Thanks for the Donations!!

The donations that collected at Aristeia were fantastic. We (well, mostly you guys who donated) collected $1,000 which amounts to R7,000 which is a huge donation. With that money we are able to Tetavax two whole troops, one male in a one-one, and have some cash left over for darts or to go to the babies' Build-A-Hok Fund. I chose one troop from Section 1, because my friend Leigh-Ann monitored them and I helped her take photos of all of those baboons. I chose Buster troop which has 10 individuals, who are apparently difficult to dart, so that should be fun for Stephen to tackle. I also chose a troop from Section 3 that my friend Mandy monitored. Section 3 houses the baboons that have been there the longest and are least likely to be released back into the wild, which is why it is important for them to get immunized against tetanus. Mandy and I chose Chewie Hok because those baboons are nice baboons. I don't have much information on them because all of them don't even have names, although there are 7 baboons total. I also chose one of their male one-ones (separated from Chewie troop in his own cage), Blue's Dad. Blue's Dad is the father of Blue, Stephen's very first baby that he hand raised, so that is really special. Stephen was particularly excited about that. Everyone at care was so happy to be able to Tetavax two whole troops. Samantha, who runs some fund-raising and the Facebook page, even got teary-eyed. I just want to thank everyone who donated!!!
BUSTER TROOP:




Buster






Carlo






Carlotta





Danni and Devereaux






Chuck






Dakota






Trilly







Friendly







Roy






Thank you all so much on behalf of everyone from CARE!!

Harnas and Windhoek

Harnas is another animal rehabilitation center. It takes in all kinds of animals though- baboons, lions, cheetahs, leopards, kudus, etc. Dan had worked there a few years ago before coming to CARE, so he was able to tell us about the place and show us around. We saw a baboon he helped raise. Unfortunately the two people who run the place and know him well were on vacation that weekend, so we didn't receive as much behind the scenes special treatment as we were hoping. I heard they had some baby leopards rehabilitation in their center that I was hoping to meet, but oh well. It is an incredibly nice facility with huge animal enclosures and guest houses, the whole nine yards. Brad and Angelina have even stayed there! No joke. Then they donated a bunch of money to Harnas. It was nice to start our trip with animals and then end our trip with animals. It was also great to see some baboons before I left Africa. We took the morning tour, during which they feed the lions, cheetahs, leopards, wild dogs, and baboons. We also got a tour of the school and the other grounds. We woke up and went to sleep to the sounds of lions roaring, which you can feel in your bones. We ended our trip with a nice meal together, all wearing plaid. My last night at CARE was also a plaid party, where everyone was required to wear plaid. Adam, Dan, Mandy, and I all looked so nice in our plaid shirts. Harnas was a great way to get back to our animal rehab roots for our last day together. The next morning it was up before the sun again to pack up our car and head for the airport!





Wild Dogs waiting to be fed, at Harnas










Adam flew home to the states yesterday as Dan and Mandy flew back to CARE for a few more weeks. I'm now hanging out in Windhoek by myself for a couple of days before my flights back home. I returned all of our rented camping gear, got some necessary permits, and have found a Mugg and Bean, a restaurant/cafe that I came to know and love when I studied in Durban. Luckily, they now have free wi-fi. This afternoon I also did some last minute shopping (although, I'm not sure where I'm going to pack it!). Tonight I plan on going to Joe's Beerhouse, which is a famous funky restaurant here that has crazy dishes of game meat. My traveling companions really wanted to go there but we just didn't have the time, so I am going to go on behalf of all of us. And I have to pack up all my stuff again, which should be interesting to be sure.

I had an UNBELIEVABLE time here in South Africa and Namibia. This was a crazy trip of a lifetime and I couldn't have done it with better people. Now I'm gearing up for my long trip home (Windhoek-Jo'burg-London-Chicago-LAX, yikes!) and looking forward to some much needed Chinese food!!

Sossusvlei Sand Dunes

On our drive down to Sossusvlei, which is desert with huge sand dunes that you can't miss when coming to Namibia. Anywhere you look at pictures of Namibia, you'll see those red dunes. We stopped at Dune 7 outside of Walvis Bay and struggled to the top, where we got some excellent views of surrounding dunes. The real treat was running and jumping and rolling on the way down. Sand gets everywhere! We had a nice scenic drive through the Nauklift mountains to our campsite, where we enjoyed a fire and utter emptiness. We stayed outside the town of Solitaire, which is the smallest town in Namibia, which is really saying something. It basically consisted of a small restaurant and shop and a petrol station. It was early to bed that night because we awoke at 430 am to pack up camp and drive to the dunes for sunrise.

The Sesrium/Sossusvlei park opens its gates at sunrise, which was 6:30 am. The dunes were incredible. The morning light hits them just right so that they look a gorgeous orange/red color. We stopped to take plenty of pictures of the landscape and of the game they had, which I was unaware of beforehand. They had lots of springbok and gemsbok and jackles. Visitors are allowed to climb one dune, Dune 45. We were the first people up that dune in the morning. It was hard going up, but the view of the surrounding dunes and mountains was breathtaking. One magazine said it would "spiritually recharge your soul for years to come". Again we spent time taking photos and enjoying the scenery. We began our descent the same way we came up, but veered off onto the backside a little ways from the bottom. Again, it was so fun running and jumping down a dune. That is, it was fun until I started going a little too fast and the tip of my boot caught on some sand and I face planted at the bottom of the dune. Dan lost it laughing as Adam rushed to make sure I was okay. I hurt nothing but my dignity. But my camera was okay! I cradled that thing and it was the only thing I was worried about hitting the ground. Luckily I only escaped with a bruise or two and a load of embarassment. Someone always has to fall though, right?

