South Africa

Entry # 28 B – Second week with baboons

Monday, September 4

7:00 Mediums
9:00 Crates
10:00 Monitor
11:00 Mediums
1:00 Bottles
3:00 Kitchen
4:00 Bottles

An overcast day with a little breeze that was a nice change from the cold nights and hot, warm days recently. I did not put on sun block today.

The new baby in Bip Bop is doing well. I still have not settled on an appropriate name for her. I am feeling much more comfortable with this troop and identifying the individuals.

I have not started taking any photographs. I need to start soon, but I am having a hard time figuring out how to capture what I am experiencing. Not even a video could capture the total experience.

Several things happened today, which were unexpected.

First, I have a roommate – Verena from Germany. I was unaware that more people were coming and I am not sure why I got her versus the other bedroom that has spare beds. She seems nice, is older and has already done a volunteer placement in Swaziland two years ago. I think she will be fine.

The infant baboon baby that was being carried by a sub adult was finally visible to the kitchen staff. The only problem with this situation is that a sub adult will not be able to feed an infant that young and the hope was that we could get the baby into out custody and start feeding her. This pair had been spotted several days ago, but they were never in a position to be caught and we knew that we would have only one chance, as the troop might descend on the rescuer if there was too much alarm given. There was a little discussion about how best to catch her and Lee spread corn and peanuts all over the area, so that the troop would be distracted. Bennet was ready with the dart and it was hoped that as soon as she was darted, she would drop the baby. Then the plan was to catch the baby and get it inside as soon as possible.

Once she was darted, she disappeared like a shot and went far up into the property. At one point, the sub adult was asleep and had let go of the baby, but before Lee could get the baby, a huge male from the troop took up the baby. They left and were planning to try again later but a few hours later, the sub adult was back awake with the baby, but the baby was obviously dead. The group felt sad and yet realized that the chances of the baby living within our care was jeopardized by the length of time that she had been without her mother. Nature sometimes appears cruel.

The last thing was that I did not have any time with the small babies today and I missed them terribly. I had two individual hours with the mediums and I felt very beaten up by them. Both hours were before noon when they are at their most active. I was bit and had my hair pulled and unfortunately, they got me on both shins within one minute of each other. OUCH!

I also made large inroads in the volunteer laundry and the freezer clean out in preparation for the shopping to be done tomorrow. No one has said much about it, but I feel I have done well and am pleased with the results.

Tuesday, September 5 – Lynn’s 23rd birthday, bbq, goodbye Sara.

7:45-9:00 Smalls
10:00 Lower Deck
11:00 Bottles
1:00-3:00 Nursery babies
3:00 Monitor
4:00 Mediums

Sara, the American girl from Virginia who goes to Ohio State and who had a bout of major diarrhea and feels she is leaving Africa with intestinal worms, left today. She lived next door with Lynn and spent my first week in bed watching DVD’s and drinking Energyaid (similar to Gatorade).

It was lovely to be back with the small babies. They all stopped by for a little hello and cuddle and Paprika even had her first massage and nap.

As I had mentioned, my mission is to contribute to the areas that caused me concern or which benefited me when I arrived – the communal food organization, the shower, the laundry line and the extra clothes. Today, with the laundry line empty for the first time in weeks, I was able to clean the lower deck as assigned. YAAAH!.

Bottles at 11 showed me that after 10 days on location, I still did not have all the details in my head. I had made larger than necessary bottles for the small babies and fed them in the wrong order. Not that much of deal, except if you give them the food first, they have no interest in the bottles. Early on, Sara had asked if I had any suggestions about their set up for volunteers, and I will bring up this topic.

SIX ELEPHANTS! They were drinking at the river and when I had them in my binoculars, I could hear their sounds from where I was. Without seeing them, I don’t believe the sounds that they were making would have registered to my ears.

I spent some time with Charlie, the Samango, and I can now recognize his unique call. He is still incredibly handsome, which I tell him, every time I see him. I

I have been trying to figure out how to describe the call that the large male baboons make when they are excited. It sounds like WAHOO with an emphasis on the WAH and the hoo is very much an after thought.

I also make a special effort to say Hi to Naked Guy every time I pass him and tell him he is handsome, the meer cats (2 of them and very cute) and the ground squirrel.

FOSTER MOMS And the TINIES

Currently, we have four ladies who are acting as foster mom’s to the tiniest babies; Lee, who is staff, with Elle (who is long and elegant and only 10 weeks of age), Sarah, who is staff, with Icarus and Tortilla (Icarus is 11 weeks, Tortilla is 10 weeks), Kim with Corey (who is 4 weeks) and our birthday girl, Lynn with Mica (4 weeks). People who stay a longer time receive babies to foster, as you need to spend lots of time with them early. Both, Lynn and Kim are staying at least two months. When the tinies are 6 months, they may be ready to go into an existing baby pen. This group, if more babies come, may become their own troop and the current older pens may move up.

There is one pen that we call the nursery and typically, each of the foster moms will spend several hours in the pen watching all the babies. The mom’s that are not there will leave a shirt of sweater with their scent so that if the baby stresses when they are away, they can lay on it and smell the mom. When the baby is really stressed they will flatten themselves on the shirt as much as possible. When the babies are with us in the house, they all wear little preemie nappies with a hole cut in the butt for the tail to stick out. When they are in the pen, most of them go without diapers. They are very cute with the little nappies on.

