when the elephants begin walking and you start swaying side to side on them! And when they speed up or walk uphill you're convinced you could fall off any second. O.o No one did though! It was genuinely enjoyable. :D

It also isn't a lie when people say elephants are extremely quiet when they walk; it's true! About 10 elephants walking together in a line and all you can here is the people walking with them. Riding through the bush on an elephant's back and seeing wild antelope, giraffe and warthogs at the same time is certainly something I won't forget.
After the journey we quickly got some food while meerkats tried to get into our bags and look for food. It was interesting seeing this as you could pet them and they wouldn't show aggression, they just wanted food. But they would go to lengths to get food from you and this is when they can be seen as pests. The meerkats at Bambelela are totally different, they're treated properly and behave like wild animals, not pests. So humans really need to stop feeding wild animals because they come back for more, and they could come back with a whole troop or family or whatever. Then they will never leave you alone and you'll want someone to come and exterminate them. Then all of a sudden a whole troop of baboons is killed because tourists kept feeding them and then they got comfortable enough around people to steal their bags and raid them for food. I could go on about this forever but I'll only be ranting aimlessly. Just don't feed wild animals unless you're prepared to give them food every time they come before they start rooting for it themselves.
This was practically the end of the day then. We stopped in town for the others to have KFC while I stocked up on ice-cream from the local Spar (yeah, they have Spar here! ). Then we got lost on our way back as Benedikt was driving and we were busy talking about how people can't name their kids whatever they wan't in Germany and we missed the turn. But we got back eventually! And Katie got her GCSE results back and turns out she's a GENIUS so I brought back cake for us all to eat which was well nice. ^_^
The days since Zebula (it's been almost 3 weeks since then as I write this now, I really need to start documenting my days better...) have all kind of blended together but I'll relay my adventures as best I can for you!

Beli and her baby, sweet dreams. xx

Friday we had our first tragedy on the farm since I’ve been here. Beli, one of the pregnant wild monkeys in the area was taken in a while ago when it was noticed she was in bad health. Now, I’m not entirely sure of all the details as I don’t partake in the medical side of things, that all happens in the main house. But as far as I know she had a problem with her lungs. Friday, she stopped breathing. Everyone who could help was called into the house and tried to help resuscitate her but sadly, they couldn't get her back. They cut her open then to try save her baby but he was too premature and couldn't survive either. This was really sad but Silke and the others did the best that they could. Sometimes nature just goes against you. Beli and her baby boy were buried together out where the zebra roam. Silke makes sure any animal that dies on the farm, wild or captive gets buried. There really is a whole lot of love for the animals here, it keeps everyone going!

Regardless of course, we had to continue on working. In between feeding and shifts, our project over the weekend involved painting cage panels and wiring them. The hospital cage was also taken apart at one point and this had to be scrubbed clean along with all the poles and surfaces that were inside it. So we were kept nice and busy throughout the days!

Myself, Katie and RJ decided to sleep outside seeing as the nights were getting slightly warmer and it won't rain on us. The first night we slept outside, the moon was full and extremely bright and considering there is rarely a cloud in the sky here (I swear, apart from one overcast morning, I've seen about 7 clouds since being here...), the brightness made it hard to sleep so I just buried myself into my sleeping bag. I was slightly worried that baboons or monkeys might attack us in the morning but they didn't. :]

We slept out again on Friday night because it wasn't too cold outside and seeing as Leona was leaving the following morning with her dad and brother, she wanted to sleep out too so she joined us! An extremely hyper episode followed the 12 year old which was pursued by a viscous pillow fight involving a dislocated jaw, several splinters and some pretty funny pictures. Eventually we slept and no one was mauled by leopards during the night either. Bonus!

Missing you guys!

Saturday morning was quite sad as we had to say goodbye to Benedikt, Leona and Adrian. It was extremely quiet after they left! We soldiered on throughout the day though, scrubbing and raking and washing and feeding and doing projects. Spare time was filled with card games and intense rounds of the 30 Seconds charades-like game they have here. We slept outside the next two nights again, myself, Katie and RJ talking each other to sleep (I was always the first to go, no surprise there!). The whole weekend we couldn't keep our minds from the fact that Katie was leaving Monday afternoon, even though I only got to spend two weeks with her, we bonded! Right Katie? =P