We fussed around the dunes for a little while longer, but then hit the road again because we had a long drive basically across the country to Harnas Wildlife Foundation. However, the road we took out of Sossusvlei proved a little too tricky for our low-clearance Nissan sedan. It was a gravel/dirt road through the mountains. At first it was great; beautiful mountain passes and even (a serious highlight!) wild Mountain Zebras. These hare different from the more numerous and popular Burchell's Zebra, they have thinner stripes and their stripes go all the way down their legs. I never thought we would actually see some, but there they were on the road. And boy did they run when we came around the corner. The zebras in Etosha do not move for cars, so it was neat to see these wild ones. Soon though, there were some small river crossing. And then more, slightly larger river crossings. There were numerous times where we all thought our car was stuck in the water and wouldn't be able to cross. Dan fantastically maneuvered every one of them as we all held our breathe, literally. Seriously, it was one of the stickiest situations any of us had gotten into. We would probably still be on that road if we had gotten stuck. But our little Nissan pulled us through. We reached Harnas late at night after another fog and dust filled dirt road leading up to the gates. A long treacherous, but beautiful day on the road.

Swakopmund

We left Etosha National Park and headed to the desert and coast of Swakopmund, originally a German colony town. We spent a whole day doing nothing; walking around town, hanging out at a cafe, shopping, going to the movies. It was incredible. None of us have done that in months. Dan and Mandy hadn't seen a movie in a year, since they got to CARE. It was incredible to just hang out and have a normal day. We ate some good seafood, watched the sun set over the Atlantic and got our feet sandy. We also saw the movie Water For Elephants, which was NOT as good as the book. Reese Witherspoon barely tried in the movie. Big letdown, but going to a movie theater was priceless.

The next morning, Adam and I did something I've been aching to do for years...Skydiving!! We went to the Swakopmund Skydiving Club where we met Pip, our dive buddy. I went first, suited up in an awesome suit, got a quick 15 minute rundown of what was going to happen (yes, only about 15 minutes-T.I.A.), and went to the word's tiniest plane. This plane didn't have seats, just the pilot and a cushy mat on the floor that maximum 4 people could cramply fit it. Oh, and no door. We took a scenic 20 minute flight up to 10,000 feet. We flew over sand dunes that edge right up to the ocean. It was a tad chilly, but actually really really cool. I was also calmer than I thought I would be, probably because there was no turning back now. I watched Pip's altimeter climb to 10,000 feet. We maneuvered our feet out of the door like we had practiced, clipped together of course, and out we went. It was terrifying! The air was sucked out of my lungs for a dizzying 30 seconds of free fall. One of the coolest feelings ever. The view was incredible of the distant desert and the coastline. Then Pip pulled the parachute and we floated towards the ground. He pulled us in crazy circles, which almost made me lose my breakfast. We landed very easily, and it was all over. I thought I was going to pass out from all the excitement, but a beer at 9:15 am helped calm me down. Then it was Adam's turn to jump. We both received videos of our jumps and certificates. Then it was back to our campsite to meet back up with Mandy and Dan.

That afternoon we went to the Cape Cross Seal Reserve, which hosts the largest seal colony in the world. And boy, did it smell like it. There were thousands and thousands of seals. We only stayed and took pictures for about half an hour before we all wanted vomit. And boy do seals make a lot of weird noises. It was really interesting to see seals on the coast so close to a desert. We enjoyed a delightful sunset dinner at The Tug, a tug boat converted into a restaurant.

Our final morning found us having a quiet breakfast at a super quaint little cafe in town, and doing some last minute shopping, where Adam and I made some large, insane purchases, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for my parents. We drove on down to Walvis Bay and saw a few flocks of wild Greater Flamingos, on our way down to our next stop, Sossusvlei. On our way down though, we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, the sign for which made for some fun pictures. All in all, a nice relaxing, adrenaline pumping few days in Swakop.

Etosha National Park

Our next three nights and 4 days were spent in Etosha National Park. Etosha is voted one of the top 5 parks in all of Africa. Most of the park is made up of the Etosha Pan, a humongous salt flat, that when dry in the wintertime, animals must seek water at one of the many water holes around the park. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The weather was perfect, we had our own vehicle to drive around in, and there were animals a plenty. Within our first our, on our way to our campsite, we found a couple of lions. Every morning, save one, we found lions. One morning it was just us for about half an hour watching these lions, until a truck pulled up with a family of seven. The kids climbed out of their truck and sat on the roof of the truck's cab. As the lions came closer and closer to our vehicles we could see that the lions were eying those little kids as something tasty. They kept looking at them intensely and crouching down. Then all of a sudden, they started towards our car. There was a moment where I could have touched the male lions' head out of my window. There was also a moment when we realized that they differentiated between the car and us as a whole, and us as people separate from the car. At that point, Dan told us to roll up our windows slowly. Naturally, I rolled mine up slowly! Afterward, Dan said it was a little too slowly and there was a moment when he thought the lion was ready to reach in and eat me. But man, do I have cool photos! These two brother lions ended up walking right past and rubbing themselves on our back bumper, which was entirely too cool because that is not an aggressive act, it is more of them saying 'hey, you guys are okay'. Turns out we were the ones almost eaten and not the nice children farther away. We actually stopped them later and asked them to send us their photos and video of the lions by our car. Our adrenaline was pumping so hard after that.

We continued to see amazing animals, including the very, very rare ardwolf. Their mostly nocturnal and we caught on just before sunset. We saw rhino, elephants, springboks, oryx/gemsboks (my favorite), black-faced impala, gazillions of zebra, the rare damara dik-dik, giraffes, wildebeests, and much much more. Our campsite had a flood-lit watering hole where we watched the rare and super endangered black rhino drink every night. We also were lucky enough to see a leopard drinking there. It was so stealthy most people didn't even notice it there. We saw some gemsboks fighting, which was my highlight I think. Our car was dangerously charged by a big bull elephant. We were hurrying back to our campsite before sunset when the gates closed and this elephant would not get out of the road. He was just making us reverse and reverse. Thankfully a park game vehicle came and chased him off the road allowing us to pass. If they didn't show up, we had no idea what to do other than hope the ellie would move off the road soon.