Early in the relationship, the foster mom and baby are on light duties so that babies can bond with the mom. At this point, the schedule looks a little out of balance, but when you consider that they are up, sometimes all night with a baby who wants to play, you soon realize that any extra work that comes your way is easier than what they go through in the beginning. Lynn lives next door to me and the walls are not solid, but I almost never hear the baby during the night.

Today, was my first day to really spend time with the nursery babies. They generally have stranger anxiety until they get to know you and for the first hour, they did a perimeter check and gave me a wide berth. Finally, with Alethia, who they knew a little better, they were finally coming over to me and counting coo. A new foster baby arrived today at 6 weeks of age and Pam is the new foster mom. She has named him Kiyoshi in honor of her grandfather. By the second hour, Lee arrived with the lady who brought in Kiyoshi and finally, little Icarus was coming over and flopping on the

Miscommunication with Sara from staff today about my final assignment with Medium Babies. The third person for ship was in small babies and I offered to trade with her for a while so that they could do ship. I also admit, that I prefer the smalls, but I intended to go back as soon as they had finished in the medium’s pen.

Today was had a BBQ for Lynn’s birthday which would include chicken, corn on the cob and sausage on an wood fire pit BBQ. Before the BBQ, Sarah asked Gemma and I to go get the crate from the mamba kitchen. It was getting dark so off we went with our flashlight to find it. We came back empty handed and were told to look for a rectangular grate with legs on it. We went back again and were still empty handed. Luckily, Lee arrived and said it was in a different location and it did not have feet. Ah! Communication.

I was on dish clean up tonight which was a large number of dishes, but as I not had many shifts as this, I felt it was fair. I had lots of people wanting to help me, so they did my part of clearing the table and putting things away, the part of clean up that I don’t like.

Wednesday, September 6

7:00 Bottles
7:45-9:00 Small Babies
10:00 Monitor
11:00 Upper Deck and lounge
1:00 Medium Babies
4:30 Ship

Pam was in the throws of new mommydom, so I monitored by myself. Other workers were in the area feeding the pens, so they were stirred up as where the wild troop. At one point, two big males came chasing down the narrow corridor I was standing in and the first one grabbed at my pocket. Another example of how they are wild animals and never to be taken for granted. The nice thing about seeing the troops when they are fed is that you get a better handle on the dominance order of the groups. I am still trying to figure out by the amount of swellings and the colors if I can determine which of the females may be pregnant or at the peak of heat. Two more weeks to work it out.

Today I had the lounge clean up which is where most of the communal clothes are kept. I took them all out before I vacuumed and organized them into what needed to be pitched, laundered and what was ready for storage. In the chest of drawers, the clothes all needed to be laundered and they drawers vacuumed to remove the tons of rat turds. Another thing on my list accomplished. I just need to keep up with the clothes that are left by other departing volunteers and let Lee and Sara know where I have put things.

The vacuum! It is a shop vac and I had a bit of a time figuring out how to make the thing suck. I finally realized that there is only one way to place the top so that it seals and has a vacuum. With help from above with those with wings, I finally had it in place and began to vacuum. I was so enthusiastic; I managed to break the bit of attachment for the largest carpet head. I am now trying to remember where I hid the duct tape from myself so that I can repair it. I will tell Lee tomorrow.

Even with not much sleep last night due to the late evening and the soon to be full moon, I had a good day.

Thursday, September 7

8:00 Clean up
9:00 Crates
10:00 Medium Babies
11:00 – 2:00 Break and signs
2:00 Monitor
3:00 Small Babies
4:00 Bottles

Let’s see, besides hitting a co-volunteer in the head with a rock, not much else happened today. It was when we were giving Big Babies their bottles, and they are notorious for escaping into the tree house with bottles and nipples and not giving them back, that I pitched a rock to encourage one to drop the bottle and caught Catarina on the side of the head. No blood and she was very generous to accept my apology.

We are still having issues with Star in Small Babies, our ADHD candidate, who is becoming very aggressive with the other cages and getting herself bitten and therefore bites us. We have been told when she bites, we are supposed to hold her close and give her positive attention and/or try to distract her with grooming, cuddles or food. As I entered the pen, she was on the ledge being pulled by 4 from the medium babies. When I finally got her away, I took her over to the water pool and tried to calm and hug her. She did not bite me, but fought to get away. Immediately, she was back up the tree and doing it again. I retrieved her again and offered her a potato. Once down on the ground, she went up for the third time and I went to retrieve her and this time, once given food, she settled and began to eat and play with the others.

She was fine for another 25 minutes, and then she had one more trip up to intimidate the neighbors, so I brought her back down and offered her a potato. Finally, when she was playing with others, I gave her the play face and she jumped at me and I swung her around and played for a minute. I think she will be fine if she can just continue to receive consistent treatment from the volunteers. My estimation of Star is that she is highly anxious, is nervous with too many people in the pen, is typical ADHD and easily distracted and that you have got to think ahead for her, because she acts off her spinal cord. Most of the more experience volunteers know when and how to intervene, but the new people are still intimidated and do more screaming than effective movements. If people cannot handle her appropriately, they will not be able to monitor the small babies.

