Arrival

     Well, I'm writing this on my second full day at Moholoholo.  I was so disoriented my first day and a half, I just couldn't manage it.  I'm starting to get my feet under me now, so I will attempt to get at least some of the things that have happened down.

      My trip over was pretty uneventful.  Even though my reservation was through KLM airlines, the flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam was on plain old Delta.  Grotesquely crowded and uncomfortable, it was quite miserable.  Amsterdam now seems a million miles away, but it certainly was a 24 hours well spent.  The highlight was meeting my cousin Gaby  (pronounced hhahhhbee, sort of).  She gave me a whirlwind tour of central Amsterdam and we even got to see some Vermeers and Rembrandts at the Rijksmuseum.  I had wanted to see canals, and I did see canals.  It was very nice, and my hotel was really nice, and everything went smoothly.
     But it was off quickly the next morning, and this time KLM WAS KLM, and the difference was amazing.  Very comfortable, wonderful food, and the most interesting flight I think that I've ever had.  Alps?  Sahara?  Saw 'em and marvelled.  Looked out the window so much I got a stiff neck.
     Arrived right on time in Johannesburg and my "guesthouse" picked me up (collected me) promptly.  It was a simple and friendly little place, and I was much entertained by the frequent flights in and out of the nearby airport.
      Back to the airport early the next morning to meet my van to Moholoholo only to find . . .
there WAS to be no van to Moholoholo!!  I was the only volunteer starting this week, so they flew me instead.  It was cheaper than having me driven up.  So, instead of a six or seven hour car ride--which I was looking forward to--I had a beautiful 45 minute flight to Huidspruit, arriving around noon.
     There's some competition for computer time here, so I'm going to sign off for now, with more interesting stuff to come!

Whoa! Hard not to take THIS one personally!

    Three weeks from today, I'll be on my way!  This morning a headline in the New York Times caught my--ahem--attention.  15,000 Crocodiles Escape from South African Farm
     Check it out!!! Here!
      Tons of rain and flooding.  Well, this will be even more interesting than I'd anticipated!!

What to do when you're not going to Kenya?

     Not going to Kenya was a blow, I can tell you, but I wanted to console myself with some sort of exciting "add-on" after my two weeks of work at the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.  Back to the internet--could there possibly be anything interesting to do near Kruger National Park in Limpopo and/or Mpumalanga provinces in South Africa?
     Why, yes, there is!  After much agonizing, I decided to go to the Otters Den Lodge not far from Moholoholo for a couple days.  It's a lodge located on an island in the Blyde River.  One has to cross a wooden footbridge to get there.  Hippopotami hang out under that footbridge.  And the final key consideration for me was that in order to stay there, one MUST book a balloon flight!  Dear oh dear oh dear, this is going to be tough!  Check it out!      http://www.ottersden.co.za/
     Hippopotami are great, but what about elephants????  I found that not so very far from Hoedspruit is a place where one can book a two hour "hand in trunk" walk with an African elephant.  Sounds a little corny--perhaps even exploitative.  Do I want to do that?  Of course I would want to do that.
     My friend Linnaea described oh-so-vividly the thrill of riding a horse into a herd of wild zebra when she was in South Africa.  Would such an adventure possibly be available nearby?  I asked the staff at Moholoholo and yes, indeed, that sort of thing is readily available.  
     Oh, OK, I think I shall be able to manage not going to Kenya--this time! 