We also saw a honey badger at our campsite. Honey badgers are also incredibly rare and incredibly dangerous. They are about the size of a large skunk or racoon, and black with a white stripe down its back. They are aggressive and vicious enough to take down lions. Nothing messes with honey badgers. One night while eating dinner, Adam and I saw it walking right behind Mandy, probably less than 5 feet away. Dan immediately told us to get up and slowly walk backwards away from it. The boys then watched it carefully and tried to chase it away, cautiously, with rocks. It went under our car and then scampered off into the bush. That was by far our closest call with the wildlife, more so or on par with the lion.





Mom and baby Black Rhino coming to the Halali waterhole at night.








Also, due to some mis-communication, we only paid for two of our four nights camping! We were also 'allowed' to sit out of our windows (and kids allowed on the roof of their trucks in front of lions). There seemed to be no rules in Etosha, which was kind of fun.

Etosha was an incredible part of our trip, and it was only the beginning.

NAMIBIA!!

I got it in my head to go to Namibia about one year ago. I have no idea why, but I went to Borders and bought a guide book and read it cover to cover. I didn't even have plans to come back to South Africa yet, but I was interested in Namibia, a country most people have never even heard of. Then I tried to convince anyone and everyone to meet me down here when I was done at CARE, but no one could. I hoped beyond hope, these things never work out!, that someone at CARE would want to come with me. One day I had mentioned it to my friend Adam, and he immediately was in, and then wheels started turning. A few weeks later our good friends Dan and Mandy, on a complete whim, decided they were coming too. Plans were made and come June 1st, I said goodbye to the baboons and off we were going to Namibia. Adam, Dan, and Mandy were my three best friends at CARE. We would always sit together during mealtimes and laughed more than anyone else there. I had met Dan on my last trip to CARE, but Adam and Mandy are new friends. Adam is super sweet and funny, Mandy is crazy hilarious, and Dan is awesome and super knowledgeable about the bush (helpful when we got to Etosha). We knew we were in for a great trip.

Dan and Mandy left CARE early in the morning on the bus to Johannesburg, while Adam and I took the afternoon flight. We met up in the Jo'burg airport, then split again to take different flights to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Namibia, which is twice the size of California, has only around 2 million people living in it. It's a safe country and great for road trips.

Goodbye CARE

My last few days with the baboons were fantastic. I spent as much time in the baby hok as possible. The last day was rough though. I spent about 4 straight hours in the hok before I had to leave. I said goodbye to all the baboons one by one, chasing them down if I had to. Last, but certainly not least, I said goodbye to Toughie. I took him into the airlock, the buffer zone between the hok and the outside world, and gave him big hugs. I tried to put him back in the hok but he whined and jumped back onto me. It took a few more tries for him to let me leave. It's hard to explain, but it was the sweetest thing ever and almost made me never leave. By the time I finally left to go to the airport, I practically had tears in my eyes. Saying goodbye to the people was difficult too, but at least you can stay in touch with them. I don't think Toughie or the other babies are on facebook. It was an absolutely awesome three months with better baboons and people than I could have imagined.
Then it was off to the airport!

Actually, some sad news. I found out that during my trip in Namibia, Chiquita passed away. The day before I left, she had a relapse where something in her brain just wasn't working right. She couldn't walk or eat and just did not look okay. A few days after that she passed away. I'm still not sure on the details, but she must have had some major head trauma. Chiquita was taken from her wild mother because we noticed something wasn't right with her one day. We thought it was tetanus, but it turned out to be a fractured skull. Molly nursed her back to health spectacularly, but sometimes it's just not enough. Poor Chiquita.

Last Week at CARE

This marks my last week here at CARE. I can't believe the end is so near already! Some updates: feedroom has gone from avocado and mango sorting to chopping cabbages, which I've become very good at as of late. It has also been nice getting to use a machete again (don't worry, my fingers stay out of the way). Actually, I did cut my finger a little in a knife yesterday while chopping food, but it's a minor flesh wound. The secret project at Bombelela was we were releasing two male baboons into the wild there. One male had been released before in a troop that then got poached. He was then captured and brought back to CARE. He did famously when we released him and a couple days later he was following one of the troops in the area closely. The second male was born here at CARE and has never seen anything beyond his enclosure here. It was exciting to set him free. He was a little more confused when we let him out, but he seemed okay.

Yesterday, a baby baboon here named Amber kept running by and pulling my hair, so after about the tenth time I decided to discipline her by scruffing her. She then went bananas and when I went to bite her hand (not hard, just to show dominance) she clamped down on my index finger and would not let go. She is a super strong baboon and it hurt. It hurt a lot. She kept screaming for about half an hour.

Today, Adam and I and Danny went to a reptile park which was pretty cool. In the way there and back we saw a bunch of elephants and a giraffe on our road. We actually almost drove right into an elephant. We were supposed to go pet a hippo as well, but she had other plans and was spending the day downriver.

It's my last week as I said and I am starting to get a little sad about leaving Toughie. We've been spending a lot of time cuddling. When I returned from the Bombelela trip the first morning he was sooooo excited to see me he screamed and screamed which normally he doesn't do with me. He spent the next few days being clingy. On the flip side, I am getting SO excited about my trip to Namibia. A girl here just told me there is a no fly on skydiving in the whole country though. Hopefully that ban will be lifted in the next two weeks. It's going to be an incredible two weeks in Namibia with awesome scenery and good people. Adam, Dan, Mandy, and I cannot stop talking about it. It's making leaving here a bit easier not to dwell on. One week here, two weeks in Namibia, then home!

