july 4 edited

July 4, 2016

This time change will take a bit to get used to…I woke up at 7 this morning and probably could have slept a while longer, but I forced myself to get up so that I’m tired tonight and can get on a regular schedule. 

Very strange not celebrating the fourth today!!  Since it is Monday, we are “off”.  Some of the volunteers that have been here went on trips that have been arranged.  There are lots of opportunities to go on various trips that are arranged through the orphanage.  Even on the day off, the “babies” still need to be taken care of so we had the option of helping with those after breakfast. Of course I’m going to help with the babies!!!!  Some of the animals in the nursery are hedgehogs, night apes, tortoises, a duiker, an owl with one wing, mice (they are food!), a bush pig, and a serval. 

John Phillipe…he is an owl that only has one wing.  They are working on getting him more accustomed to people and he may possibly be able to go to schools.

Breezer, the bush pig

JJ, Eros, and Rhea- three young duikers

The night apes are very interesting little creatures…huge eyes and ears and a long tail…actually…they kind of look like Shamus!!  They are about 5 inches high- full grown- and love to climb and jump.  They actually pee on their hands to make them sticky and then they start jumping all over the place and climbing on the walls and ceiling! 

Their pee makes them able to stick to things!

I took care of the serval this morning. He is here because there were kids tormenting him in a park and he was in a tree and the kids were poking him with a stick and knocked him out and ultimately broke all four of his legs.  He is completely healed now, and will actually be getting introduced to the other two servals that are residents of the park.  He hides in his little house and just hisses at people, but apparently he is all bark and no bite.  Each day we are allowed to spend time with the animals in the orphanage, so there are some people the serval will take to and actually let you touch him! 

After helping with the baby animals, I walked around for a while and took pictures of the animals that live here and some of the scenery.  There are HUGE cacti here. 

 

The leopards are beautiful- they have the most beautiful eyes!  They come right up to the edge of their cages.  After we have our official tour tomorrow we will be allowed to interact with the animals.

No one is allowed to go in with any of the big cats…for obvious reasons…but they are amazing to look at.  One of the female lions has epilepsy. 

Arunya- the epileptic female lion.

Up close, the lions are amazing- the sheer, raw power of these animals is amazing.  Their paws are huge.  Their eyes seem to stare right through you when they look at you. 

It is an awesome experience to just sit by their enclosures and watch them.  One of the enclosures has 5 males in it.  At one point they were rolling around and playing with each other- it was like watching a litter of puppies play…large puppies- that could easily rip your throat out, but puppies none the less. 

Because the five males are related, they can live together.  You could not put an unrelated male in their enclosure and if you were to introduce a female, they would fight to the death over her.

The monkeys are very cute but naughty, and can be nasty…one of them grabbed my sweatshirt when I walked by and they was very mad that I got my arm away from him.  Chipangali is the first place to try and successfully foster a baby vervet monkey onto another female.  Victor, one of their females that was hand raised, already had her own offspring, and another baby was rescued, so they fostered her onto Victor.  There are two other cages of vervet monkeys that are slowly being introduced together with the goal to be eventually releasing them as a troop.  You cannot just release one or two monkeys, as they will always be alone- they must be released in a group.

The cape buffalo aren’t here yet…hopefully they will be here soon! 

It is very interesting talking to people from other countries and recognizing the cultural differences.  For example, one of the girls staying in my cabin is making a decision about going to college, and she is from Spain- so her college options are in Spain and Switzerland.  I guess it’s the same as us going to different states for college.  Since it is the wintertime here, the kids are still in school as well.  The owners of the orphanage have two students- one is 17 and still in “high school” and the other is 19 and in “college”.  The 17 year old was just recently suspended for having a flare in school…what would happen to a student who took a flare to school in the US??!?!?

While I am here, I am connected to Wi-Fi, so text messages don’t work (I can get them when I am not connected to the Wi-Fi, but they cost an arm and a leg), so you can email me or use Facebook messenger.