My internet free world

I am very sorry for not updating for a month. Where I am currently staying there is very little access to phones and even less to internet. But now I am in town, and finally I have the possibility to show you where I am and what I am doing... and clarify that I have not been eaten by a Lion or such.

I am in Namibia!!! Awesomeness x 100. I am staying at N/a'an ku se Wildlife Sanctuary which is really famous due to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt having stayed here and donated something like $2m., so you can always check it out if you want to via Google. Actually I dropped by their house last week. Rather amusing little event. We were doing a Game Count (which obviously means counting the game (animals) at the sanctuary) and all of a sudden we see an ostrich chilling right next to their bedroom window.

Also, as I have little time here at this internet cafe, I won't be able to mention it all... but as a preview: THIS IS AWESOME HERE!!!!

- During the Cheetah tracking in NamibRand we got the time to chill for a bit at the dunes

I am okay, eating well, and I'm sort of safe... to those who needed to know that. I mean, I am living next to two Cheetahs and just around the corner is Meatball and his girl Gobelinas enclosure (two of the Lions here). Sleeping is rather limited though, when you are woken up 100 times in the middle of the night due to peacocks running on top of the roof, or when the rooster decides to chuckles from the bottom of his lungs in accapella with his mates in other enclosures at 4 o'clock in the morning. But such is okay, time here is great anyways!

 - Me chilling with the Cheetah Kiki

I am expecting that most people will look at this picture and have one out of two different responses to it. The first would be that it is a nice picture and bla bla bla... The second, and probably more likely response, would be that I am simply at a zoo where the animals are not wild, and only bread for the entertainment of tourists.

I can assure you that this is far from the case. The only reason I could do what I did was firstly because I was under the supervision of trained staff, and secondly because this and a few other Cheetahs were raised closely to humans only due to the reason that they would not survive on their own, for example in cases where they were orphaned by their mum, or if their parents were killed. The animals are then raised under the supervision of the sanctuary so as to give them a life where they would survive.

On a side-note, a subordinate clause if you wish, even though I was able to pet them I can also assure you that they are still wild animals. The purring is not like that of your little domestic cat at home; Kiki here had a purring that resembles a cat on steroids perhaps. These are killing machines, and I can assure you of this; they run their own show - and piss them off you get this (below).

 - Not so happy anymore, are we?

 - And you know, there is also a reason these fences are fitted with 10 000 volts protection lines.

A night without sleep
Yesterday I was so lucky as to have a little friend sleeping in my room. Bobby, the youngest of a bunch of baby baboons, most days of the week is allowed to sleep together with the volunteers. Now, this might seem easy enough; but I assure you: no. Let me tell you about some of the fun he brought with him. At around, what, 8 o'clock it was time for his nappie to be changed (yes, a nappie is needed when the baby shits and pees uncontrollably as he sees fit). Some how he at this point went bananas (oh, the irony) and, I was told, he decided to give his compliments to me in a way only baboons can. He jumped over to my bed, peed at the two corners of my duvet closest to my head. "No worries" I thought, "I can deal with this. I'll just flip it around and sleep with that end at my feet". But oh no, Bobby made sure to leave his second type of 'trace' a second place. At the other end of my duvet I found a nicely placed set of excrement so as to have no place unmarked by Bobby.

 - Lauren with Bobby before bedtime

Don't misunderstand, time here is great... when you are not peed or shat on (excuse my language). I have been working with Lions and Cheetahs, Meercats and Baboons, Wild Dogs and Caracals. Helping with monitoring health, tracking and searching, enclosure patrols and feeding and on it goes. It is fantastic, and I recommend everyone to follow me!

I wish I could tell you more, and I will, but for now my timeline approaches zero. Next update should be expected next Sunday.

Until next time,

//Nick