july 9 updated

July 9, 2016

Today was a relatively quiet day. I was assigned to the antelope.  In the mornings we have to take out branches from the day before and then get new ones for the animals.  Sounds like it should be easy enough and quick?  Nope!  They have machetes for cutting the branches and some of the branches are pretty thick so it takes a while to cut through them.  Again, it’s such a contrast from here.  We would have chainsaws and be done in about 5 minutes.  

Richard wanted  Zoe and I to climb this ladder,  umm. . . No thanks Richard!  We will stand down here and catch you when you fall off!

I am coming up with more and more ideas that I can bring back and possibly do with my students.  I want to try and work on a walking audio tour of the park.  I was thinking that my students would be able to research the various animals and come up with general information on them, and then talk about the specific animals that are here and tell their stories.  Then someone could get the audio on the website to allow people to learn more about them and possibly have a way that visitors can tap into the information as well…I have to talk to Nicky more about the logistics of this project and see how we can make it work!

During animal time I spent time with one of the leopards.  She was rubbing all over my hand and purring and drooling everywhere!  She even started licking my hand. Their tongue feels just like our house cats!  She is a beautiful animal and I feel so lucky to be able to get that close to her.  Their eyes are beautiful and so full of intelligence. 

Later on in the day, there was a group of about 120 students from a local school that went on a tour of the park so I helped with that.  One of the workers does the tour and the volunteers help keep them all together and moving through the park.  The girls sure do take a lot of selfies!  And they love to take pictures with white people!  After they left, I asked one of the workers why they were so excited about taking pictures with the volunteers and he told me that some of them have never seen white people but the more common reason is because most white people are not nice to them.

Tomorrow I am going to Victoria Falls for three nights!  While we are there I am going to go on a safari in Chobe and also go on a horseback-riding safari!  Victoria Falls is one of the 7 wonders of the world!  So, tomorrow will consist of about a 6-hour bus ride to our destination and then two full days and then a return bus ride back here on Wednesday.  I will be able to get unlimited Wifi for $3 while I am there so I am super excited about that and will not have to worry about using up my allotted Wifi posting pictures on Instagram and Facebook!!!  I have many  pictures on my camera but there are also many more on my phone, so I will post what I have!!!

I have been using what’s app messenger if anyone wants to download it and message me!!! 

I probably will not post anything tomorrow as all I will be doing is traveling so nothing really exciting to report! 

july 8 updated!!

July 8, 2016

Woke up to a very grey and overcast day…pretty damp (this actually ended up being the coldest day of my trip, but it was very short lived).  They call it “guti”.  It looked like it was going to rain and be miserable for our trip to Matopos National Park- which involved traveling in a VERY open range rover.  Apparently though, it is too COLD to rain!  It was probably in the 50’s.  Didn’t know that it could be too cold to rain!  We went with two professional guides.  On our way to the park we actually saw a family of three white rhinos walking along the side of the road!  The rhinos have been poached almost to extinction in Africa for their horns.  Asians belief they are better than Viagra and they sell for over $1 million for 10 kilos!  Cutting off the rhinos horn is the same as us cutting our fingernails, so not only can you do it without killing the animal, but the horn will also grow back…so it would make more sense to have rhino farms and have them cut the horns and send them out onto the market and be able to continually cut off the horn.  But, this is not the case and people do not think there should be rhino farms.  Anyway, it is obviously very dangerous for the rhinos to be walking along side the road as it makes them a very easy target for poachers, so there was actually a team of four rangers following the animals and trying to push them far away from the road. 

The park is divided up into sections with teams of rangers assigned to each section and in the morning they go and patrol their section to see where the rhinos are.  It did not take us long to find a family of 5 rhinos!!!  We were able to walk right up to them!  They have very poor eyesight but excellent smell and hearing so they knew we were there but our one guide has been around these animals for most of their lives and they are comfortable with the interaction and were not too bothered by it!  Before we went close to the animals, we had to switch off any GPS apps in our phones because they have found when these pictures hit social media the poachers use the locations and GPS to find the animals and come and kill them!   We sat and watched them for a little while and they wandered away so we followed for a little bit and watched for a while longer.  The one young male came about 15 feet away from us!! 

Took this picture on my phone with no zoom!

Another picture from my phone with no zoom!

These animals are over 4,000 lbs!!  It was hard to imagine that they are one of the Big 5, as they looked so peaceful just grazing and not really giving us a second glace.  I learned that they are most closely related to horses and in hindsight, some of the behaviors are the same.  For example, the one young male walked very close to us and was licking and chewing and mouthing- just like a submissive horse does!  I talked to the guide, Ian, about how they chemically immobilize the animals, and he told me that they have to be within about 100lbs for the dosage or the animals have very severe side effects.  Amazing, since with bears (I did research trapping in NJ), you can just about double the dose and it is still ok.  How do you estimate the weight of a rhino within 100 lbs?!?!   The animals are also given a reversal agent as soon as they are under the effects of the drugs, as it only takes about 35 seconds to cut off their horn.  They overheat very quickly under the drugs too.

