Superstars, Part 1

There is a definite hierarchy here, and the volunteers have vastly unequal status. Some of the young people have committed to being here for months, if not years. So with their demonstrated conscientiousness, they are given the responsibility for the more needy, the more delicate, the rarer, and the most valuable babies.

Being assigned a baby is no little thing, and considerable status--together with the to-be-expected rivalries, jealousies, and hurt--attaches to the type of baby one is assigned to.

To give you an idea, MY babies--as by far the most recent (I'd like to say "junior," but given that none of the other volunteers have celebrated their 21st birthdays yet, that would be ridiculous) volunteer, are a baby squirrel, two baby canaries, and, if I'm closely supervised, two warthogs.

So I'm going to introduce the superstars, both the babies and volunteer "mamas." First up is Melmin the baby giraffe and her mama Jamie. Jamie is 19 years old and is from Capetown. She will be training to be a veterinary nurse when she finishes here in a couple more months' time.

Melmin Up Close and Personal

Melmin (apparently named after the giraffe in the movie Madagascar) is today celebrating her four WEEK birthday. She is clumsy, timid, playful, and silly, but she is so beautiful it's hard to imagine what she wouldn't be forgiven!





I'm hoping to draw her soon, but in the meantime will have to settle for giving her birthday smooches.

Welcome to the neighborhood

Upon arrival, I was shown my "room," which was designed for three people, but I have it pretty much to myself. It's like a dorm room, with three single beds, and a bathroom with two sinks, two showers, and lots of storage space.
 
My first morning here, I found I also had a roommate, whom I found resting under a blanket that fell off my bed. He is a good-sized toad, and I hear that he's been evicted several times. He always returns, I prefer not to know how.

Incidentally, it would be hard to overstate how little one needs an extra blanket here. Haven't seen a thermometer (except for those in the animal clinic) but I doubt whether it gets cooler than 60 any time.

It has a grass roof amazingly like my little house in Cambodia, but this one has the added luxury of electricity--24/7, more or less.

Immediately outside my door is a series of very large pens. My nearest neighbor is Bullet, who purrs outrageously loud whenever I walk by UNLESS I happen to walk by when he's having his dinner, in which case he's far less hospitable. Bullet, incidentally, is a full grown cheetah.

The pen to his left is occupied by three half-grown cheetah cubs, who are also grand champion purrers. I understand I'm going to have the chance to meet them sans fence soon, and I'm looking forward to that.

On the other side of Bullet live three ominous looking hyenas. ONE of them, Looma, is hand-raised and wags his tail like one of the friendliest denizens of Bark Park and begs to be scratched through the fencing. However, another of the hyenas has a cute trick of luring one to the fence only to turn nasty at first opportunity. I can't for the life of me tell them apart, so I've decided against scratching Looma or any other hyena. These guys have some wild parties at night, though, and sound really freaky. Incredibly loud.  Listen to this:  

The stunning photograph, incidentally, is of 
my doorframe as I cowered inside listening to
these skin-crawling sounds.  I did become used to them eventually, but they always created a weird 
counterpoint to my complacent midwestern American dreams.  Sometimes, when the hyenas got really overwrought, the lions would start roaring too.  But I never got that recorded.

So. That's the neighborhood.

Guest Blogger

Ann reports that she is incredibly busy feeding and re-feeding animals (Note:  A gut wrenching nightmare of epic proportions for her.), combined with the fact that the internet service in the middle of nowhere Africa is, shall we say, a wee bit dodgy.

Nonetheless, she was able to send some photos as well as some videos by uploading them before she went to bed and retrieving her iPad when she awoke.

Here's one of a hyena.




And here she is with one of her charges, Bullet the Cheetah.





A New Friend And then there's this vicious lion attack.

Arrival at Moholoholo (pics to follow)

I was picked up at the Huidspruit airport, a rather sumptuous sort of place, I guess because so very many wealthy hunters arrive there to hunt at some of the many private game reserves around here--more about THAT later!

The guy who picked me up, Jan (pronounced Yahn) sounded a lot like the Dutch accents I'd heard in Amsterdam. No surprise there; he is Afrikaans. More about THAT later! Jan seemed serious, well-informed, and reticent though helpful. How's this for a startling moment?

I hopefully asked him whether they ever got any elephants into the Center, and he cheerfully replied that, why, yes, they had in fact gotten one in that very day! And the staff was cutting it up for meat at that very moment! Was I up for cutting up some meat?

When I declined the invitation, I think he sensed some distaste on my part and went on to explain that there are way too many elephants in this part of Africa. Most of this area is swallowed up by private game reserves, whose bread and butter is providing trophies for big game hunters.

So some hero got himself a big bull elephant, took whatever parts he wanted for a trophy, and the rest gets sold by the preserve to the Rehab Center. The Center is glad to have the quantity AND high quality meat. In fact, some of the guys are STILL working on it as I write this (Friday).

Short answer: no LIVE elephants here. Babies do occasionally arrive, but their care is highly specialized, and they are transferred to some sanctuary that does elephants specifically.

There IS a very cute young rhino here, goes by the name of Ollie. I haven't gotten a good picture of him yet, because every time I'm near him, I'm on high alert because he likes to play by ramming me. Thank goodness Aramis doesn't have a horn on HIS forehead, or I'd always be banged up!

More--much more--later!

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!