Enrichment

-->

I’ve been working hard the past few weeks building loads and loads of enrichment for some new cages that have been built.

I’ve also been helping our a great deal with the three sun bears that are at the care centre. Our other bear enrichment interns left so it’s been left up to us to take care of them. Throughout the day I get them new logs that they like to eat and claw at, branches, and give out peanuts, honey, and sardines. Kevin, one of the sun bears, is like a big dog, or a kid in a bear suit. He loves to play and I spend a while every day wrestling with him, scratching his back, etc


. He’s the cutest thing ever. We also dug him a new digging pit for a new digging cage. The pit then turned into a swimming pool after a few days of heavy rain. We had to spend the morning bucketing it out, which wasn’t easy. They installed the new cage in absolutely pouring rain as the pit filled back up. But it’s dry now and we’ve put heaps of logs and enrichment in there for Kevin to really enjoy every day. He spends hours and hours in there just digging.

A Traditional Dayak Wedding

Day 1: Another Bumpy Ride

A couple weekends ago we had the opportunity to go see a traditional Dayak wedding. Dayak is the local tribe (tribe is the best way I know how to describe it) of the people where I live. A young couple who work at the care centre here were getting hitched! So we traveled once again for hours and hours in the back of a truck down dusty, pot-holed roads. Sarah and I had a grand old time in the back singing very loudly to some very bad songs.

We arrived late at night, but went straight to the festivities. This little village had set up quite the party. All the houses were decorated, there were streamers and banners everywhere, and a big stage set up with singers and dancers. After a quick bite to eat (Indonesians are big on feeding people when you arrive somewhere) we sat down to watch the singing and dancing. Naturally, we got roped into dancing to a couple of songs, very bar-mitzvah-esque, but fun nonetheless. Hey, that kind of rhymed. That night, the first tradition they partake in, is the families, followed by basically the whole village, follow the soon-to-be-newlyweds down to the river, carrying large baskets of uncooked rice. They wash the rice in the river and say some prayers and then back to dancing! We finally trudged back own the road to they house we were all staying in to finally get some sleep after a long long day.

The men carrying baskets of rice to was in the river

Day 2: Mandi Duluh dan Menikan

A Bath First (a popular Indonesian saying) and A Wedding

The next day was the big wedding day. But first, a quick dip in a river. We once again all piled into the truck and drove out of the village to a beautiful clearing that in the wet season is a huge lake. We then drove through another, even tinier village to the river. It was one of the most beautiful spots I’ve seen in Indonesia so far. A nice river, a quaint village, and a beautiful view. We all jumped in and swam around and jumped in again. Incredibly refreshing!! It turned out later that kids HAD in fact seen some little crocodiles in that same river a few days earlier, but hey, we didn’t know that then, so… ignorance is bliss is this case.

 

After changing into our party clothes, we walked down the road to the wedding. There was more singing and dancing as the couple and their parents sat on a separate little stage and received guests. It seems like an incredibly long and tedious day for them. The bride actually changed gowns three times throughout the day. I can’t express in words how much food there was. They cook pounds and pounds of rice, some in HUGE woks outside over a fire, and some cooked in bamboo. The bamboo rice is sweetened with some coconut. We watched the old women stir the rice and ceremoniously unwrap the bamboo rice and cut the long tubes into smaller pieces for everyone to eat. They also cook these pancake-like things that are cooked in so much oil they were actually hard to eat. These two old ladies sat for hours and hours cooking thousands of these pancakes. They ushered us into the house a couple of times to eat these giant pancakes.

Sweet rice, wrapped in leaves, cooked in bamboo

The rice is cooked in these bamboo trunks

After a quick nap and break from the festivities, the traditional ceremonies began around 3 pm. The bride, her maid of honor, the groom, and his best man got all dressed up in traditional Dayak dress, and their arms, legs, and facse were all painted. The bride and her maid of honor sat in her house, while the groom and his best man, followed by the men of the village, walked from his house to hers to ‘pick her up’ for the wedding. They all sat in the house for a while as everyone crowded around taking pictures, all the while the elders of the village played some drums, and the wedding party was blessed.

Then everyone, the wedding party, their families, and the entire village, walked in a procession, again while loud drums were playing, down the street to a traditional Dayak ‘pondok’, or long house. Here the wedding party walked around the house three times before entering.

Everyone crowded into this tiny room, which was basically turned into a sauna. We stood around the room just DRIPPING in sweat. It was rather disgusting. The bride, her maid of honor, the groom, and his best man all sat on the floor with two elders, who blessed them with prayers, talked to them about the commitments of marriage, blessed them by putting rice on their heads (not sure the exact significance of this since the language barrier got in the way here). The bride and groom then said some things and exchanged eating a hot chili with each of their mothers. Then there was lots of clapping and hooting which led me to believe that they were officially married now. The whole ceremony was very very cool to witness; it was both intimate and shared with the whole village and guests, and unlike anything I could have ever seen elsewhere. The young now-married couple looked incredibly happy.