Then Monday the 26th arrived and this was by far the hardest day for me so far. The 3 of us emerged from our outdoor sleeping area. We woke up to the whole farm being covered in mist, which was very strange considering the non-stop good weather we were having, so South Africa seemed to also be dreading Katie’s departure! We worked and tried to put the fact she was leaving to the back of our minds. This worked relatively well until RJ interrupted our dish cleaning to tell us the car was here to take everyone to the airport. It was practically 2 hours early! And so the tears began flowing and we had to say goodbye and it sucked. Then after her, Bonnie and Matthew all left, it was very quiet and I moped around for the day really. I’m not my usual self without loads of people around to buzz off. And I think I was also extra sad because I was reminded of the fact that I’ll have to leave Bambelela in two weeks.

However, with goodbyes come hellos though, as two new volunteers arrived that day too. Terre and Jackie, 2 lovely American ladies! We said goodbye to Deborah and Lauren on Tuesday morning then went straight to work with Terre and Jackie to show them the ropes! Terre was in the handicap cage with me. Janina (who’s in charge of the cage and taught me how to maintain it) has been sick the past few days so I was left to show Terre the routine of things in the cage, which I didn’t mind at all! I’m here two weeks at this point so I feel properly settled in and trust myself enough to show other people what to do. Terre took to the cage like a trooper, she was instantly comfortable with the monkeys and was a natural dealing with them when they were jumping on her or nibbling at her or when the neighbouring Golden Oldies grumpy monkeys grabbed her hair through the fence – they tend to do this a lot. I think a small wig could be made from all the hair they’ve pulled from my head when I’m not thinking and get too close to their side of the cage. Myself and Terre also did monkey dishes (washing all the bowls from feeding) and then we were on volunteer house dishes and cleaning together, we’re a great oul’ duo!

By now I have finally spent some hours alone in the pink face room, and I genuinely believe the monkeys are getting used to me now! With Katie’s absence, I basically have to take over her shifts in there, and I’m much more confident in handling them, even if they do start to make eyes at me (they raise their eyebrows when they’re upset with you!). Emily had said to me before that she loved the pink face room, but I just couldn’t understand how, as I nursed the wounds I got in there… But now it’s growing on me! Even Mango, we’re becoming friends despite the rocky start we had when we first met. On the other hand though Heleentjie is a monkey that, despite being lovely to me when I first met her, now HATES me. I do believe this is because she thinks I hurt Claas the baboon baby (who has now been brought to C.A.R.E. Baboon Sanctuary a few hours away :[ ). She was very protective over him and both times I was bitten badly in there, her and Claas were there so I think she thought I was making him scream or upsetting/hurting him. Basically she just won’t go near me and always looks at me as if I’m about to steal her food and she screams if I go near her. O_o Some monkeys just dislike certain people though, I just hope we can maybe sort out our differences before I leave!

Project work for the week mostly consisted of sorting fruit into crates. Any fruit that was mouldy or slightly gone off went into crates that will be fed the soonest. There’s many a fruit here I’ve never seen before like tomato-looking things called persimmons and fruit that are about the same size as big grapes but just like oranges in colour and texture but are LIMES. Crazy shiznit I tells ya.

Tuesday night we celebrated Sue’s birthday with a bonfire and cake and presented her with a present we all chipped in on – a day at the spa at Zebula! Having cake was good. There were also these twisty dough things that were deep-fried and filled with syrup and tasted so fattening I felt my hips expanding as I chewed. They’re called sister-somethings. . . They tasted nice! But they also tasted of extreme unhealthy guilt, so I only managed one that night. =P

I'm a week and a half behind on blogging right now but I don't just want to summarise everything that happened. I sincerely apologize on my lack of ability to keep up with happenings, but I’m still going to document everything and blog it even though I’m just after getting back to Ireland! So, like the way you sometimes read about soaps in magazines and find out what is going to happen at the end of the programme/series but you still watch it to find out HOW it happens, I’m letting you know I’m back in Ireland now. But I’m not going to tell you all the shenanigans that happened before coming home (involving ESCAPED monkeys!!), or how I feel about being home or why I'm bedbound at the moment, yet. For that, you must stay tuned.

Ceara (:

Friday, 30 August 2013

Monkey Attacks & Zebula Part 1!

Hello hello hello, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! I've been neglecting this blog at a time when I really shouldn't be! The days just go by so quickly here and I can never type fast enough to keep up with what happens. If I had some servant following me around writing down everything that happened or recording things (via the voice of David Attenborough of course) it would be so much easier. However all I have following me around is the occasional monkey looking for food... Anyway, i shall crack on with things!