Kim, one of our volunteers who has ADD, told me the following joke – How many ADHD does it take to change a light bulb? Let’s ride bikes!

There was a bit a drama for one of the young volunteers from the UK who was taking it personally that the baboons would not come to her to be cuddled or carried in at the end of the day. I remember feeling that way with human babies and I know now that you cannot force them. They will pick who they pick and they will come to people that they know and people with calm energy. Making them wrong and announcing to one and all what a failure you are will not turn the situation around.

The new item on the list for me today was putting up the newly painted signs on some of the individual cages. I had the signs, but needed the handsaw, drill and adapter with power to accomplish my task. I also had several, but not enough, pieces of wire, and pliers to twist the ends together. (NOTE TO SELF – Don’t tell people that you know how to work with wire!) It took a while to gather all the supplies and glean additional bits of wire needed to hold them to the fence. The drill had a bit with the longest shank I have ever seen. After all was said and done, I realized that I had miscounted and had forgotten to do the sign for Colin. At least tomorrow, I know where all the equipment is and should be able to do it quickly given an hour off from my regular scheduled duties.

Also today, Josephine, the cleaner who works for Rita, came up to the Mountain Lodge and gave the kitchen a really good clean. Around lunchtime, Rita came up with I think the architect who will remodel the lodge for future volunteers. I can’t wait to see or hear about all the improvements. I hope they figure out a way to get rid of the rats, which is my main issue at this point.

I am at the stage of this placement where I am feeling the strain of the community and never being able to get away from them. Chain link fences surround all of our houses and areas and you begin to wonder, who is in the cage. We are not encouraged to go into the bush with out company as we are in a game reserve that includes all the wildlife, even the carnivores. I have been here for 14 days and have not had even a half - day off, and I most likely will not get one, except for the day excursion to Kruger one weekend. I find the age and inexperience of some of the volunteer team a challenge. I keep asking for a new way at looking at things and the words that will get my needs met without burning any bridges. This will be my mantra for the next two weeks.

Friday, September 8

7:00 Bottles
8:00 Dogs
9:00-11:00 Small babies
12:00 Lower deck
1:00 Medium Babies
2:00 Monitor
3:00-5:00 – Nursery Babies

Another breezy, overcast day which was nice.

Not a lot new today. Josephine has been designated at the manager for the Mountain Lodge. Yesterday she totally cleaned the kitchen and it is a sight to see. Today she attacked the lower deck with hose and scrub brush. She ended up doing my assigned duties for Noon so I took the time to finally get Colin’s sign up on his cage. I could not find the drill and suspected that Bennet had it with him. Cleverly I brought the sign with me and sure enough, he had the drill and a power source. Colin’s sign went up in less than 15 minutes. YAAAH! Completion.

The Tinies still do no more than come up and touch me, but I have hope by the time that I leave they will accept me.

Star is still having issues, but we have noticed that she is not the instigator, just a willing participant. The other pen gets up at the grill, usually 5-6 of them, and flash their eyes and she responds. I had to remove her 9 times before she finally settled. She ended up really biting me, so I pined her down, and within 5 minutes had forgiven me and was back on my lap with a potato.

Tomorrow, I was supposed to cook, so I was planning how to get the noodles cooked for tuna noodle casserole during the day. What I learned at dinner was that we were going to be treated to a proper South African Bri (BBQ) so I am off the hook to cook until Monday.

I go to Kruger with Charlotte on Sunday that will be a welcome break from work and CARE for one day. I won’t have to wear my contacts that will be good as my eyes are getting a little tired. One more day of work and then my first photo safari!

Saturday, September 9

7:45 Small Babies
9:00 Crates
10:00-11:00 Medium Babies
11:00 Bottles
Noon Monitor
1:00 Dogs
2:00-3:00 Medium Babies
3:00 Tidy crates
4:00 Bottles

Hello to Alice from Toronto today.

Long day today with lots of things to do. Two shifts of medium babies with the standard two Violet and Caley vying for my lap. Violet was named because her face was so bruised by the mom dropping her from height before they managed to get her away. My second shift found them both on my lap, Violet napping and Caley being ridiculous until she finally bit a co-volunteer and then 7 minutes before my shift was up, finally fell asleep on my chest. Just as I was leaving I had four, two asleep and two trying to be groomed or massaged. One of them was Alice, the pickpocket and chubby girl. I try to tell them to get in early to get their massages but some times their schedules are such that they cannot manage it.

Huge monitor lizard walked down the hill between the lower house and cages towards the river. Four times the size of the ones on Kangaroo Island. Very impressive and the baboons thought so too and they all went to the side of the cage where they could see him. They are very curious and nosey and know what is going on around them at all times.

Monitoring today by myself with no dramas. Charlie is still handsome and I have officially named the two babies, one in each troop. The one in Sindle that had been born 10 days before I arrived is Elf and the new baby in Bip Bop is Button. Both little girls and mighty sweet.