What I won't be doing in Africa

     Somehow my friends got the impression that I have this thing about elephants.
     And as a result, all sorts of elephant-related things have come my way--wonderful artwork, clothing, jewelry, books, magazine articles, and many many forwards to my email account.  They are all very welcome, because of course my friends are right.  I wasn't aware of having a thing for elephants before I went to Cambodia (well, nothing more than a mild twinge of admiration), but it's for sure that I have one since being in Cambodia.
      One of the magazines that came my way was the National Geographic article about an orphan sanctuary for baby elephants in Kenya--The Sheldrick Foundation.  I was so very moved to read about these young elephants whose mothers have mostly fallen victim to poaching for ivory [interesting fact to stash away:  female Asian elephants don't have tusks, but female African elephants do, unfortunately for them].
     How moved was I?  Well, so moved that last year for Christmas I adopted on behalf of The Inalienables (my "group" of friends who have been mutually supportive, on a monthly basis, for nearly 20 years) a--you guessed it--a baby orphaned elephant from the Sheldrick Foundation.  Her name is Mutara, and she is a charming, talented, warm-hearted young lady.  Incidentally, each of us Inalienables has a little baby book with Mutara's baby pictures, certificate of adoption, etc. in it.  OK, OK, I am well aware that it's more than a little weird.
      But, how I longed to actually meet Mutara, and I found that WAS possible.  The Sheldrick Foundation is located not too far from Nairobi and they do allow visitors daily and special visits daily for adoptive parents.  You can be sure I checked, but they do not have the facilities to house volunteers--or that's for sure where I would be headed now.
      So . . .  I started to look into flights from Johannesburg to Nairobi and was pleasantly surprised to find that they were readily available, not all that expensive, and that, well, a visit was clearly do-able.  I planned to do that right after my two week stint at Moholoholo and counted myself very lucky.
    What I didn't know, though, was that on March 4, 2013, there will be a general election in Kenya, and I learned that election time is a bad time to visit almost any country, and "election time" includes at least a month both before and after the election.
     Mutara is just going to have to do the rest of her growing up without my supervision.

This is the place . . . . .Moholoholo!

Here's the website of the rehab center I'll be working at.  Sure hope they have some baby hippos and rhinos while I'm there!

http://www.moholoholo.co.za/WILDLIFE-REHABILITATION-CENTRE.htm

M to M to M to M to M

      Going to Cambodia was just too great an experience to be my last adventure abroad.  For the last few months, I've been thinking about another trip.  I thought of going back to Cambodia and certainly hope I can someday.  What I'd really love is to take a college ethics class there, but I don't know how likely that is.
      It seemed to me that I ought to try some other part of the world, and for some reason, Africa sounds very appealing.  One of the only things I didn't like about Cambodia was being incapable of communicating with the locals.  I've been able to pick up SOME language in other trips, but the Khmer and Bunong languages were WAY out of my league.   Well, hey!  In South Africa, almost everybody speaks English, I'm told!
     For months now, I've been going back and forth as to whether I should go to South Africa to do some more volunteer work with animals.  I'd swing back and forth between feeling so very positive about attempting to repeat the life-changing experience that was Cambodia and feeling so very self-indulgent about the expense that would be Africa.
     How to resolve such a conflict?  Well, here's how.  My last night in Cambodia I met a wonderful woman who had given herself 3 weeks at the Elephant Valley Project for a 50th birthday present, and I thought that was an amazing idea.  And now my 60th (gulp) birthday is coming up in January, so I'm going to be giving myself this trip as a 60th birthday present.  Don't know why, exactly, but that makes the decision so much easier for me.  What are birthdays for if not self-indulgence?
      So.  Now I've applied and been accepted by another British organization called the African Conservation Experience, and I've sent them my non-refundable deposit.  So . . .  I'm going.  Mid-February 2013.  Four months from now.
      I bet I'm the first person from McNaughton, Wisconsin, to go to Mondulkiri, Cambodia, back to McNaughton, and then to Moholoholo, South Africa, and, with ANY kind of luck, back to McNaughton!!!

5 months later: RUBY!

I

I know I said I made my last post five months ago, but here's great news from the Elephant Valley Project!  Take a new look at the newest EVP resident, Ruby, and read Jemma's post about her rescue.  The strange thing is that I'm almost positive I saw Ruby when Thea and I took our motorbike ride to Bausra Falls last summer!