Khalula: Part Three

This is my last blog from South Africa. I seriously cannot believe it. These four weeks have flown by and I just want to rewind and do it all over again, or just stay here forever (just kidding Mom!). I’ll get back to this in a minute, but I have so much to fill y’all in on!

On Friday, after I uploaded that last blog, we went to the Sudwala Caves. They were gorgeous! Plus, it was very interesting learning about the Swazi people who once inhabited those caves. The part of the caves though was the fish spa. I was absolutely dying because I am so ticklish. The fish would come right up to your feet/ lower leg and just start nibbling. If there were a large amount on you, which was the case for me, it ended up feeling like a vibrating sock or something. Here, look at them! 

It ended up being just a fun, relaxing day, which was exactly what I needed. Then on Saturday, we went to the local pub and restaurant for lunch! It was Liz’s birthday. Liz is actually my bunkmate! I love that girl. We had so much fun out on the patio and the food was pretty good! Petronel also made us play a little game of “who can spit giraffe poop the farthest”. I had giraffe poop in my mouth! It wasn’t that bad though, and I wasn’t even that good at the game. After lunch, Sam, our project manager who is from Ireland, put on some Irish drinking songs and everyone got up and started dancing. I love this group; we have so much fun together.

Then on Sunday, I went to Kruger again! MORE ELEPHANTS! Look at this cute little duffer! 

Trust me, I have more, but I’ll have to upload them later. Now today is a big clean! We just do a deep clean of all the enclosures. Also, we are helping build a new boma for Storm, Lunar, and Didi, the three rhino. It’s going to be a long day, but it’s always nice to come into town.

I think I’m only going to be able to upload two pictures since we’re not in town for long today. I’ll upload so many more as soon as I hit the US; so get ready!

Overall, this experience has been absolutely, positively INCREDIBLE. I want to thank everyone who helped me get here, whether it was financially or even just supporting me and cheering me on. I have done things I never thought in a million years I would get to do. I have seen animals in the wild that I never thought I would ever see. So again, I seriously can’t believe this happened. I have learned about hard work, patience, and especially how to have fun and keep working even when you’re so tired you want to just curl up in your bed all day.  

The people here have made it so much easier to roll out of bed. My main girls, Samantha, Alison, Liz, Erin, Karah and Tegan are amazing and I’m going to miss them so much. Samantha is a fourth grade teacher from Colorado, Alison and Erin are in vet school at Colorado State, Liz is pre-vet at Penn State, Karah is about to start vet school at Ohio State, and y’all know Tegan, the crazy Aussie. There are 15 of us total, and only two guys, Nixon and Will. Nixon is in school in Colombia studying biology and management. He’s the nicest person I have ever met in the world and gets a lot of nose bleeds (He told me to type that, but he really is the sweetest). I’ve been helping him with his English and teaching him valuable slang words, including words such as “cray cray”, “wazup” and “yo”. Will is studying pre-vet and animal science at Cornell. He was our newest member of the rhino team and is so much fun to work with. Lucky we all get along well because we all have to share two small fridges and a tiny stove. Then there are only 8 seats at the table so we have to be really nice and share seats or stand while we’re eating. We also have our two project managers Sam, who I mentioned earlier, and Angelique is from South Africa and is absolutely wonderful. I’ll talk about the animals when I post their pictures in a couple days!

I don’t want to leave this place, the people, or the animals. I’ve been so blessed to get to experience this and travel. South Africa is a beautiful country and the province of Mpumalanga where I’ve been in this whole time, is amazing. My life has been completely put into perspective. There are so many people and animals who need our help, and it doesn’t even take that much to make a difference in someone or something’s life. Raking a rhino’s enclosure may seem disgusting and pointless, but that rhino is one of the very few left in Africa and that work is helping to keep it alive and healthy to hopefully one day contribute to the rhino gene pool. It’s the littlest things that make the biggest difference. Thanks again everyone for going on this journey with me!

Love you all,

Llewy