So, I left you all the last time with the knowledge of a monkey attack I was victim to last

Monday! On the right here you can see some of the battle scars! ...Ok, it really sounds much worse than it actually was, but at the time I thought I had just escaped an attempt on my life. :P Basically I was in the Pink Faces room with Emily and Chantelle. Chantelle is currently looking after the baby baboon, Claas, who likes to give out and throw tantrums now and again. When Chantelle tried to put him down he screamed and then about 5 monkeys that were in the room (apart from Claas and Mango who hid) all decided to jump on me and attack me! Now I’m quite low down in the monkey ranks, vervet monkey politics can get quite confusing. So, whenever something goes wrong, they’ll attack the lowest ranker. . .just because. There’s more to monkey politics but I am not going to bore you with all that now. The monkeys were attacking me and Chantelle and Emily were trying to pull them all off me. Adele was outside and heard the ruckus so she also came to the rescue to pull the rest off me. Once they were all being held back I decided it would be best to leave, which I did. Then the shock of what just happened sunk in and I began crying like a baby when Katie was putting Aloe Vera on my wounds. To worsen everything, Emily then had to leave which made me even more emotional! (Miss you Emily, my wine drinking buddy!)

I calmed down after a while though. Every few minutes I’d notice a different cut from a bite or scratch until eventually I think I had about 8 big scratches and bruises on me! I went back into pink faces later that evening anyway as I knew once Katie left I’d have more shifts in there so they were going to have to get used to me one way or another. That evening went fine. Thankfully vervets don’t hold grudges; their anger is short lived. The following day though, I was in there again with the monkeys and baboon and everything was going fine and all of a sudden for no apparent reason they all went ballistic again! I was standing up this time though so they just went for my legs as Minette pulled them off me. I left after that to let them calm down. These attacks have given me more confidence though. Being attacked by so many at one time makes me wonder if it could get any worse than this, I don’t think so! So now whenever the monkeys have a fit or try to bite me I’m much more calm and am learning how to deal with each one individually as they are all completely different personality wise! If Ninkynoo starts throwing a tantrum, I wrap her in a blanket and if it’s Mango you either shove a blanket in front of her to bite instead of you (thank you for that advice Emily :P ) or lock her in the other side of the room until she calms down. And a week later, I’m comfortable to be falling asleep with them in the room during my shifts! : )

So asides from that last tantrum the monkeys had, last Tuesday went by pretty smoothly from what I remember! Wednesday was another smooth day, followed by another bonfire which we sang and drank at, embarrassing myself as always. I’m really fulfilling the stereotypical Irish image here guys. I’m the palest person in the country, have ginger hair, freckles, always eat my potatoes, wear factor 30 sunscreen in the middle of the day, get drunk at almost every bonfire, grab the guitar at these bonfires and belt out songs at the top of my voice despite not being able to sing and I say ‘for the craic’ every now again. I have yet to explain to people craic means fun and not drugs…

Thursday was my first day off and we went to Zebula Game Reserve – ‘we’ being myself, Benedikt, his two kids Leona and Adrian, and Bonnie and Matthew, a mother and son from Seattle who joined us on Monday. Silke (the woman behind Bambelela) drove us there as we ate nutella sandwiches in the car. The first activity planned was a 3 hour game drive through the bush. This was pretty damn cool. We learned so much about the trees and the purposes they each have. One tree’s leaves are really rough so people use them to rub against their skin to exfoliate! Another tree has twigs people use to brush their teeth. There’s a bush named Hack En Steek that some people believe can contain the soul of a person that died, so if people were to die away from home for example, their soul would go into the branch that was placed beside them, the branch would be taken home and then buried with the exact same ceremony if there was a body. Then we came across another tree that’s so poisonous, if you burn it, inhaling the smoke could make you very very sick. When you squeeze the leaves, this white sap-like stuff oozes out. The tiniest dot of this would be enough to put onto your gum if you had a toothache as it would numb the whole nerve for a good while. Imagine what ingesting more could do!

