Hello from Malawi

Hello! Sorry I haven’t written sooner, but the wifi isn’t great around here for some reason and I’ve just been settling in. First of all, this sanctuary is amazing. Big open enclosures, tons of space, they do tours and have school groups so they do lots of education, nice people. So, pretty different from CARE. Not that CARE isn’t great, but it’s just different. It’s also different because I’m not here to do the animal care side of things which is more of what I did do at CARE.

 I’m just working with the troop of baboons that are going to be released next month. My day is basically scheduled like this: 630-9 baboon observations and pre-release data collection, 12-2 baboon observations and pre-release data collection. Pretty simple. I’m doing some reading on releases in the meantime and just getting acclimated. I’m not a huge fan of all the free time, to be honest. The troop has 22 individuals and they’re housed in a big open enclosure. Amazing to see after the enclosures at CARE. But, it does make it more difficult to observe and identify them. That’s my main focus now is learning the individuals. I’m doing pretty well I think.  Some girl said that if I can learn them in a week that would be impressive, and that’s easily going to happen. Data collection is also simple enough (for me). Basically involves following around a single baboon for 20 minutes and recording their behaviors. I do that for four individuals in the morning and four in the afternoon. A girl, Marta, who has been doing the pre-release observations since May is training me. She’s very nice and we have fun while we stand in the blazing sun for hours at a time. By the way, I’m quite sunburned at the moment. The baboons are good. They’re yellow baboons (before I worked with chacmas) so they’re quite a bit smaller than I’m used to, which only trips me up when it comes to telling their ages. To me they look 2 when they’re really 4 or 5. I’ll try and get some pictures in the next few days. I feel pretty important here which is nice, since I have a real job to do (not just volunteering). I think the work will increase a bit as we get closer to the release date, which should be the first or second week in January. I’m also looking forward to getting back out into the bush then.

As for the sanctuary, as I said, it’s very nice. The other volunteers are good but a little green. They have one orphan baboon about 3 months old that is paired with a surrogate older baboon, which is going well, but the volunteers do not know anything about baboons. I’m so surprised. Last night I was talking with some of them, and one girl said “So, are you a baboon expert?” and I flat out said “Yes. Definitely. Although, I prefer the term Baboon Boss”. No question. Haha. I’m supposed to hold a little meeting today to teach them baboon speak. Even Marta, who has been working with them for like 6 months doesn’t know their vocalizations that well. I’m so surprised. So I helped out with the baby baboon, Bo, today and was surprised when volunteers who have been caring for him didn’t even know what a playface was. So I taught them some stuff and told them to put more ropes and things in his enclosure to play with and that he needs to play. So Bo and I played through the fence for a while and he just loved it. The other volunteers were amazed at how quickly he took to me. Obviously. These are my people (baboons)! So I’m going to try and help out with him in my spare time.

 Anyway, the sanctuary has a bunch of other animals; vervets, samango monkeys, duikers, antelopes, crocodiles, two lions, etc. The accommodations are okay. It’s basically a big room with bunk beds, so like 10 of us sleep in a room together. It’s okay for now since I’ll be leaving in a few weeks anyways to live in the national park. Lilongwe is a nice(-ish) town, basically like every other odd African town. But it’s close and easy to get to which is nice, although I’m not really looking to hang out there. Apparently there are a couple bars with some good expat nightlife too.

Two nights ago we had an exciting event. They have here a Wildlife Emergency Response Unit run by an awesome vet named Amanda Salb (look her up, she’s fantastic). They came in with a hyaena that they had caught in the town. Hyaenas cause some problems in Lilongwe so they catch them and bring them here and then translocate them somewhere better. So in the middle of the night they come busing in here with a semi-unconscious hyaena and we got to just watch them do some vet checks on him and then leave him in an enclosure. It was pretty cool. I’ll be working a bit more with the team that does the carnivore research stuff out in the national park as well since we all live in the same research station.

That’s all I can think of to write about right now. Will update again in a few days with some of the pre-release preparation progress.