Then the real party began. Back in the main house, the old guys sat down to play some more drums while everyone crowded in again. Everyone got a few dabs of paint on the face, and the dancing began! Four people stand in the center of the room and traditionally dance but tapping some feet and kind of waving arms. Meanwhile, everyone else walks/dances around the room in a conga-line like procession, banging their feet to the beat. This goes on for hours. HOURS. Just walking in a circle, packed in this little room, everybody sweating profusely. It was heaps fun but also a little gross. The drinking finally started then too. They make this sweet rice-wine like alcohol drink that they hand to you as you go around and around the room. We did this off and on for the rest of the evening.

Sarah and I with Pak Bohap, Dr. G's husband and newly appointed King of the Dayaks

Day 3: More Pancakes 
 
In the morning we at some more oily pancakes, bought some traditional Dayak machetes, then piled in again for the 5 hour bumpy ride home.

Me, Sarah, and Ritwan, one of our best local friends hanging out at the wedding

May Pics

Best clouds I've seen in Indo so far

some of the enrichment we build

wrestling with Kevin, one of our sun bears

Camp Leakey

 

DAY 1

The gang, Tim, Sarah, Rachel, and I, went to the famous Camp Leakey for a three-day trip last week. Camp Leakey is where Dr. Galdikas first did her orangutan research back in the 70s. It’s a very famous place, and one that I have known about for about forever, so I was thrilled to be going. Our first day was mostly spent getting there. This involves driving to the next town over on the water, and getting our boat from there. The boat, where we spent most of the time hanging out and eating and even sleeping, is called a klotok. After some coffee and breakfast we were off across the Java Sea and down the Sekonyer River. We all brought out our books and music and sat in the sun (yay for getting more tan!) and soon enough, drinking some beer. As we made our way down the river we saw some great birds, proboscis monkeys, and macaques. The river is beautiful. The first part of the river is brackish and brown, but further in it becomes what they call ‘the blackwater’. This, of course, had us Game of Thrones fans geeking out a bit.

We arrived at Camp Leakey at around 2pm. We soon joined a number of other klotoks and tourists at the feeding site. Here the wild orangutans, and a gibbon, are fed in the afternoon so the tourists can see them. It was pretty cool actually. You get within a few meters of some big wild orangutans. After a couple hours there we headed back to our klotok. We patiently waited while the other boats moved on until it was just us. Then we did something you’re really not supposed to do. We jumped in the river. You’re not supposed to do this because there are in fact crocodiles. Oh well. Our guide let us jump in and then quickly climb back out, no swimming around. It was incredibly refreshing and fun. We jumped off the dock a few times before finally leaving. We moved downriver a bit to tie up for the night as we watched some proboscis monkeys do the same in the trees on the riverbank. We continued to drink more beer, listen to music, and have a great time. The dinner was delicious, just some regular Indonesian food, lots of rice. At dust, we saw bats flying around and probably the biggest bat I’ve ever seen in my life. Its wingspan must’ve been at least a meter across. It was insane. That first night though, I started to feel quite seasick (the large amounts of beer didn’t help) but the rocking of boat was making me feel a bit queasy. We slept right up there on the deck of the klotok. They set us up with some mattresses and mosquito nets; it was all really quite lovely. We fell asleep listening to the wildlife, the gentle rain, and watching the cool lightning.

DAY 2

We woke up on Day 2 to the sounds of the forest, gibbons and macaques and birds. After a leisurely breakfast, and another ill-advised swim, we set out on a little forest hike. We walked for a couple of hours through the Camp Leakey forest. We saw wild orchids, cool mushrooms, vines, huuuuuuge trees, swamp, and just beautiful forest scenery. My favorite things were the ‘fisher plants’, a really cool carnivorous plant.

We walked around the Camp, seeing where Dr. Galdikas first lived and worked back in the day. It was quite cool to be standing where I’ve only read about. Unfortunately during this hike, my camera batteries completely died. I was very very upset about this. I thought I had charged them fully but I guess I didn’t. Oh well. Good thing I brought a little one for back up, but just didn’t get some shots I would’ve liked.

Then back to the klotok for lunch, a tan, and a nap, then to another orangutan feeding. In the afternoon we travelled downriver to another research site. We took a short walk here and went to a tower, up up up a steep ladder, that let us see the whole forest for miles and miles. After a lovely candlelit dinner back on the klotok, we headed back into the forest for a night walk. With our guide and just a couple of torches we wandered through the forest looking for anything and listening to the sounds. We didn’t see much but we did hear a barking deer. I’m not even sure what that is, but that’s what we heard. The stars were really pretty that night with more lightning in the distance.

DAY 3

Our last morning on the klotok took us to the Tanjung Harupan village. Our guide took us on a little walk of the place and it was just beautiful. Right on the river this little village held about 50 families. There was a canal that ran through the main part of town with houses and rice fields on either side. Our last afternoon found us a bit lazy, as we decided to skip the touristy feeding and just chill out on our boat. Our guide took us to a small place off the river where we could swim, but really, it was a kind of cesspool pond. Not very nice at all. But we did take a dip to cool off. We slowly meandered back down the river, back onto the brackish water, stopping for a while to look at some proboscis monkeys. They are so cool, but quite unattractive. I’ve always wanted to see them and now here they were! We spent a couple hours enjoying the beautiful sunset on the way back to the shore and then back home. All in all a wonderful trip! We all get along so well and we just have a great time hanging out together and in such a beautiful place. Couldn’t have asked for a better few days!!