Amongst the trees and bushes we saw loads of antelope and warthogs and some zebra and giraffes. The highlight of the drive by far was seeing a white rhino and her calf grazing. That made me emotional. These are so endangered it’s scary. I had to hold back tears while watching them. After that beautiful scene we continued on our way. Then Rodney, our guide, pulled up beside a nice fresh pile of rhino poo. He explained about the nutrients it contains and how people often use it for medicinal reasons as it seems to boost your immune system. Rodney said if you have a flu and drink some rhino poo juice, your symptoms should be gone within a few hours! All this he said wile handling a nice sized roll of rhino poo. He then proceeded to squeeze the poo into his hand, said ‘cheers’ and drank the poo juice from his hand! We were shocked. So then he asked if any of us wanted to try it. I thought to myself, ‘When am I ever going to get the chance to drink the magic poo juice of a beautiful, endangered animal again?’ and with that piped up ‘I’ll try it!’. I felt slightly worried then as Rodney picked up a piece of poo and handed it to me. I tried squeezing it into my hand but apparently I was doing it wrong and a lump of grassy poo fell into my hand instead. So I wiped it off and he squeezed some juice into my hand for me. It smelled like poo. But I took a deep breath and slurped it up anyway!

Ew.

This tastes like shite. Quite literally.

I was told it would have a nice ‘grass-like herby’ taste. Frankly, all I got was poo. At least it was only mostly digested grass and stuff. Can’t imagine what it would have been like if it was the faeces of a carnivore O_o . Heck. I’m glad I did it! Even if I looked like a fool afterwards with rhino poo dribbling down my chin and couldn’t get the smell from my hand for a whole day.

We went back to the reception of the reserve afterwards. Zebula is part of a breeding programme for several mammals including lions and tigers. The others took part in a lion cub interaction while I sat outside and watched (I put my money towards cheetahs instead!). The cubs were so cute! While I was watching Benedikt, Bonnie and the rest pet and play with them, a member of staff came up to me saying they also have tiger cubs but they’re too young to be allowed interact with humans yet for fear of them getting sick. I was kind of thinking ‘That’s cool, but why am I being told this exactly?’. THEN he says “…Do you want to see them?” Eh, duh! So I follow him to a door, he opens it, I look inside, and there are two tiger cubs only going on 4 weeks old lying down at the back of this room and my heart just melts LOOK AT THEM! They’re so cute and beautiful and precious. I literally just took one photo and then left because I could see that little guy looking towards the camera was trying to sleep. In my moment of distraction by the upmost beauty of the cubs, I never asked where the mother was…I really wish I had!

Just look at them... :3

After the guys were finished with their lion interaction we went for something to eat while waiting for our cheetah interaction session...

The day at Zebula isn't even half over yet and there's still loads to write so I'm gonna go type that up, and leave you guys with what I've written so far. I think this is a better way than just giving you one super long blog piece! And maaaan have I got so much more to tell. There's laughter, heartbreak, tragedy, 'goodbye's and 'hello's to come...

So...

...to be continued...

Tuesday, 20 August 2013

Zebra! And Sunsets! And Monkey Attacks!

Hello my friends, I hope you are all doing well wherever you may be in the world! Things are going well here in the southern hemisphere. I tried to watch and see if the toilet flushes the opposite way around today but got very confused as I can’t remember what way it goes in the northern hemisphere plus the water didn’t swirl going into the toilet, it just kind of all poured in! So, there’s some random knowledge for you for the day to get us started.

Wednesday morning came and the novelty of being up early already wore off as I rolled out of bed with 7 minutes to get ready. I did it though! I’m in the same cage every morning to clean this week; the Handicap cage. There seemed to be extra poo today and this time, I had to climb all different platforms to reach and clean it, I blended right in with the monkeys really! There is also something wonderful about balancing on two logs 4 feet off the ground while you scrub a whole lot of poo from a shelter house while 2 monkeys are sitting on your back trying to see what’s down your pants, before it’s even 8:30am.