A list of things that the baboons will be offered to eat include sweet potato, bell peppers, bread, apples, cabbage, melon or pumpkin and occasionally other assorted fruits and veggies. In the milk kitchen there are also peanuts, hard corn kernels, nuts and sometimes little candies such as gummy worms. Also in the milk kitchen are eggs (19 twice a day) that are filled with vitamin supplements and are given to the elderly baboons.

The new item on the list today was tidy the crate area or the food shed area. As we receive different foodstuffs on a daily basis, there are usually different food scrapes on the floor. Today we were raking up the huge outer cabbage leaves and bread remnants. Those were loaded into crates and then taken outside the compound and given to the wild troop to eat.

After that task, we had a mountain of boxes to be cut down and stacked neatly. It was obvious that this procedure had not been done in a long time and in fact, there is a huge garbage pile to be taken to the dump as soon as the schedule will allow. My co-volunteers were not enthusiastic participants in the box destruction, as we would unearth large cockroaches and other crawlies. (IF THEY WOULD WEAR CLOSE TOED SHOES INSTEAD OF FLIP FLOPS, IT WOULD BE HELPFUL!) We made a small dent in the pile and there will most likely be more tidy assignments in the future.

I am pooped today after work and grabbed the first shower and threw away my disposal contacts that I have been wearing for two weeks. YAAAH!

Tonight is the bbq called a Braai and include Pap, the corn maize mush that is standard South African fare. I had hoped for an early night, as I will be on the road at 6:30 tomorrow for my first photo safari! We will see.

Gemma leaves tomorrow when I am away and Alethia leaves on Monday. Alethia has been down and out for the past two days with a stomach bug but hopes to be back in action tomorrow. I will miss both these ladies, as they are very positive people and excellent workers

Sunday, September 10 – DAY OFF AND I GO TO KRUGER AND DON’T HAVE TO WEAR MY CONTACTS! YAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!

Hello to Leilani from Moscow, Idaho today.

6:30 am start

I was up at 6 to be ready to be picked up at 6:30 by Davi, our guide who is also a local volunteer at CARE.

We had been warned that it might be cool, so I wore my fleece and took my jacket. I did not need the later and was out of my fleece at 9:00 am. Our vehicle was an old jeep with canvas cover over the roll bar. The front passenger seat was very comfortable and included a sheepskin. The back seat had a seat about 8 inches deep with an extra cushion on top trying to make it longer and failing miserably. Charlotte and I agreed to change at each of the four planned stops, mainly to relieve the bum, but also to increase your chances of seeing things as the view from the back was minimal to the front and limited at the sides.

We stopped at the petrol station for the ATM and to stock up on treats for the trip. Once we were in Kruger, we would not be able to get out of the vehicle except at the designated stops. Kruger is a 50,000 hectares park that runs along the Eastern perimeter of South Africa near Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Recently, Mozambique added another 40, 000 hectares for a combined park. Admission was $120 rand, not quite $20.

The first things that I noticed was the number and size of the termite mounds. They are huge, twice the size of the ones in Australia. Davi said that they were grass-cutting termites and that the mound is like an iceberg with only the top 1/3 above ground. He also said that many animals use the mounds for various things including the elephants that will rest next to them and lean on them so that they can sleep standing and supported. Very impressive.

My wish was to see elephants, giraffes, zebras, hippos and as many other things as possible. The “Big 5”, from the Great White Hunter Days is the Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Cape Buffalo and the Rhino. There is also the “Small 5” which is the Lion???, Leopard Tortoise, Elephant ???, Buffalo???? and the Rhinoceros Beetle. (Not much hope of seeing any of them, but who knows!)

On the way to the first stop we saw 13 bachelor African Elephants. They are truly the most amazing animals. Magnificent and huge, elegant and slow moving, it was fascinating to see their tracks on the road and on the dirt shoulder and to watch their hind feet hit the exact same spot that their front foot as just left. I wished we had the chance to just sit and watch them, but not today. Charlotte, who had been in Botswana last year, had already done a safari and was excellent at spotting animals in the bush. She spotted our first giraffe across the river and the only zebras we saw for the entire day were far off and in the bush. I could not see them properly and they only appeared as dark figures, could have been zebra, could have been deer.

Davi told us that there are over 100,000 Impala in Kruger and they are the main food source for all the carnivores. We came across them all during the day, usually in small groups hiding in the shade. It was 32 degrees Celsius today, hot and very sunny.

Our first stop was at a one of the “camps” which is a fenced compound with a shop, restaurant and little huts with air conditioners that people can rent like hotel rooms. It looked very civilized and a little commercial. It had a large shop with lots of souvenirs and foodstuffs, as people had a choice of self-catering or eating at the restaurant. I took a picture of the stands of the plant “mother’s in laws tongue” that people buy in the shops in the US. I got in the back at this point.

As we proceeded down the road, I could tell that there were some large, dark animals in front of us. They turned out to be four very large Cape Buffalo Bulls. Known for the nasty temper, we weren’t sure if they would charge us or not, but they ended up posing for photos and then moving along the side of the road.

