July 5 updated!

July 5, 2016

I pet a leopard today!!!!  I scratched her back like she was a house cat!  Another one licked my hand.  They are beautiful animals up close.   

 I was 6 inches away from a male lion.  The power in these animals is amazing!  You can feel their self confidence rolling off of them.  I do think that the female lions are more intimidating than the males- the males just really don’t care, they know they are big and they know that you will bring them food.  Of course it would only take one swipe of their paw and you would be done, but they just don’t care- they want food from you.  In the wild, the females typically hunt, the males show up at the last minute and eat what they want.  The females are calculating…they look at you and you can see them thinking about what they would do to you if given the chance.

This morning, we went on a tour of the entire park and learned about its history and all of the animals in the park.  The park is over 40 years old and has survived two major upheavals in Zimbabwe.  At one point there were actually more animals and more diversity of species, including rhinos, but they were poached off the land.  The founder of the orphanage, Viv Wilson, was originally a ranger helping to control the Tsetse fly outbreak (a biting fly that causes sleeping sickness).  To do this, they built a fence, and then two kilometers away built another fence and then cleared everything out of the middle space that could be a carrier for the disease or something for the flies to bite.  As they were clearing the land, there were many young animals that were injured or orphaned and Viv convinced the other rangers to begin bringing the animals to him and he started taking them home.  At the time him and his wife lived in town.  After that, Viv worked in the Natural History museum and people would bring dead animals into the museum to be mounted and for data collection, but not all were dead- so he took these home as well.  Eventually, they decided they had too many animals to continue to live in town so they bought the property that would eventually become Chipangali.  The land was barren- except for some cacti.  They set up a tent to sleep in and built animals enclosures first.  And as animals started to come, they expanded and expanded.  The pumps for the water have to be encased in cement or they will be stolen.   

At one point the orphanage had 5 rhinos that were all poached right off the property.

This is what you need to contain a rhino!

You cannot even imagine the level of poverty in this country- we are so very lucky for what we have in the US.  People here don’t steal just to steal, like what we see in the US.  People here are stealing because they need to buy a loaf of bread to feed their family.

Each of the animals in the park has their own story- it is impossible to remember them all!!  The stories range from leopards that were originally raised as pets and- shocking- they became too big and powerful to keep in the house, to a bush pig that was attacked by the family’s dog, to owls that are hit by cars (a common occurrence in this area because they land in the roads to eat road kill and are blinded by headlights when cars come by), to reptiles that people bought as a mistake.  The park is run solely by the money it brings in from the people who come to visit and some of the money the volunteers pay to come here.  

There are multiple trips that are being organized for us, including Victoria Falls next week, a visit to Matopos- which includes a rhino walk, a visit to a local village, and to see cave paintings, and also a research trip.  The person who takes us on the Matopos trip used to run a zoo in the United States, and I was told that he also currently works at the Philadelphia Zoo (the person who told me this was mistaken!!!  I asked!!).  It would be awesome to have a contact there for when I come back (But, Kevin is going to work on re-establishing a relationship with Philadelphia Zoo!!).  The orphanage is doing research with carnivores at local farms. The animals are trapped and tranquilized,  data is collected and the animals are fitted with radio collars and released.  I am super excited for all of these trips- especially the research trip!  I plan on participating in all of them!

We started working in our groups this afternoon. We are divided up into groups and each day we work in a different area of the park.  I started working  with the carnivores: leopards, lions, jackals, hyenas, and servals. First we were just sweeping up some of the leaves along the walkways.  It sounds boring right?  That’s what I thought at first, but first we have to make brush brooms.  And again…sweeping sounds so boring, but you are sweeping and you look up and you are face to face with a 600 pound lion or a 300 pound leopard- who wants to lick your hand and then rubs against the fence for you to scratch.  No one is allowed in the enclosures with these big cats- just because they are ok with you petting them through the fence, they will still look for weaknesses and wait for your to be distracted for the slightest little bit and then attack. 

We helped to feed all the animals as well. I helped cut up a horse…that was a little rough- at first, I just had to keep telling myself it was for a good cause and the animals need to eat too.  We were sweeping when Brian and Lala, the two carnivore area workers, came and asked us if we wanted to help feed.  Um, yes we sure do!  All of a sudden I felt like one of those little girls who just want to pet and brush and feed horses, the things that I do everyday and just think they are so mundane.  I became one of those little girls!  So to feed the lions, one of the workers throws the pieces of meat and bone over the fence for them- they are not small pieces of meat- we are talking 15-20 pounds of raw meat here!   They won’t let the volunteers do it in case someone does not make it over the fence- the lions will jump up and try and grab it and could possibly pull down the enclosure.  Some of the lions are locked in a separate area and we go in and put the meat in the enclosure.  The leopards are fed the same way.  There is an obvious hierarchy for the lions.  Even in an enclosure of 5 animals, the male eats first and you can throw a piece right in between two females and the subordinate one does not make a move for it.  

