Khalula: Part Two

So I don’t get much time in town today because we’re only out to go see the Sudwala Caves. I’m really excited because I’ve heard they’re beautiful, but also, we get to have fish pedicures! So these fish will come up and eat all the dead skin off your feet! I’ll let you know how that goes on Monday. Also, since I’m blogging today, no blog tomorrow, and only one picture. So this was a hard choice; I went with this adorable guy. This is Suvoti, one of the baby servals. Isn’t he the cutest!

I have some more pictures of him and his sister playing with my camera strap, but you’ll just have to wait another week to see those! I took these when we had some free time one afternoon. I figured I’d fill you in on how a normal day looks around here!

Here we go:

5:30 AM- Stimulate and feed Kovu (my lion cub)

6:00 AM- Feed rhinos or start chopping fruits and veggies for the antelopes (the rhino team takes turns)

7:15 AM- Morning meeting with Petronel, the boss

7:45 AM- Clean antelope and rhino enclosures

8:30 AM- Stimulate and feed Kovu

9:00 AM- Breakfast

9:30 AM- Free time or any other miscellaneous work including, collecting bedding from the field down the road, chopping more fruits and veggies, cleaning around the farm if a group is coming to tour, etc.

11:00 AM- Feed rhinos

11:30 AM- Stimulate and feed Kovu

12:00 PM- Feed antelopes

12:30 PM- Lunch and nap

1:30 PM- Free time or chop fruits and veggies

2:30 PM- Stimulate and feed Kovu

3:00 PM- Feed rhinos

3:20 PM- Prepare night rooms for the rhinos

4:00 PM- Debrief meeting

4:30 PM- Feed antelopes

5:30 PM- Stimulate and feed Kovu

6:00 PM- Feed rhinos

6:30 PM – 9:30 PM- Dinner and free time

9:30 PM- Stimulate and feed Kovu

BED.

As you can see, it’s a pretty packed day. First thing to explain: stimulating Kovu. Lucky for me, I’m obsessed with him, so I don’t get too mad that I have to let him pee on me. However, it can get pretty gross making sure he pees and hopefully poops as well. Normally, his mother would be licking him to help him learn to urinate and defecate. Thank goodness we’re allowed to use our hands instead. Second: free time. There are quite a few times during the day where I could have 5 to 10 minutes here or there to just sit and relax, but the biggest breaks are after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We’ve spent these laying out in the grass with the lion cubs or taking pictures with other animals; it just depends on the day! Like yesterday, we had about 100 “lollies” at the center! I’ve gathered that this is what they call pre-schoolers. They were SO adorable! Sadly, they didn’t speak much English and mainly spoke Afrikaans. So they would look at you, ask a question in Afrikaans, and you would just have to smile and keep repeating, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Afrikaans.” I did some sweet face painting work though!

Yesterday was also quite an emotional day for me, since I had to say goodbye to Celine, who I have worked with at both projects. I also had to say to goodbye to a couple new great friends, Chelsea and Georgina. It was awful. And if that wasn’t hard enough, Kaitlyn, the girl from Cornell I said goodbye to last week, was in the car picking up Celine, Chelsea and Georgina. So I had to say goodbye to her again!

Once I had stopped crying, it was straight to training! We were assigned new groups (if we wanted to change). I actually decided to stay on rhino team and be co-leader with my new friend Sam who was on rhino team with me the first week. We are in charge of training our new team members how to go about that crazy schedule! There are three teams here: Cats, Others, and Rhinos. Cat team is in charge of all the big cats. We have a juvenile lion named Figa, two caracals, two servals, two baby servals, two baby caracals, and the lion cubs. I had the option of moving to cat team, but rhino team has just been too good to me. Also, cat team cuts A LOT of meat. Then their only interaction with their animals is to place the bowls in the enclosures and then collect them later. Since I’m already a lion cub mom, I felt I didn’t really need to freeze my fingers while cutting up frozen meat. This way I get to be with rhino babies still and work with the hoof stock. Khalula has actually been a good eye opener to the fact that I really enjoy large animal work. The “Others” team is in charge of the owls, tortoises, and bush babies.

I can’t believe that I’ll be home in a week and that I only have one more blog entry. It doesn’t seem real, and I feel like I just got here! I plan to get absolutely everything I possibly can out of this last week and cherish every moment.

Hopefully I’ll have more to talk about on Monday!

Miss and love you all,

Llewy