As we went down yet another bumpy dirt road towards an overlook over the Oliphant’s River (which is the same river that runs next to CARE), we finally came upon a female elephant herd with several calves and two large males, one obviously in Muste with the glands on his head draining. Davi was not comfortable with the bull so we moved. There were several cars that were getting way to close for comfort and Davi told us the time that he was in a seriously dangerous situation with an elephant and her calf. I must admit, I wanted to be able to stop and stay put and just enjoy them for a long time. I could hear them eating and munching and it was a soothing sound. Maybe when I am at the Lion Park, I will be able to go on another safari and we will have more time to spend in one place.

I asked Davi to point out the two most famous trees that I have heard so much about – the acacia and the baobab tree. The Acacia was just beginning to bloom and you can usually tell them apart and they are the ones with the amazingly long and sharp thorns. The Baobab tree has a massive trunk and branches that at this time of the year look absolutely bare. All the animals know that this a tree that can be a resource for them and the elephants love to eat the bark as well as the leaves. Very impressive

We were on the hunt along the river for the hippos. They can sometimes be seen by CARE, but only when the water is deeper with many pools for them to bath in. As we approach one river lookout, there they were! 4 hippos, one getting a sun tan and flat out on her side on the beach, one in the water and heading away from us and two that were climbing out of the water an beginning to graze. They were very cute and I was so happy to see them.

We were close to out lunch break at another camp with a high river lookout. As we exited the jeep, I heard a sound and wondered what I had heard. As I went around the jeep, it turned out to be Charlotte who was ill and very likely suffering with either dehydration or many a minor tummy upset due to too many baboon fingers in her mouth. Poor sweetie. She felt embarrassed and awful at the same time. We brought her bottled water and Gatorade and had her lay down in the shade on a bench.

Davi and I got a little lunch and I bought postcards and then went to over look the river. At one point, there were more hippos in view. One that I could only see the ears, eye sockets and nostrils. I think he was winking at me.

On the whole, the animal sightings that we saw were minor compared to what they can be on other days. Unfortunately, with only one day in the park, we were only able to see what we saw.

Charlotte in the front as we left the lunch stop, which I said was fine, but that I was not willing to spend the entire rest of the trip in the backseat. As Charlotte was in the front, I asked her to please draw giraffes closer to the car for us, as I had not been able to get a good shot of the only one we had seen so far. Within 5 minutes, two lovely Giraffes, on my side of the vehicle, were munching and posing for photos. FABULOUS!

After that, I asked Charlotte to please do the same thing with the zebra. No luck with zebra, but we did have positive sightings of a huge elephant herd on the horizon, a lovely Kudu buck with curling horns and very close sightings of the Yellow Beaked Hornbill and the African Fish Eagle.

Our final stop and potty break was at a location where guides sometimes bring you to a sight were there are archeological remnants of iron ore processing and spearhead manufacturing. The local guide had closed up shop for the night, but it was nice to potty and to finally get back into the front seat. On the door to the toilet, it asked you to please keep the door closed, as the baboons are very curious. I looked at the handle and after my experience at CARE now that it will take more than a closed door to keep them out.

No additional animals spotted on the way out of the park but we did see three stripped mongooses on the road up to CARE and a tree squirrel like we have at the center. We arrived back at CARE at 5:20 pm we are pooped and hot.

As I got back to my room, I looked at the calendar and I realized that although it is hard to believe, that I leave in 11 days.

Entry # 28 – Arriving in South Africa – August 24

Thursday, August 24 – First day in Africa and a new continent

Obviously as we left late, we arrived late, 1.5 hours to be exact at 8:20 am. It was a much better flight with plenty of legroom. I arrived feeling much better able to attend to the day and at this point, felt I probably could have been able to go directly to the baboon sanctuary.
I had plenty of time, as my next flight did not leave until 4 in the afternoon so I took it slow. We were shuttled via bus from the aircraft to the terminal and I got to step on to my next continent. At this point, I only have Antarctica left on my list and then I will have been on each of them at least once. YAAAH! No real impression of the smell or feel of Africa from this brief encounter. Airports around the world smell the same – airline fuel and diesel, dust and concrete.

Early errands included exchanging money, going to the ATM, breakfast, looking for the luggage storage and seeing if I could find internet. The luggage storage was in the international terminal and would end up costing around $4 per day. I had determined it was going to be worth it, as I would be flying very small commuter planes to Phalaborwa with strict 20 k limits.

In South Africa, the porters wear orange coveralls with numbers on them and they are very helpful if you are in a hurry or don’t know where you are going. Godfrey helped me get from the international to the domestic terminal and was very nice. It was not that far so I knew that I could get back there once I had sorted and recombined my luggage later in the day. The domestic terminal is very modern and nice with the loveliest inlays in the floor in the colors of the earth, browns, reds, and yellows.

They had a wonderfully convenient internet/post office/phone store called the postnet that had wireless hookup. A good thing to know, as I will be in the terminal several times before I leave. At the postnet I confirmed my room for the night at the B&B in Phalaborwa which I not managed to do on the web, bought stamps and called Annie.