Donations

People have expressed an interest in donating to CARE, which would help these baboons an enormous amount. The website and ways of donating are being updated, but for now, one way to donate to this cause is to go to the website www.primatecare.org and go to the donations page. They use Setcom which requires a few steps to go through in order to donate. There should be a little comments box where you can write my name and where the money should go to (i.e. tetanus) if you would like to. Plan B might be a little easier. Since many of you reading my blog are friends of Aristeia Needlepoint, an easy way to donate would be to write me a check, hand it to my mother, Wendy, or Virginia who have an envelope ready to receive donations. These will be deposited in my account and I will be able to pay CARE in cash. This way they get the money as soon as possible and I can tell them directly who gave the money and where it should go (i.e. tetanus for a baboon or troop, of to anything in general if you just want to donate anything). I will also be able to get specific baboon info for you. Don't worry, I won't spend the money myself, I promise it will go directly to the baboons. Feel free to contact me or Wendy (who is on vacation until the 22nd of May, but will then deposit all the donations and then I will take give it to CARE) if you have any questions or would like to donate!!

These little guys can't thank you enough for any help.

Tromperton

Photos!

Wild Baboons

Fun story I forgot to write about--

About a week ago, I was walking up the hill back to our house when two big male baboons came bursting around the corner mid-fight. Their teeth were bared and their hair was all on end and they were running. Right in my path. Or rather, I was right in their path. I quickly tried to jump out of the way lest they run me right over, but one male was faster than I was. He grabbed my t-shirt and yanked me to the ground. He ran off as some of the workers shouted after him. Male baboons when fighting will grab females or lower ranked individuals to show their dominance. That individual was me. Fortunately, it was just an accident and all I was left with were a few scrapes and bruises (from the rocks on the ground, not the baboon) and an adrenaline rush. It was a tad scary, but makes for a fine story!

Thor Part II

Thor has been doing really great. We slept together perfectly. He slept practically the whole night! He snuggled right under my chin most of the night or his head right on my shoulder. He's been eating well (he loves bread) and is starting to drink milk from a bottle, and he doesn't even mind when I put a diaper on him. He's even been playing with some of the vervet monkeys here. Thor is doing great. Our other top secret project here at Bombelela went great as well, and we'll probably leave here tomorrow. Not much else to say on that matter. I'm just hanging out with Thor for the afternoon and night, while Dan and Danny continue the other project.

Thor just spent 2 hours playing with the baby vervets and loved it very much. He also really likes to eat bread and pomegranates. Now we're dirty and tired!

Thor

Yesterday I left CARE with Dan and Danny and set out for Bombelela, a nearby vervet monkey sanctuary. I"m actually not aloud to discuss why we are here (for legal reasons), but don't worry it's nothing dangerous. We left at 3:30 am to drive the 6 hours out here yesterday They have really nice facilities here, complete with Wi-Fi!! It's been a delight, but a little crazy to actually type an email on my computer. We've spent the past couple of days monitoring some baboons in the bush, which has been awesome. I've taken some really nice bush naps, just finding a comfortable rock in the sun. Yes, I'm serious.

Today, however, we went to pick up a baby baboon from a friend of CARE's in Johannesburg. I'm not sure what his complete backstory is, but he is 10 weeks old and his name is Thor. Right now he is sitting on my chest eating grapes. This will be my first night sleeping with a baby baboon, and I'm a little nervous about it. But he seems well behaved for now, but not quite sleepy since he took a long nap in the car. It's been a long two days of getting up early and tonight is going to long as well. But hey, this is life in the bush with baboons. Thor is insanely cute, and looks like he'll grow up to be a big boy. He'll only sleep with me for the few nights we are at Bombelela, and will likely go to Elin (another long term volunteer here who is here for another 6 months and who has already raised two babies) when we return to CARE. He'll be in good hands. I'm not staying long enough from now to become his full-time surrogate mom unfortunately, and I'm sure much to my mother's disappointment. He's still eating the grapes, well the stem now, on my stomach (making this hard to type around him) and I should probably try to get some sleep, although Thor seems wide awake. Wish me luck!

In other news, another young baboon came into the clinic last week with tetanus. He didn't have a name and I just happened to be there when he came in, so I named him Aeneas! Highlight of my week. Then I recounted the whole story of the Aeneid to everyone at dinner. (Wikipedia Aeneas if you don't know who he is). I've had a long Latin/Classics relationship with Aeneas and now I think it makes an awesome baboon name. A strong name like Aeneas will help him pull through the tetanus.

So now I've got Toughie, Aeneas, and Thor to think about. I must end this here so Thor doesn't keep pressing random keys with his sticky grape fingers.

Waffle

Probably the cutest picture ever. This pink face is a wild baboon, about 3 weeks old.

Origin Stories

Here are some origin stories of some of the babies we sit with...

Toughie: was found on the Botswana border clinging to his mother who had been hit by a car.
(Side note: He is my favorite baboon and has become like a friend-which may sound odd. He has a really funny pale face and a really yellow coat. He was actually be really cute for like two days, where every time I would try and take him off of me while he was cuddling he would scream bloody murder and cling on even harder. He would also make a 'moo'ing noise that babies do when their mothers leave. It was too sweet. I spent a lot of extra time in the hok those days. Then while putting him in his cage at night he did the same thing, then would go into the cage and flatten himself on the ground flailing. He would turn his head away from me and refuse to look at me all the while carrying him inside. It was insanely cute! I'm going to try and buy him a seat on my plane home.)



Miles: was born 6 weeks premature from Nthethe hok here. He would have died in the troop without the extra care.








Colby: His mom was shot and he was found covered in blood by some farmers. He was taken to another wildlife sanctuary, Enkosini, then brought to CARE.

