Nsikazi: Day Two

So I finally have internet! Yay! We're pretty spoiled at this place. I was expecting more of a camping/roughing it atmosphere, but this more of a resort lodge than anything else. The next place I go will definitely not be as nice; so I’m taking full advantage of it now! 

Today was absolutely INSANE. I started out the day with a 6 AM feeding of Valentino, the orphaned white rhino. I think that is going to become part of my daily routine. If you know me well enough, you know I love to get up early! Also, the sun rises around 6:15, so I get to watch it rise as I hike back to my room from the lab/ barn. That’s something else that surprised me; the terrain is very mountainous. So the sunset and sunrise is always gorgeous watching it fall behind the hills, or come up from behind them. I’ll try to get a good picture of it tomorrow. 

Our first job of the day was to dart and work on two giraffes on a private game reserve. The reserve was about an hour and a half away, and I got to ride in a van full of Mississippi State veterinary students here volunteering as well! They were so sweet and had the BEST music selection. And again, if you know me well enough, you know that good music for me is stuff like Bieber, Spice Girls, ‘N Sync, Disney, etc. Once we got to the reserve we hopped on the back of the trucks, called “buckies” here (probably not spelling that right). They have bars lining the bed to hold onto while they drive down pretty bumping dirt roads. It’s quite the adventure. We found the giraffes and here’s a picture of the group of giraffes we found. 







The first giraffe darted was a male that had an injured hoof. There was a large wound that needed to be cleaned and dressed. The thing about darting is that once the animal is darted, it takes a little bit for the medicine to kick in. So we then have to follow the giraffe to make sure it falls over in a safe area. Well this male was not happy and ran away from us. You can see in the picture a couple of the vets and workers chasing after him. 




Right after this, we had to jump out of the truck and run after him as well!


Here they put ropes around his chest to hold him back; he was seriously inches from going into a ditch, which would have been VERY bad. Once the giraffe fell over, it was madness.





 The Miss State vet students went to town on injections, us ACE volunteers had the job of sitting on his neck, and other workers tied up the feet and had to restrain him. However, he was very unhappy obviously and kicked a lot. It was somewhat scary because those legs are very, very powerful.
This is the head veterinarian working with some Miss State students to clean out the wound. Once they were all done, the giraffe was given the anecdote to the original anesthetic and the people sitting on the neck had to get up all at once, and RUN. The giraffe got straight up and ran away. The whole thing was incredible.


 


 Our next job was to find a sick female giraffe. Unfortunately, we were not successful in finding her which is probably not good news. Here are some pictures from the buckie drive though.


From left to right: Tegan (from Australia), Kaitlyn (Cornell), me, and Celine (from Canada).

 






This private reserve was beautiful.





From the giraffes, we then made our way to dart and capture a Sable on a different private game reserve. Sadly, I did not bring my camera with me, so I can’t show you what it looked like. Google it though! They are beautiful creatures! Again, very cool and interesting. I also saw crocodiles, hippos, lots of impala, and white rhino at this reserve. 


We finally made it back to the farm around 7 PM where we made tacos for dinner! Yummm. It was a long day, but so exciting. I’m writing this now on my bed about to go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be another long day full of feeding Valentino and capturing Wildebeest! 
Love you all,
Llewy 


PS- Sorry these are so long. It was such a full day!