My flight in the afternoon was on a Jet stream 44 with seats in the 1 X 2 configuration with about 25 seats. I had a single seat and tried to see the view, but it was coming on dusk and we flew above the clouds most of the way. A one-hour flight and I was picked up by Daan and Xena’s B&B, only 5 minutes from the airport. Phalaborwa is very small, a copper mining town in the middle of nowhere and close to Kruger Park, full of wildlife. The B&B is painted in wild colors and was charming and clean. They have many dogs, Rotties mostly who are very overweight and friendly. I was very pleased to be in my room by 6:30 as I was beginning to fade. The bed felt wonderful and I went to sleep. Woke at 1pm, and took a sleeping pill.

Friday, August 25 – Arriving at the baboon placement

A great breakfast prepared me to be picked up by Lee from CARE (Center for Animal Rehabilitation and Education) at 10am. Lee had some errands in town such a food shopping and banking and picking up a piece of pipe to fix the water system that had been destroyed by an elephant recently. We are still in the winter here and food supplies are not very lush right now. The center has had a visiting elephant twice is the last 3 weeks who has destroyed two cages and evacuated the contents. All of the monkeys except one have been retrieved

During our 40-minute drive to CARE I could see that locally the terrain was mainly low rolling hills with under brush and no many trees.

The staff and volunteers that are currently at the center include:

Rita Milgo – founder from 1980, Dutch and very nice. We don’t have a lot of direct contact with her, but she is always around.
Lee – originally from Zimbabwe is Rita’s right hand person and very knowledgeable
Sarah Denny – is originally from Ireland and has been on site, off and on, for at least two years.
??? - There is another staff member, a man who is currently sitting in the bush with a recently released troop. I may get to meet him before this ends.
There are also around 10 other South Africans that work on the grounds and do all the heavy maintenance and cleaning and feeding of all the major enclosures.

The work that is handled by the volunteer includes preparing bottles and food for the babies, playing and entertaining the adolescents and cleaning their area and pens, monitoring troops for behavior, sectioning out food for the rest of the compound and anything else that we are requested to do.

The current team of 8 includes – 2 Portuguese girls in their 20’s, Gemma from England, Kim from Laguna Beach, 50 and on her second trip within 3 months, Lynn from St. Louis for 6 weeks, Sara (who was ill when I arrived, so I don’t have a good feel for her and who she is), Aletheia, a zoology student originally from Seattle but studying in Scotland, Pam a research zoologist who is planning for vet school.

Most of us are housed in the Mountain Lodge – a two-story house on the top of the hill before you descend into the compound and go down towards the river. I am on the upper level that has three bedrooms and a toilet and a lovely screen porch that faces the river. My bedroom is wart hog and has two beds with mosquito netting tents over them. The other bedrooms are the hippos and cheetahs and the toilet is the zebra. The lower level has one additional bedroom, kitchen, toilet and sink, outside shower that is walled and the laundry lines.

Other buildings or compounds on site include the feed shed, milk kitchen, mamba kitchen, baby hok’s (more on this later) and individual and troop baboon enclosures. Currently 14 troops are ready for release. More on releases later.

In addition to the baboons, Rita and staff look after the following animals that have come under their care including 1 tree squirrel (about the size of chipmunk), 2 meer cats or suricats (just as cute as they appear), (and a partridge in a pear tree… just kidding) and samango monkeys. The samango’s are hard to describe other than they walk on all fours, have a very long tail and their hair forms a curtain around their bodies. Charlie, the largest male is very handsome and approaches the edge of the cage so that we can get a better look.

Other wildlife outside the pens includes two troops of baboons called the long tits (total number uncounted but probably at least 120 animals) wart hogs and vervet monkeys. Imagine to my surprise the first time I exited the milk kitchen to find 2 wart hogs among the baboons eating the scrapes that had been thrown out the door. They are more afraid of us than we are of them and are funny when they run away, their tail is held straight up like an antenna. The Vervet monkeys are similar to the samango’s in style of hair and length of tail, but they are much smaller in size and lighter in color. The males are very distinctive in that their scrotum is robin egg blue and their penis is bright red. The Vervet Monkeys was another placement I was considering, but they would not have been as hands on as the baboons.

Elephants have recently been foraging for food and have destroyed two cages and let the inhabitants out. This has necessitated the installation of electric fences around all of the main structures. All of the animals have been retrieved except for one female that was old enough to be on her own. This is one of those necessary but not anticipated expenses that have to be paid, but cause a strain on the resources.

From the sight of the little dark droppings, we have LOTS OF RATS! In my bedroom on the top floor, the ceiling is thatch and as you sit on the toilet, at times, a little head pops out to stare at you. My understanding is that the thatch will be removed in an effort of get rid or reduce the rats. Lee had said that mosquitoes would be my least worry. I didn’t know she meant rats would be our main worry.

After I had made up my bed and had gotten organized, I went down to the baby hok (hok is the name from cage in one of the South African language) to get my first experience with the youngsters.

As we were moving between the pens, a large male from the wild troop called Colin during his first attack of the day tried, to take Corey (aged 3 weeks) from Kim, his human foster mother’s pouch with his teeth. Later in the day, Kim was walking with a baby bottle exposed (an absolute no no) and again Colin stole it and ran off with it. He has been a persistent problem and they plan to dart him and relocated him into the wild.

