January 20 update

 at Wildlife Friends of Thailand

Well, my first week is almost up, unbelievably, and while the first couple of days were a bit rough, as I mentioned in my previous posting, things have improved enormously for me and I am enjoying it fully.

My days are very full with all sorts of tasks: preparing the food for the animals and feeding them and refilling their water buckets (animals being gibbons, macaques, langurs, nocturnal animals like slow loris, civets and a binturong-only found in Asia, leopard cats) maintaining our trails through "the jungle", scrubbing and cleaning various pools, the pig pool, the dear pool, the tortoise pool, the macaque pool and painting a green wall for the new iguana enclosure.

And through all of that, the gibbons are singing, "Oli" the otter is screaming for food, "Randy" the Great Hornbill doing his thing and "Dundee" the crocodile also doing his usual….nothing ;-)

During the first couple of days, these "menial " tasks made me wonder what I was doing here and feeling very guilty that I wasn't at work!

Then, the day before yesterday, Edwin and the staff went on a rescue mission and brought back to the center 4 Gibbons and 4 Macaques with 3 more coming in the next day. One of the Gibbons was so traumatized by her previous experience, she hadn't been out of a very small cage for her entire life (!) that as soon as she was released into her new "huge" enclosure, she immediately went to hide in a corner with her face turned toward the wall and her arms over her head. She was a very sad sight for us. Added to that, she is all skin and bones and her eyes are very sad. Two days have gone by and she is out and about, starting to swing a bit, coming to the sides of her enclosure when we come up to say hi or when we feed her, she is so obviously more peaceful and reassured in the two short days, that it makes it all worthwhile and suddenly, you know why you're here.

All of our little tasks make up a whole. Maintaining the trails makes it easier for those who come into "the Jungle" with baskets of food and buckets of water to go from one enclosure to another without tripping over roots. Cleaning the pig pool makes it fresher smelling and pleasant for all, painting the iguana enclosure ensures that it will be a permanent and welcome addition to the scenery at the centre. It all comes together and everyone pitches in wholeheartedly no matter how difficult, repetitive or boring a task may be.

I've been learning tremendous amounts about Gibbons, Macaques, their behavior, their diet. We have strict feeding hours so that they have a regular and balanced diet. According to their needs, they have single, double or triple portions, enrichments of various sorts, calcium powder for the mommies and daddies. Some eat eggs, others eat chicken, some eat only fruit, others fish. And we have so much to memorize, who eats what and how much. The more experienced volunteers become group leaders to help the new volunteers with all this information. I should be a group leader next week maybe...hopefully I'll be able to remember everything!

Haven't had the pleasure of taking care of the bears yet but I will soon hopefully! And then, there's the daily running of the centre. There too we have a routine. Cleaning the volunteer house, cleaning our rooms and bathrooms..and there too, I lucked out, it appears my room, which I'm sharing with 3 other girls, has the only flushing toilet in the centre...

We went to visit the night market in Cha Am yesterday. Cha Am is a resort town for Thais so the feel was really local. On Friday evening we go to visit the night market in Hua Hin which is a lot more touristy.

I haven't overdosed on Thai food yet, still enjoying my rice twice a day (with a beer, yes...) and am looking forward to discovering the pleasures of a massage as we have VIP entrance to a very nice local resort with pool, etc...But that's for my day off next week and you will of course, be able to read all about it!!

Cheers