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.