(C'mon, how cute is this picture / baboon?)




Jappie: ("Yappy") His mom was burned alive while he was still holding onto her.




Eli: Eli was confiscated at the border while trying to be smuggled from Botswana into South Africa.





Blake: He was going to be used for mootie, a south African witch doctor brew, then was with a white family as pet for a few months until a friend of CARE heard about him and brought him here.






Remy: Poor Remington was kept under a bucket for a few days, being held for money or to be killed or made into mootie. When a CARE employee went to fetch her, the farmer wanted money for her, but Danny refused to pay for a baboon and kicked off the bucket and took her anyways.




Grace: Dogs were set upon Grace's family. She was clinging to mother as she was killed by the dogs, and lost two toes herself.

Elton: He was kept as a pet for six months, but was kept with dogs in a cage. Elton was fed dog food and was therefore malnourished. He ate like a dog and didn't know how to use hands (he does now).

Alena: From a troop here. Her mom was the alpha female, but when she had Alena she dropped in rank and took her aggression out on Alena, so she was removed from that troop.


(photos will come to go with the names)

May Already??

The past two weeks have been dominated by the arrival of a friend from the last two trips I was here, Zurika. Zurika is crazy, but the good kind of crazy; loud, fun, foolish crazy. It was such a nice change of pace having someone that lively around. We enjoyed a couple of girls' nights over at the lodge next door where one of our other friends from years past, Elena, is living. We ate good food and laughed and looked up at the stars. We had a fun tequila and dancing night. She was helping to take care of Chiquita so we were hoping she could stay longer, but she had to return to Pretoria.

I can't believe it's already May! Where did April go?? Two girls who have been here a month are leaving this week. Both of them are my roommates, so it'll be just me and the rats in my big room again. I'm going to try to really take advantage of my last month here. I want to take at least one day trip, continue taking tons of pictures (I've taken some really good one of the wild and captive baboons so far if I do say so myself), and anything else that comes my way. We are having a Cinco de Mayo party tomorrow called Cinco de 'Braai'o. A braai is a south African barbecue, and we haven't had one the whole time I've been here. We'll have a big fire and lots of meat- should be an excellent time!


*I will ask Stephen and Dan (my bosses) on donation info, because my mom has told me that a few people expressed interest in helping out CARE, which is awesome. I'll post some of that info soon!

Namibia update

I have good news in my plans to go to Namibia for two weeks; I now have three of my friends coming! Our friends Dan and Mandy both decided they should just join Adam and I on our road trip through the desert. The four of us get along really well and we all can hardly contain our excitement. We made a rule that whenever anyone mentions Namibia we have to do a goofy little dance. We have nearly everything booked for our trip. We will be going to the capital, Windhoek, then up to Etosha National Park, which is supposed to be one of the best game viewing parks in southern Africa, then to Swakopmund on the coast where there is a beach, huge seal lion colonies, and a lot of adventure activities, including sand dune boarding and skydiving. Then we'll be heading to Sossusvlei, which are the really big and picturesque sand dunes. Then it's back to Windhoek for a couple days as the four of us will part ways. I'm incredibly excited this is all working out so well because I have been wanting to go to this country for months now. Although I'm trying not to think about how sad I will be to leave the baboons. Soooooo excited!!

Chiquita and Buddy

We've received two new young baboons here recently. Yesterday a vervet sanctuary nearby dripped off Buddy, a two year old Cape baboon that was being held as a pet in a township under not so nice conditions. He's a bit bigger than our babies here who are all under a year old, but he is playing with them quite well for now. He'll probably be moving into an older troop soon. He seems very interested in all the older baboons around.

Chiquita was a wild baboon who they thought showed signs of tetanus. They took her away from her mother, Cheeky, to be sure. She didn't have tetanus but they think she may have fractured her skull and had some head trauma. She acted very strange and disoriented for about 10 days. We tried to see if her mother would take her back into the wild, but Cheeky wanted nothing to do with Chiquita anymore, very sadly. For now Chiquita is trying to get acquainted with a couple volunteers and a couple babies until she is ready to go into the baby hok full time. She would most likely be dead by now if she was left in the wild.

Recent Bush Life

Last week there was a small herd of elephants just across the river from CARE. I was sitting in the baby hok and all of a sudden we could hear elephants trumpeting so loudly. They just kept trumpeting and trumpeting. It was an incredible noise. Apparently they were angry at a group of giraffes nearby. The babies were quite scared of the noise (and Alena was kind enough to show that by pooping all over my lap), so that wasn't so nice, but the noise they made was too cool. It was a neat 'life in the bush' moment. There have also been elephants very close by ever since. A couple girls saw one while running up the road. And this morning the sign at the entrance to CARE is knocked down. In the middle of the night last night lions could be heard not too far away as well.

Tetanus

We've recently had two baboon deaths as the result of tetanus, so I decided to write a bit about it here.

Tetanus is caused by the anaerobic bacteria Clostridium tetanii and it is found in the soil here, where it enters the body via a wound and proliferates upon the wound closing. The bacteria releases a toxin which attacks the muscles, causing stiffness. The victim is unable to feed himself or move at all and must be constantly under sedation to relieve muscle spasms. Tetanus is fatal unless treated with Tetavax, and usually only 40% survive after painful suffering. Each treatment of a tetanus case costs a minimum of R500, which is actually quite expensive here. I've seen this and it is incredibly sad. Tetanus is a big problem here and I would hate for a baboon I know from the babies to end up like that.

I'm making this public service announcement in case anyone would like to help! Tetavax costs R72 and each baboon needs four shots, and initial dose, a second after a month, a third after another month, and the last after a year. This protects a baboon for 10 years.

