Tuesday 11th June was my first real day and it started of by my head being jumped on by 2 baby baboons at 3am due to Koos needing a bottle and wanting to be loud about it so Knoppy woke up too. They then woke up properly at around 6 so luckily I had had enough sleep. After breakfast we had an induction meeting where you are told all about the sanctuary, what animals are there, what they are trying to achieve which somehow lasted for 2 hours and I still don't think I know half of what was said even after being there 3 weeks!
After the induction we helped clean out a warehouse and then had the delightful job of finishing off cleaning the duck pond! Whilst we waited to have lunch we got to play with the merecat and mongooses. After a lovely lunch of chicken burgers and i quick cuddle with a baby baboon we took the mongooses, merecat and warthogs on a walk. Well its more that they go and explore and forage and you get to watch them which is a really nice experience. They are hoping that eventually the warthogs-bacon, choppy and porky, will self release as there are many warthogs present in the park where N/a 'an ku se is. Polo the merecat may end up being like Molly, a merecat that is wild but still lives on the sanctuary. Polo was a survivor when all his brother and sisters were killed. Poor little thing.
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| Foraging warthogs |
Once we returned from the walk we had a talk about Neuras, the place where I spent my remaining 2 weeks about the work that they do there, the accommodation and things like that. I think experienced my first slightly warm shower. The showers are powered by solar panels and so once the hot water is used up, its gone.
Food Prep
Food prep is the worse job to get done whilst you're at the sanctuary as you have to go through the left over waste food from the bins and separate it out for the animals (very smelly) and then having to mush all the millipat for the baboons but you do get to do some pretty amazing things like go in and feed Samira the 15 year old Cheetah who is 99.9% tame and purs ever so loudly when ever she sees people! Seeing Samira was such an amazing experience as being that close to your favourite animal never feels real, more like you're watching someone else. You can also go in with the 3 cheetah cubs even though they are not tame. Then there is Charlie the orphaned sheep.
After food prep in the morning we took the baby baboons out for a walk before lunch so that they got to play on the tree and then after lunch we took both the baby baboons and the toddlers out to the tree, because the toddlers are bigger and are higher ranking the babies are often a little wary of climbing the tree when many of them are there. Hence the reason they get to go twice. The babies need to learn who the toddlers are though as eventually they will join there group and will be at the bottom of the social ladder. Learning that they are at the bottom from an early age is good for them in social respects too. Once the baboons were all happily back in there enclosure we did evening food prep.
That evening was the first time i got to go inside with Samira in which there are some strict rules!
- Never turn your back on a cheetah!
- Never go below eye level of a cheetah!
- Never walk away from a cheetah!
- Never leave the group when in the enclosure with a cheetah.
In the evening we were given our baby baboon induction where we were showed how to bathe them, change their nappies. I then got given Koos for the night. Harriet and Mowenna were at the watch tower that night too so i spend tea with a baboon in my jacket. I gave him his bottle at 7 and went to bed with him at 8. During the night he was an angel really bar putting his arms and legs in my arm pits. I gave him his bottle in the night at 3am. He then continued to kiss and suck my nose even though he had eaten. He finally got up at 7 and was good until Sheila got in a fight with him. Definitely an amazing experience to have with such cute animals, well cute when they are little!!
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