july 7 updated!!

July 7, 2016

Today I was assigned to the nursery- so we were responsible for taking care of the babies.  The first thing I did was feed Breezer, the bush pig- who has no tail because it was bitten off by a Jack Russell who found him, and that is why he is here.  It was like feeding the dogs in the morning- he came running up to me when I walked into his cage and started rubbing on my legs and making little pig noises at me.  I hand fed him a little bit and then he got impatient and grabbed a hold of my jeans and wouldn’t let go so I just gave him the rest of his food!!  

After we finished feeding in the morning we had to go grasshopper catching.  Yup, here’s a net, here’s a big field, here’s a container to put them in, catch grasshoppers. It is way harder than you would think!!  

They are very big on tea time here.   So at 9:45, you break for tea.  Until 10:30, then work for a half hour and then it is animal time.  During animal time, you get to pick what animals you can spend time with.  I went in with Prince, who is a Serval.  He is an oversized house cat.  He comes up and starts rubbing all over you and drooling and purring.  And if he really likes you, he pees on you. 

After that, I had a thorough grooming by the monkeys.  You sit by the edge of their cage and they pick through your hair and your arms and groom you.  It feels very weird.  I also spent some time with JJ, an orphaned duiker.  He is super cute, comes running up when you go in the enclosure and lets you scratch him and love on him and will then climb in your lap for a short nap in the sun.  It’s so weird to sit there with a duiker- which looks like a miniature deer- curled up and sleeping in your lap. 

After lunch we had to pull ticks off of the tortoises.  The ticks they have here are HUGE.  This task, like with the grasshoppers, not so easy either.  The ticks crawl way up their legs so you need to wait until the tortoise decides to put their legs all the way out and grab the ticks of off them.  And then I’m sure the tortoise doesn’t like it too much and they get more and more reluctant to extend their legs out.  Oh and lets not forget that a major defense mechanism of tortoises is to pee and poop on you.  Guess you gotta take one for the team when you are trying to get the ticks off a tortoise! 

I also put together a cage for some baby ducks, it was quite a boring cage so I went on a mission around the orphanage to see what I could find to put in there to give them something more to do.  Again, things are so limited so I had to really use my imagination!  I found them a little box to hide in, a second little pond, some reeds for them to eat and swim around in, some rocks for their ponds.  I think it came out quite nice- I would be happy with it if I was a duck.  

On Saturday, I am going to sit down with Nicky, one of the owners, to come up with a wish list and prices of items needed for the orphanage.  I will not be able to collect materials and send it over here, because it probably won’t get here. But I would like to be able to collect donations and people can earmark what they want their donations to go towards.  They need everything from school supplies for the schools they work with to poles and wire and fencing and cement, wheelbarrows, sponges, soap, forks, knives, and spoons for the baby kitchen.

Tomorrow I am going to Matopos to see rhinos, cave paintings, and also visit a local village! 

I would post more pictures, but I have limited data and going on Facebook and Instagram uses a LOT of data.