The hoks are a unit of 5 pens – two large ones that are very high for the oldest juveniles with three smaller pens in front of them. They all have interconnecting doors that can serve as air locks if you are moving supplies into one of the more populated pens. I was in the middle small pen with the tiniest babies - Icarus, Tortilla, Elle (between 8-11 weeks of age), Corey (3 weeks of age) and visitor – Roxy from the medium juveniles. All of these, except Roxie, have a surrogate mother who carries them around, bottle feed them and are generally with them 24-7

At the end of the shift, after I had learned about baboon language such as lip smacking, eye flashing, presenting and aggressive vs. submissive fear responses, I got to help carry one of the babies in from the pen for the night. This was a special treat as not everyone gets to do this. It all depends if the baboons accept you. I am obvious in!

Dinner will usually be late, 7:30 or so, but tonight, we had a special treat of chicken from one of the volunteers’ special cache of food.

Bed at 8:00 – 2 sleeping pills – to get on cycle in Africa and to avoid listening for the rats.

Saturday, August 26 – First day on the job

The rats found the corner of my bag, they didn’t blast through but I will need duct tape to repair it.

I had been advised to not wear my glasses or a hat in the pens for two reasons - 1) the babies will find and break them and 2) they recognize you by your face and the glasses form a barrier. So I am in my contacts after a 9-month hiatus. We will see how the eyes hold up, as usually I only wear them with sunglasses over them.

Schedule

9:00-11 – Small babies – Think of a pen of 2 year olds left to themselves and you will see why at least two people are needed to keep an eye on 9 baboons. There are tires, toys, swings, ramps, tree stumps and a ledge to launch yourself off onto the head of the unsuspecting volunteer. Not listed in the enkosini literature, but I will suggest that they add it, is the importance of hooded jackets in these pens. The babies arrive from above when you least expected it and as their balance is not always stellar, your hair is their anchor to hold on to. If they can’t find your hair, sometimes you find a hand in your mouth, up your nose, in your eyes or your ears. There are 5 pens that share a common wall, so as I sit with the littles, I am looking into a larger pen with sub adults charging around and to my right is the tiny babies where I was yesterday. To the right to the tinies are the medium size babies and behind them is another large pen of juveniles.

At one point, Lee’s wrap that she uses to carry her tiny with her had been pulled into the sub adult pen by the dominate female, Cricket. Cricket is quite the fashion model of the troop and wrapped it like a sarong at one point, or would sit with it draped over one shoulder or over her head. Finally, you would look across and it would appear as a pennant streaming behind her as she raced all around her pen. My special friends in order of appearance were Mr. Stubbs, Oros, and Paprika. I was not well liked by Nigel or Star this visit, but I have been told this can change day to day. Valentine was attacked by wild male through the bars and bitten on the nose. There was quite a bit of noise and some blood. She needed lots of cuddles after that.

11:00 bottles – Some of the sets of babies get three bottles a day, others only two. There are bottles to be made, distributed, recollected and then washed. At different times of the day, we also cut up additional food for them.

Noon lunch – usually left over. The food situation is a little strange in that what CARE buys appears very limited and the volunteers supplement with lots of personal groceries. It is hard to know what is communal and what isn’t. More on this later.

1:00 orientation – Sarah, the Irish volunteer who has been her 4 times and is the foster mom of both Icarus and Tortilla, gave me the tour. She is the staff person who makes up the schedule and knows a lot about this placement. She took me to all the different sectors. I also got to meet Mr. Naked, a mature male baboon who has some type of skin disorder and has lost all of his hair. He looks like a martian or one of the Mexican hairless dogs that I say in Peru. Very handsome and rather chiseled without all that hair in the way.

2:00 bottles – At this rate, I will be an expert at bottles soon.

3:00 monitoring – Pam is my monitoring buddy as our troops are in Sector 3. This section is out of sight of the main campus and we must always travel in pairs, as the wild troop can be very close at times. We can see the river from our enclosures and I keep hoping to see in elephant. My two 2 troops are Sindle and Bip Bop. Sindle (which means survivor) has two stunning examples of the subspecies of the Chacma Baboon that appear yellow. This is small troop and the individuals are easier to identify. The Bip Bop troop is large, about 18 individual and I did not even bother to watch them the first day as we only had an hour for both troops.

4:00 Small babies – It was fun to go back and have the babies remember me and be happy to see me.

5:00 carry the babies in and put them in cages

As we entered the milk kitchen to deposit the last of the babies in their pens for the night, Lee appeared with a female baboon that she thought had tetanus. Her name is George Bush. I got to help give an IV injection with the tetanus antitoxin. She looks pretty bad, but they have had luck with this serum before. It is from Germany, as the South African manufacturer only makes a batch every 10 years and they are currently out.

During the day, all of the thatch was removed from our ceiling. We hope that this will dramatically reduce the number of rats. There a little bits of thatch everywhere, but we will clean daily and continue to pick up. I am looking forward to a night with fewer rats.

Sunday, August 27

I was awake in the middle of the night and heard the rats, not as bad as before, but still around. It was too late to take a sleeping pill, so I blogged instead. I should have slept instead. I am running far behind each day and every day is so packed with things that I want to say that I am afraid I will leave something out.