The food for the carnivores comes from local farms, when they have an animal die.  There was a calf that was dropped off yesterday but it could not be used because it was infested with ticks.  Even as it was sitting on the “slab”, the engorged ticks were jumping off the carcass and you could actually see them moving across the ground looking for more live animals to jump on.  

When we came out of our cabin for dinner tonight, there was an owl sitting right outside.  His name is Max…he was raised here and was released but he won’t leave the orphanage.  So he “plays” with people, but it really comes across as he is attacking us…yup. We are currently being held hostage in the cabin by an owl named Max…..

Max update…the Max problem has been resolved. I brought him a peace offering…a mouse…apparently he comes here for food when he is having a rough week, kind of like when you go home to mom for some home cooked food.  So, since getting the mouse, he has left our porch.  

Tomorrow I will be meeting with the director of the orphanage and two of the other workers to talk about the ideas my students came up with on animal enrichment ideas. The ideas will be presented and we will see what will work and what needs to be changed, and then hopefully the volunteers will be able to start building and implementing some of the ideas.

Also, the paperwork for the Cape buffalo went through 3 days ago, so hopefully they will be arriving in the next couple of weeks!

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. 

July 2-3 updated!!

July 2-3, 2016 

The trip was long!  My flight left JFK at 11:15 AM on Saturday, and landed in Johannesburg at 8:20AM on Sunday morning. 

Waiting to board the plane!

There is a 6 hour time difference.  I wasn’t able to sleep much on the plane- it wasn’t very comfortable.  I had a very short layover in Johannesburg, during which I had to find my next gate, get my passport stamped and then go back through security.  I was getting a little worried as we approached J-burg because there were announcements on the plane about collecting and rechecking our baggage.  There was no way I would have time to do that!  Luckily I stopped at an information desk when I got off the plane and had them look at my ticket to see if this was the case for me and thankfully it was not!  I’m glad I asked because one of our roommates, who arrived a few days after me did NOT ask and she tried to collect her baggage, then realized that she didn’t need to and ended up missing her flight.  She had to stay in a hotel overnight in J-burg, and then buy another plane ticket to Bulawayo!  I would have freaked, cried, and probably tried to turn around and go home.  And I’m sure my mom would have felt the same way!

When I arrived at my gate, I was quite surprised to see a bus outside of it, not a plane.  We boarded the bus and drove to what felt like the other side of the airport to board a much smaller plane for a short flight to Bulawayo. 

Our plane from Joburg to Bulawayo!!

The Bulawayo airport was very, very tiny.  The Visas are handwritten and they only looked at my passport when I went through customs, apparently I looked harmless because there were other people that had bags looked at and it took them a bit longer to get through.

Welcome to Bulawayo!!!

There were ebola warnings in the airport.

It’s cool here!  Apparently they are in the middle of a cold spell…but their cold spell is in the 60’s.  Nicole, one of the owners of Chipangali, met me at the airport.  I was pretty happy about that, as I had no idea what to expect when I got off the plane.  Apparently, the volunteers are pretty easy for them to spot because they tend to walk off the plane looking scared, lost, and tired from traveling (most people had been traveling for close to, or more than, 24 hours.)  There were 8 other people getting picked up to go to the orphanage.  The steering wheels are on the wrong side of the cars, they drive on the wrong side of the road, and at one point we were driving on a four lane road and I THINK two lanes were for each direction, but there were only white dotted lines in between each lane so I’m not really sure how you know where you are supposed to drive (Even though we didn’t go out often, this was something that I did NOT get used to before I left!  I spent a lot of time cringing and thinking we were about to get in a head on crash)!!  On the way to the orphanage we stopped at the “market” to pick up any snacks that we wanted.  There are very few American brand names here.   

There were many, what I think were houses, that looked not finished along the sides of the road.  Many, if not all, of the houses, especially in town and on the edges, were surrounded by walls, with razor wire and/or electric on the top.  I wish I was able to get more pictures of these things, but it was hard to take pictures while driving, and you have to be careful about what you take pictures of so you aren’t confused with a journalist.  The landscape is pretty flat, and looks barren- with lots of scrub grasses and occasionally trees.  The soil is red and looks like clay.  

 

When we arrived, we were shown to our cabins.  I am sharing a cabin with three other girls- they are from England, Sweden, and Madrid.  One is leaving on Monday (July 4), and there are two more volunteers getting picked up from airport.  Some of the other people here are from the UK, Israel, and several from the US.  I believe there are about 14 volunteers total here right now.  We have one of the two “new” cabins so we have a toilet and shower in our cabin. 

Otherwise, there is a bathhouse for everyone else to use.   We went on a very short tour of some of the orphanage and then had some time to get settled before dinner.  All of the volunteers eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner together.  After dinner, we built a small bonfire and got to know each other.  Monday’s are our day off.

When you wake up in the middle of the night here- aside from the possibility of being tangled up in your mosquito netting, the noises are so very different from NJ.  First off, you can hear the lions talking back and forth.  It is a very neat sound.   And there are bird and insect noises all night.   It has also been cool enough during the day that they are more active and talkative. 