I know the routine slightly better today and where to get any materials I need like mops, brushes, buckets, hot water, soap and the likes. Today, one of the tasks I picked was baboon feed. Basically, the leftover food the monkeys don’t eat gets thrown out on platforms built for the wild monkey troops to eat from. A lot of monkeys, including vervets, have digestive systems so close to ours that if we were to try live in the wild, we could eat whatever they eat and (most likely) not die. Baboons have a much stronger digestive system though. So they can eat fruit and veg that’s gone rotten, or semi-decomposed food or peels of oranges and things like that without it doing them any harm. So all these leftover leftovers are wheeled out in wheelbarrows to the land where the zebra roam. There is a pit there this food is dumped into and baboons and warthogs come feast at will. A bale of grass is also brought out for the zebra. Baboon feed involves wheeling quite heavy wheelbarrows about 800meters across sandy ground when it is unbelievably hot and there is no shade around and some of the track is uphill! I most certainly questioned my health when I felt I was dying inside along with non-stop panting after dumping the contents of the wheelbarrow. I really need to exercise more…

When you go into this clearing, the zebra all move away to let you put the food down and wait for you to leave so they can start eating it. There was about 12 zebra, standing with 10 feet of me and they are so amazing to look at. I have to try remember to bring my camera out to take a picture of them if I get baboon feed again! It was just another reminder that I was in Africa.

< And here is a picture I got to take! :D

Like I said in the last post, a baby baboon was rescued! He has been named Claas (Africanish for Claus) and is the cutest, weirdest thing ever!! This is a picture of him here. I think he looks like a little old man, I was reminded of Benjamin Button looking at him. We were told by the people that found him that his mother was killed by a leopard but anything could have happened really. People often tell fibs at times like this to cover up the fact that they may have shot the mother and couldn’t kill the baby or ran over her or something. This is the youngest orphan baboon anyone has seen on the farm for a lot of people; he’s only between 2 and 3 weeks old. Monkeys this young get fed baby formula as it’s much better for them than cow’s milk and gets them all their nutrition.

The hot water supply for the volunteer house broke on Wednesday so if we didn’t want a cold shower, we were given the option to shower at Sue’s house (all building I mention are on the farm) in her outdoor shower. So of course, I did! In broad daylight, I showered outside with nothing but a bamboo fence between me and everyone one the farm. I felt so at one with nature! :P

Wednesday is now bonfire night!! :D We collected loads of firewood during the day so we brought this to the bonfire for 7. Sue was selling hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows and Amarula, a drink that tastes just like baileys and tastes so good in hot chocolate! I decided to go for a swim in the pool despite the fact that it was pitch black and pretty cold. Some people thought this was a crazy idea but I really had to enforce how cold Ireland is and how we never have warm water outdoors. I jumped in and it actually wasn’t that cold, especially compared to the likes of Mullinavat waterfall or any beach in Ireland. And of course afterwards I could dry off by the fire so it wasn’t too bad at all at all. Swimming under the southern hemisphere stars was also a bonus. They’re so bright!

I also found out I have been pronouncing ‘Bambelela’ wrong and am also having much difficulty pronouncing other names and places much to everyone else’s amusement :/ I pronounced it Bam-beel-eela before, but it’s actually pronounced Bam-bell-ella. Everyone has a great laugh when I say it wrong!

A lot more has happened since Wednesday, that was a week ago...

Right so, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday I'll try summarize for you really quick! Scouts from Johannesburg came on Saturday to help build a new cage (they get sponsored with free cement!). They were staying the night so it was decided we'd have another bonfire and it just so happened myself and Emily decided to have a wine night seeing as she was leaving on Monday. We ended up buying lots of wine and getting very drunk. I played guitar of course and shattered everyone's eardrums with a rendition of What's Up by The Four Non Blondes at the top of my lungs. Total embarrassing flashback to wake up to this next morning! I chatted to the scouts though and they're all so cool, pity they were only staying one night. :(

Sunday is genuinely a chilled day; we still have to clean cages, do the feedings, do tasks, any chores and shifts we're assigned, we just don't have to do project work! There was also the option to go to a crocodile farm on Sunday but I decided not too as it would only depress me seeing 22,000 crocodiles crammed into an open enclosure that are all going to be killed and eaten. So I worked instead!

Aaaaand Monday...basically I was attacked by monkeys today for no particular reason. About 5 young monkeys jumping on me and trying to KILL...ok...harm me. I will most likely take pictures of the damage they did and show you, but it's dark so I'll refrain for now! I'm not angry with them really, they're wild animals after all, I just hope in the next 3 weeks they can accept me as one of their own :O

Apart that, everything has been awesome so far. The people I'm working with are great too, it breaks my heart that I've already had to say goodbye to some people (I MISS YOU EMILY!) and I'll have to say goodbye to so many people this weekend :(

That's all for now, my laptop is gonna die! :O

Love love love

Ceara

Here is an South African sunset for you! ^_^

Thursday, 15 August 2013

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