Many troops are unprotected against tetanus because due to misinformation, prior to 2007 individuals were given only one shot. Presently all babies that come into the center receive the full course of the vaccination. The large number of individuals not vaccinated and the costs to vaccinate new orphans makes it difficult without help.

CARE has a "Sponsor a Hok" scheme which gives people the chance to sponsor the Tetavax course for a troop or individual baboon. The cost of an individual (a 'one-one' separated in their own hok next to a troop) includes the price of 4 darts (R120 each) as being in a single cage, they are unlikely to be retrieved. The sponsorship of a one-one individual is R768 (just over $100). The cost of sponsoring a troop varies depending on how many baboons make up a troop and includes the cost of one dart for every 5 troop members for each round of Tetavax (ie. 4 darts for every five members), so anywhere from R2000-R8000. There are 24 troops and 78 individuals that are at risk for tetanus and still need Tetavax.

With a sponsorship you will receive a troop profile, listing the individuals with their info and stories. Please help me help the baboons!! Contact me if anyone is interested.

THANKS EVERYONE!


*$1=R6.7 south African rand.

Post Created Apr 13, 2011 4:01:45 PM

Yesterday, there were elephants right by our river; they couldn't have been more then 50 yards from us, but we watched them from a little ways up a hill. All of a sudden four of them decided to swim across the river. It was awesome. They put their whole heads under as they reached the deeper parts of the river and continued to swim to the far bank where two of them decided to aquatically copulate as the two others struggled up the bank. The elephants actually made quite a bit of noise swimming across, which I found surprising because they are so stealthy on land. A little later, Mandy, Elin, and I decided to see if any more were still around and sure enough there was one right in front of us on our side of the beach. This guy seemed to decide not to swim across. As we were sitting on our slope, we could here some rustling in the bushes nearby. We guessed that it was another elephant, but it wasn't moving much and it was still pretty quiet, and we weren't quite sure where on the slope it was in relation to us, so we continued to sit quietly watching the one at the river's edge. After a while longer we decided we had better check what the rustling might be. Sure enough there was a HUGE elephant just out of sight of where we were sitting, definitely closer than we thought, and the same height up the slope as we were. There would have been no escaping it had it decided to charge us through those bushes. But we moved so we could actually see the ele which turned out to be a tad closer, like 30 meters, and after a few minutes it looked up and flapped it's ears as a sign of anger so we quickly scurried back. We watched a few minutes longer as it walked away in the bushes. All in all it was an AWESOME two hours of elephants. Unfortunately I did not have my camera, or the energy to run and get it, during all this so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Last week I did manage to make my Apple Puff Pastries! Everyone seemed to really like them. We found an ingenious way of coring the apples quickly by using a power drill. No joke. This I do have pictures of to prove it. When in Rome...

The weather has started to cool down to the point where I have been wearing a sweatshirt most mornings and get to wear sweatpants finally to sleep in, which I am a little too excited about. We've had to de-worm the baby baboons, which means putting some stuff in their morning milk, but this makes them poop A LOT throughout the day. I know you would want to hear about that so...

I other good news, I found a friend to go to Namibia with!! For the first two weeks of June my friend Adam and I will be road tripping and camping around Namibia. It's an awesome country with German-like towns, an amazing game park, a cool coast line with lots of sea lions, and incredible sand dunes. We've been pretty excited about it. Me especially because I've been thinking about traveling there for months and months. So far we've only bought our plane tickets over there, but we're working on it. It's going to be awesome.

I also FINALLY contacted the woman who runs the orangutan sanctuary in Indonesia with whom I've been playing phone tag with for weeks, and we had a brief little interview. Seems like I've got an internship set up there starting in August. So everyone who asked me what I'm doing after this, I now have an answer! Working with orangutans in Indonesia!!

As sun sets over the bush, it's time to take in the babies to sleep so I must end this post here!

Post Created Mar 27, 2011 2:04:14 PM

Not much has been new here at CARE this past week. It was my friend Mandy's 26th birthday on Thursday. A few of us went to town and had a nice little lunch at Spur, this South African Mexican/native American themed restaurant, complete with a happy birthday song and drum by the waiters. Then we did the weekly communal and personal grocery shopping at Pick N Pay. I was able to add a few pictures to my posts in town also, hope they help! It's always fun to ride in the bed of the truck (it's perfectly safe) on the way to town keeping an eye out for any elephants (of which we saw two). Apparently last night there were hyenas making a lot of noise close to our house, but I was asleep by then. A few days ago there were a couple male elephants right down by our river. One of them broke our water pump inn the night, but we got it fixed.

Most of my mornings have been taken up with sorting mangos. We have tons and tons of mangos from local farmers, and every morning, sometimes twice a morning, I sort through the crates of mangos sorting them into hard and soft. They have to be soft/ripe enough for the baboons sink their teeth into and eat. But mangos straight from the farm are often super dirty and sticky. So sorting them can be nasty work, even more so when your crate has a family of mice living in the bottom of it. It's always demoralizing when you get a crate with only like two soft ones in it. Sounds fun doesn't it??

The rest of my days have been spent in with the babies, who are growing rapidly, and reading in my spare time. I've taken to re-reading the entire Harry Potter series and am currently on number five. Books 1-6 are here and we've desperately asked the next volunteer coming to bring the 7th (and best) one. It's still ridiculously hot here, although right now it's cloudy and there's a nice breeze, so that I've been working on my tan. Sometime this week I plan on making my well-received Apple Puff Pastry desert here. It's going to be hard work without my handy tools, like a peeler and corer, but I'll manage. Yesterday Danny found a black mamba snake (the deadliest in the world) hanging around near his room. He and Stephen quickly found a gun and shot it dead. Danny took us to see it afterwards and man was this thing big. It was about 6 and a half feet long! It was a nice grey-ish color, but with a jet black mouth (the name comes from when it opens it's mouth and you can just see black when it comes at you). I don't mind snakes, but I never NEVER want to run across one of them alive. A bite from a black mamba will have you paralyzed in about 15 minutes and dead shortly thereafter. They also have this crazy ability to rise up or jump a few feet into the air.