After watching the rhinos for a while, we drove around the park and had lunch, where we were visited by some very naughty vervet monkeys who wanted to steal our food.  One managed to get lucky and steal a roll and ran off with it!  In the US, we have squirrels and sea gulls.  Probably the closest thing I can compare it to!

After lunch we hiked up a mountain to see some cave paintings that are over 28,000 years old!!!  They were so lifelike!  The humans in the cave paintings are drawn very stick-like because they believed that if they were too lifelike it would allow spirits to come and inhabit them.  The animals are extremely lifelike and detailed and really look like they were actually running across the wall of the cave.  This particular cave also had shadow paintings, which are cave paintings that you can only see in the shadow!  There are 5 caves total that they have been able to discover these shadow paintings. 

View from outside the cave where there are paintings.

Towards the bottom of the wall, there are so many layers of paintings, producing a solid red effect.  Apparently, if you play around with the colors in iphoto or some other photo editing software you can get the layers of paintings to show through.  I have no clue how to do that so anyone that is good with photo editing that wants to have a try, let me know and I will send you pictures!

Before we left the national park, we visited one of the African Villages.  We were able to meet the chief, who was quite a character and he told stories, in his native language.  He didn’t speak one bit of English, but our guide translated for us.  The chief is 85 years old!  He told us how he helped to build many of the roads throughout the park and also helped to bring the original rhinos into the park.  After listening to the chief’s stories we watched the children who live in the village sing and dance.  It was very neat to experience a very small part of Zimbabwe life.   

Chief Pondo

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.

july 6 updated!!

July 6, 2016 

Today, I realized how spoiled we are in our country.  We were cleaning out some of the pens and the tools are so limited: one shovel, one rake, one bucket.  It makes me appreciate how easily we can run to the store and pick up a new muck fork or a new wheelbarrow. Or oh well, the handle fell of this bucket, I’ll just throw it away and buy a new one.  And when you are not the ONLY person cleaning the same pen, you can see how this can cause a problem.  It makes me want to go home and go through the barn and collect all the tools that are “broken”, by our standards, and ship them over here.  But, unfortunately, it isn’t possible; you can’t ship anything over about 5 kilos…so a little over 10 pounds.  

I saw a zebra today!  We went out into the game park to take some food out for those animals.  We didn’t get real close to her but she was standing a little bit away in the brush. 

I also helped rebuild lion pen fencing... I have a whole new appreciation for building horse fencing…it doesn’t involve over 10 foot poles that have to be cemented three feet into the ground!  Of course that also involved digging the old concrete out of the ground…by hand.  Certainly not a job I envied of the staff here!  All they had was a 4 pound hammer and a pick.  No cement mixers either.  

Surprisingly, one of the highlights (so far!) of being over here has been eating meat!!  They have no idea what commercial food production is and no one can afford to spend money on the hormones or antibiotics or any of the other crap that is in our food supply.   They actually give me some funny looks when I explain to them how meat is produced in the US.  Everything here is what we would call free range, grass finished. Pick one!   

The nutrition of these animals is amazing. Well I think so!  There are no commercial diets!  Everything that animals are fed are leftovers!  They get the human leftovers from dinner. There are places in town that give the orphanage any fruit and veggies that aren’t sold or are too bruised or damaged to sell and they are also fed left over chips.  But not our chips, they are all these bizarre flavored corn puffs, like chicken and beef.  Not really what I would choose as a snack.  So they look like cheese balls and Cheetos but in different colors and flavors!  The sheep diets are made up of trees in the area, seed pods, some fruits and veggies.  There is no sheep feed.  There is no hay.  And most of the little buggers are straight up fat!!!  

There is a civil war going on here, but please don’t worry!!  It is not directed towards tourists, and that would actually be worse for people here because the tourists bring money into the area.  People cannot get money out of banks, because there is none, and the government is trying to impose all these ridiculous things.  For example, say you want to buy a can of beans, well the government prices it at $1.50.  But then you can import it for $0.70.  Which would you buy?!!?  Obvious answer- so the government is saying fine- you can’t import anything then, and forcing people to pay the higher prices.  The protests are supposed to be quiet and peaceful.  Anytime anyone travels off of property, we go with one of the owners of the orphanage or one of the workers.  They always travel in 4x4 vehicles and are well versed in back roads and ways around roadblocks and things like that.  When we travel to Victoria Falls, the bus driver is in contact with the orphanage for the entire trip up and back.  We take so much for granted.  Even a trip to the store, at home you can decide what you want for dinner and run to the store or a restaurant and get anything you want.  Here it is a 45 minute drive into town. Sometimes the stores are closed and you might not be able to get anything.

The temperature is probably in the low 70’s.  I wish our winters were like this!  It’s funny in the morning to hear people say how cold it is.  I told them they don’t know what cold is!!!