George Bush did not make it through the night. She was in a really bad way yesterday, but they had experience success with the antiserum before. Rita and Lee hope to get the troops released as soon as possible, as there is tetanus in the ground and the troops will be better in the wild.

Day 2 itis struck and energy was off, voice was complaining and felt put upon today without a break for lunch. I was one of four where the schedule was like that.

Schedule

7:30 - Dogs – first time so I took them all one at a time. Sindle, the three legged one, wanted a longer walk than I could accomplish so I ended up having to carry her, which did not please her.

8:00 - Clean up – Inside in Rita’s bathroom, three pens are set up daily to house most of the small babies. During this shift, you load out all the pens that had been brought inside over night and clean them thoroughly. I was washing all the pens outside and all the buckets with the wild troop around me. A little daunting at times as the big males came by.

9:00 - Crates – Most of the troop enclosures are fed by the staff, but there are pens with individual animals that each need food. The volunteers cut up fruit and veg for 80 crates for the individual males and 21 for the individual females. You will laugh to hear that I was cutting up huge watermelons and cabbages with a machete. Hopefully, my technique will kick in soon.

10:00 - Monitor – back to the two troops from yesterday and I will spend more time with the second troop to begin to get to know them. The first troop was not as calm as they had been the day before and one of the sequestered males in the second troop took offence at my presence.

11:00- 1:00 - Small babies – back to see my friends. Mr. Stubbs who was my best pal yesterday would not give me the time of day because of his new best friend, Pam. Luckily, Nigel became my new best friend. At one point Pam was having difficulty with Nigel who was very upset with her and was complaining loudly and Mr. Stubbs was trying to help by biting Nigel. I was trying to get Mr. Stubbs off Nigel and during the fracas, Star (who I don’t get along with yet) came over to lend her support to Mr. Stubbs and bit me on the arm. NOTE TO SELF – When they are stressed, don’t butt in!!

1:00- Bottles - Pam and I did bottles as fast as we could in order to have a short break for lunch. Aletheia heard of our plights and finished the last 20 minutes of our bottles for us. Thank you Aletheia. I stuffed down some cheese and two apples and went off again.

2:00-4:00 - Medium babies – This was my first time in with this group who weigh at least twice that of the little guys. There are 15 in this troop and immediately, Caley came over and introduced herself and also pickpocket Alice who tried every pocket, zipper and Velcro on my pants to no avail. At one point, I had Paris on my knee and Basil on the other one peeing and one wanting to be groomed.

I had a wonderful time watching Paris, a little female, with a plastic crate and a rock. She would put the rock under the crate and then lift it up to get it out. She would drop it in from above and then retrieve out of the slot for the handle. She was amazing and lovely to watch. This group has its acrobatics down and is very adept at carrying soccer balls up the ramp to the loft. At one point, they managed to find a bit of the wrap that had been stolen the day before into the larger pen and were off to the races. These animals are much heavier, much rougher in their play and less intimidated by new people.

At one point, I watched a male see that Zoey (our weight challenged girl) bending over to drink. He streaked across the entire pen and pushed her in the water. She was so furious and chased him and caught him on top of Pam’s lap. When Pam would not allow Zoey to bite him, she turned her energy and aggression against Jane who would not leave Pam’s side. Even when Pam would push Zoey off her lap, Zoey would come up under the crates Pam was sitting on and bite Jane’s tail. Finally, Pam had to seriously chastise Zoey by pining her to the ground with one arm back. Once Pam released Zoey, Zoey would get on to higher ground flash her eyes and act aggressively to Pam and Jane. Finally Zoey settled down. During all this, two of the lowest members of the troop were in my lap clinging like leeches and trying to be as small as possible.

5:00 -Carry the babies in – I ended up with only one – Flash who was a little skittish and I needed to hold both his arm and the scruff of his neck. Flash had been a lab animal and they had done surgery on him so that his eyebrows would always be raised to show him in a constant aggressive pose. Hmmmm?

I was finally going to take a shower and as cooks always get first in the shower, Jemma and I went first. The shower was out on the porch, enclosed by walls, no light and the floor was absolutely littered with partially used shampoo bottles. The wall where you might put your shampoo was covered in rat poop. My organizing brain was already deciding that what it needed beside a light was a plastic crate for all the bottles to be housed in and a rag to get rid of the rat terds.

One of the things that sort of set me off energy wise this am is that the food supplied for the volunteers appears very limited. I knew the food would be vegetarian, but I had expected a little more variety. Add on top of that that most of the volunteers has bought additional supplies that take up all the room in the fridge and cabinet. I was having a hard time locating what supplies would be available for me to use for cooking. The one item they have in abundance was frozen soup, but no crackers, no bread, nothing to serve with it. I finally thought that maybe soup and deviled eggs would work. Jemma the other cook, wanted jacket potatoes (we had had mashed potatoes and stuffing the night before). So what we settled on was twice baked potatoes, two types of deviled eggs and frozen veggies.

The schedule posted on the fridge shows the two who cook and the two who clean up. I had cooked tonight, but I also appeared on the clean up schedule. The schedule was shifted so I did not also have to clean up.

Tomorrow we get three new volunteers. Hopefully, with the added bodies, we will all get lunch breaks and can spread the jobs around.