Also this week, Danny taught a couple of us some tracking techniques. He showed us different spoor (tracks) in the sand down the beach. He showed us how to tell which direction they were going and how to use your basic common sense when tracking. He also showed us what plants we could eat and a plant to make a needle and thread with, and how to make a simple animal trap that many poachers in the area use. Then later that evening Danny set up a trail for us to follow, complete with his tracks and fake blood. It's does involve just a lot of common sense and keen eyesight. Pretty interesting stuff.

That's all I've got for now. I'll come up with something more interesting to write soon!

Kruger National Park

Tuesday and Wednesday Adam, Danny, and I went to the Kruger National Park. It's humongous, something like 200,000 hectares or something, with roads only accessing 10% of the land. Just imagine all the cool stuff that is probably happening all the time in that other 90% of bush that no one knows about!! We left CARE at 4:15am and set off to the Orpen gate entrance. For two days we went on game drives for hours. The landscape was amaaaaaazing. It was low flatlands with some bushes and trees for miles, very classic Africa, exactly what you would picture. Most of our time was spent looking for cats (lions, leopards, or cheetahs) but to no avail. It was sorely disappointing, but I guess I'll just have to go back! Danny knows an incredible amount of information on everything in the park, all about the animals and birds, plants, soil, tracks and scat, etc. He's a true bushman.

We didn't see any cats, but we saw tons of impala, zebra, buffalo, giraffe, elephants (huge herds of them), wildebeest, kory busters (birds), eagles and hawks galore, vultures, and a whole bunch of other birds. My favorite I think were the hyenas. We spent the night at a campsite and at night the hyenas came right up to the fence when they smelled the cooking food. Adam and I got right up in their faces to take some pictures. I got a pretty good one with it's mouth open so it looks like it's cackling (it was yawning). Fun fact about hyenas- they are actually a part of the cat family. That night we cooked up a braai (barbecue) and had some great meat. Adam and I wanted to try something exotic so we, don't judge me too much, had some giraffe steaks. The meat was actually pretty good, a little tough and it had a sort of fishy aftertaste. I did feel a little bad eating it though, especially when there were a bunch of giraffes outside our campsite in the morning.

The second morning was also awesome as we came to this open grassland and saw another hyena (rare in the daytime, we thought there must be a kill nearby, but couldn't see it) just walking around near two kory busters (huge rare birds). A little ways away there were buffalo and zebra and wildebeest and elephant herds. It was again just like you think Africa looks like. It was super neat to see all the animals in one space. We spent most of the second day looking for those damn cats and wild dogs, but were unlucky. Next time.

I was sad to leave the bush actually. I could do that every day. Danny agrees and says not to tempt him by talking about it too much. I'm definitely going to plan another two day trip in a month or two. Today is St. Patricks Day, so naturally we are throwing a little party. Everyone is wearing green and we got some supplies to play classic American drinking games that we all miss so much. it should be a good time. It's nice to have little things like parties or nights out or games to break up the monotony of the days here with the baboons (who are still doing well). I can't believe I've been here over 2 weeks already. Time is flying, even though I feel like I've been here forever. That's about it for now! I've gotta get to my next baby shift...

Baboons at Last!

I've officially been at CARE now for 10 days (is that all?) and it's been wonderful. And hot hot hot. Today is supposed to get up into the high 90s. All the people here are super cool also. There's about 15 of us here now, all but 1 are returning volunteers and are here for a long stay of months and months. I've even met a few before so it's been nice catching up. In the past, I've come in the summertime (northern hemisphere summer) when schools are on break and there are about 20-25 people here and most are only for one month. So this is a nice change of pace because these people will be around for my whole stay. But enough about the people...

Baboons at last! It's been delightful getting back to being with crazy monkeys and crazy monkey people. Two to three times a day we sit in with the babies in 1 hour shifts, two people per shift. There are 18 little guys and gals running around. We are there to make sure they're behaving basically. We pull them apart if they're fighting, scold the naughty ones, and comfort the victims. We also provide more jungle gym equipment and a nice lap on which to take a nap (and more often than not, pee during it). Suffice it to say that we are veeery dirty (and rather smelly) most of the time, but we only complain until it all dries. I've learned all of the baboons' names now and am starting to work out their personalities. Babies' names: Elton, Becks, Tromperton, Blake, Miles, Colby, Toughie (a personal favorite already- he sleeps on me, bottle in mouth, all the time. Too cute.), Yappy, Remi, Carla, Bianca, Breezy, Gracie, Eli, Will, Alena, Amber, and Joshua. They are actually a pretty mellow group of kids compared to some I've been with in the past. I've jumped right back into lipsmacking (baboon for hello), play-facing, and grooming. It's been awesome. The rest of out days are spent making bottles of milk and food for the babies and some larger baboons. If anyone had ANY baboon questions, I know I got some before I left, no matter how silly, please let me know and I'll try to answer them!!

This week Africa decided to haze my return by wreaking some havoc on my digestive system. Without going into more detail, let's just say I had a couple of rough days. But they gave me some medicine and it seems to be helping out a great deal. I've been feeling a whole lot better today! I also saw my first (this time) giraffe today! It was kind of far across the river but still, it was pretty neat. It's fun living in the bush with wildlife!

I think that's it for now!

Monkey Camp

Hey guys,
I made it to CARE just fine. My overnight flight had good movies so I watched 127 Hours and The Social Network (yes, again) and Unstoppable which was actually really good. An entertaining Denzel afternoon flick.