These mounts, and others located around the orphanage, were donated by a taxidermist that went out of business.

There are many portraits of the animals and other scenes painted around Chipangali, having been done several years ago by two artistic volunteers.  I think it’s very cool they were able to leave their mark!  

August 2

August 2, 2016

I am home from Africa!!!  First of all, I never would have been able to make this trip and have these experiences without the support of my family and friends taking care of my house, my animals, and supporting me!  Thank you so so much!

It was a nerve racking trip for me…anyone who knows me knows that I don’t travel- like ever.  So I left my house, my animals, my family, my friends- for a month, and traveled halfway around the world, by myself.   I was homesick initially, there were a few times in the first couple weeks that I wanted to go home.  All of the volunteers were in the same boat- travel hours and hours and get plopped down in a wildlife orphanage with people from all over the world, different nationalities, personalities, and backgrounds.  Now you have to live together and work together 24-7.  I wouldn’t trade this past month for anything in the world.  I was hard to say goodbye to people after two, three, or four weeks.  We became a family- we hacked up dead, rotten animals to feed the carnivores.  We got stuck in the middle on nowhere on the side of the road on the way to Vic Falls after hitting a cow.  We all experienced new things- we became an extended Brady Bunch.  How odd for Ryan and Micky (Nicky and Kevin’s children) to grow up this way…there are constantly different people, from all over the world, invading their house.  Oh the people they must meet!  And then, they leave…maybe to never see them again! 

Overall, visiting Africa was an absolutely amazing experience!!  Some of these things I have already written before, but I am want to reflect on the experience overall.  It was total culture shock when I arrived.  I found myself, on a daily basis, asking myself questions about how daily life functioned. 

How can people live without hot water?

How can people live with no running water?

How can they live with no electricity?

Your toilet is a hole in the ground?

How is it possible for families to struggle to afford $120 a YEAR to send their child to school.

How can schools not have enough books for their students.

How does a school not have electricity?

What do you mean there are no power tools?

Can’t we use the chainsaw to cut this pole that is harder than concrete???

Government turned to power out again?

Your definition of gross is different from their definition of gross.

I can’t just turn on the tap and get a glass of water?

No you can’t go to the bank and use the ATM….there is no money in it.

How do the police figure out who they are going to stop at the roadblocks?

I’m not sure what exactly I expected when I left for Zimbabwe- but I don’t think that I ever expected to have such an eye opening experience.  There were things that were just as you would imagine- thatched roofs, dirt, lots of grass.  We are so lucky in this country- and wasteful!  Nothing in Chipangali went to waste.  Nothing anywhere went to waste.  Food scraps go to the animals.  Things get reused.  When we were in Matopos doing the carnivore research, we found a dead wildebeest- she died from natural causes.  But following a necropsy she was cut up and the meat was given to the workers.  A kudu was found in a snare- rather than the poachers getting the meat, she was cut up and given to the workers on that farm and some local villagers that needed food.  They don’t have refrigeration- so what do you do with the meat?  Hang it over a fence in the sun so it dries out and lasts longer.  There are people walking a herd of cows and goats down the side of the road.  Take the old nails out of that fencing and hammer them all straight so they can go in the new fencing.  There is no just running to the grocery store on a whim for dinner.  No Dunkin, Wawa, or Quick Chek for coffee.  I’m still not sure where you go clothes shopping…there were definitely no malls there.   How easy it is to go to the store and buy a padded envelope to mail something to someone?  Not there.  Need a gift for someone?  Go on Amazon and have it delivered to them or your house the next day…or within hours in some areas!  You don’t go to Tractor Supply to get feed for your animal…you make their diet yourself.  All of the houses have fencing topped with razor or barbed wire or electric around them.

As much as we all complain about teaching in the US and in NJ- we don’t have classrooms that have holes in the ceilings.  We don’t have books that are so outdated and have to be shared by 4 or 5 students per book.  We have paper.  We have electricity.  We have computers.  As teachers, we aren’t making every single poster that is on the walls.  When you need supplies you can order them.  The pencil cases Natalie’s students put together were a huge hit with the students!  The kids and teachers were so appreciative!  Their supplies are so minimal.  The teachers loved the lessons Natalie’s students made. 

By our standards, I would say that the areas I was in are poverty stricken.  But I guess that the term “poverty” is totally relative.  I’m not really sure what poverty is in Zimbabwe. 

Despite all these things that we see as deficiencies- they don’t see it that way- they don’t know any other way.  That’s how life is for them and that’s how it has always been- so who are we to feel sorry for them?  We visited one of the villages in Matopos- the children that lived there were so happy and excited to see us.  They sang and danced for us.  The don’t know about all the TV shows they are missing- or facebook, instagram, or twitter.

Live each of your days to the fullest.  Chase your dreams.  Appreciate everything, everyone, and everyday you are given!