It is suuuper hot here since it's the end of summer and I'm wishing I brought more than one pair of shorts haha. It has to be like 90 degrees, but a nice dry heat, not remotely as humid as Iguazu. It should start to cool down though in a couple of months. There are about 15 or so kids here and most are here long term for months and months which is nice. A lot of things are different. There's really only one group of babies we sit with throughout the day (last time I was here there were three groups). There is a second group of older baboons that only get sat with twice a day because they are being weened off of people, which is sad because I like the larger ones. They tend to be a bit more rowdy and fun. These younger ones I've found already to be a bit on the slow side. So there seems to be plenty of time to do lots of reading!

Anyways, that's about all the news I have. I'm working on making friends, staying cool, and learning babies' names.

London

The last stop on my little vacation is London, where I am now. It's been a hectic few days here. I'm staying with my friend Charlotte who went to harvard- Westlake but we met at Tufts. She's studying here for the year. On Friday I took a nice little walk around the neighborhood and then went to the British Museum which has tons of classics stuff, including the Rosetta Stone and a bunch of the marble friezes from the Parthenon, which are controversial because the Greeks think this British guy named Elgin stole them way back when and that they should be returned to Athens. Regardless, they're pretty damn cool. I spent a couple hours looking in the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian rooms so didn't make it to any other exhibits.

Saturday was Charlotte's birthday so we went to her favorite Saturday market, Borough Market, which is in an old train station type place and is filled with food stalls and vendors. It was very cool. We walked all around trying the free samples of jams, salami, bread, olive oils, and cheeses, had lunch and desert, then took a long walk around the city back to her flat. Our stroll took us past the Eye of London, Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Trafalgar Square. It was a nice quick tour of the sights. We then went to dinner at Wagamamas with her brother William who is doing his junior year abroad here. Use spent the night our with a whole bunch of Charlotte's friends here at a club, bit it's the adventure afterwards that is most funny (but maybe you just had to be there). The club closed at 3, but we hung around for about 40 more minutes because Charlotte's friend Hayley had lost her camera, credit card, and ID. We caught a bus around 345 hoping to head for home. The bus stopped running for what had to be around 20 minutes while too many people were trying to get on. When if finallllllly got going, I looked out the window and said "oh look, there's that cool bridge" meaning the Tower Bridge. Turns out we were definitely not supposed to cross the river to the south side of London. We had gotten an a bus going the completely wrong way. We quickly hopped off the bus at the London Bridge and waited until about 440 am for another one going back to exactly where we had started an hour or so earlier. After that bus and a long walk in the cold, we finally reached Charlottes flat around 530 am. After some laughs and some snacks I was determined to go to sleep before the sun came up, so we finally went to bed at 6 am, by far the latest I have been up in years. It was a pretty funny late night adventure.

Sunday was spent walking around in the rain and relaxing until the Academy Awards. Charlotte and I loooooove the Oscars, all of our movie going and discussing culminate in this ceremony. And I had seen 9 out of the 10 Best Pic nominees this year (Chatlotte had seen all 10) so we were nice and opinionated. We had a few Americans over to watch the red carpet which started at 11pm. The show started at 1 am London time, but our link to the streaming show want working. Just as everyone gave up and went home, one of Charlotte's friends on Facebook sent her a good link, thank god. And thank you Facebook. so once again we were up until 5 am. Ugh. I was pretty pleased with the Oscars. The acceptance speeches were all pretty good and entertaining, aside from Natalie Portman's which I felt just rambled on thanking too many people. I really wanted The Social Network to win best Picture and the fact that it did not put a damper in our whole morning. At the very least it should have split the director and picture prizes, giving one of those to David Fincher. I also very much enjoyed James Franco an Anne Hathaway as hosts, although I felt that Anne did much more than James did. He's a weird guy so I didn't mind too much his blank stares sometimes, but I think his role was to be the straight man and let Anne crack the jokes. Apparently he was also simultaneously filming parts of the show on his iPhone in his pocket. The autotuned songs from Harry potter, the social network, and Eclipse were great. Charlotte and I have watched that video montage quite a few times now. I think they were pretty successful in making the show appeal to a younger audience. I also beat everyone here in regards to our personal ballots with 16 correct guesses, obviously I fell short with the Kings Speech's late night (undeserved) wins. Of course, my top 3 favorite movies of the year were The Social Network, Inception, and 127 Hours, in no particular order. I was also pleasantly pleased that most people wore beautiful dresses, with my best dressed award going to Mila Kunis from Black Swan.
Okay, enough about that.

Monday I hung out with Lydia, an English girl I worked with last year in Argentina. It was super fun to see her again and to talk monkeys. Today has been spent re-packing (hopefully I'll fall underweight!) and eating. Which reminds me, it's time to go get some lunch. I'm off to South Africa this evening (I reapply hope they have good movies on the plane! And that I can sleep) and hopefully I will be able to update this again soon! I can't wait to get back to (playing with, feeding, raising, and yes getting pooped on by) some baboons!!

Belfast

The rest of my time was spent hanging out and doing a little sightseeing with Catherine in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We took a tour of city hall, where she made me be that tourist and take a dumb photo sitting in the mayor's chair. We also took a little self tour of some of the murals about "The Troubles" of Northern Ireland that line Shankill Road. Alasdair, Catherine, Brittany, and I went out my last night there to a very very neat pub, The Crown Saloon, where there was all this enamel all over the walls and ceiling. We also got to sit in little booths that had a door that closed and metal plates on the sides for striking matches.The city, with its large harbor, turbulent history, and good pubs, was overall pretty interesting.

Overall, I had an absolutely AMAZING time with Brittany, Alasdair, and Catherine getting to see Ireland. I thank them very much for letting me crash in their flat! Ireland was everything I hoped for and a perfect vacation with friends I don't get to see too often.