Day 6 at Moholoholo Rehab Center: today has been the perfect day! Early this morning, we find out that the bats we have been caring for since last Monday have found a new home and are leaving today! Finished the every two hour syringe feeding! Finished the mealworms! Finished getting up at midnight and then 6AM to feed them! We can finally get a good night's sleep and nobody will be on edge anymore and most importantly, we will be able to attend to our full time residents who need our attention such as......
Dela, our baby rhino ;-) Dela is short of 18 months old. She was brought here as a very small baby when she got caught in a mud mire from which her mom tried to extricate her for two days only to give up in the end and abandon her, reluctantly I'm sure. Dela was lucky indeed. Since she arrived at Moholoholo, she has been hand reared by our dedicated team of conservationists, bottle fed and cared for day and night (at the beginning). Now Dela is a sweet natured 350kg rhino who gets lonely when she spends too much time on her own so we take it in turns to “rhino sit” which is what I just came back from doing. And I just had to tell you all about it. Picture this: the sky is blue, just a few white clouds, the sun is shining, the Drakensberg mountain in the background, and me and Dela. Nap time. She is lying down next to me and I'm resting my head on her tummy or her paw.....I mean, how good can it get?? While riots are taking place in the world, bombs are going off, here we are Dela and I lazing around in peaceful surroundings without a care in the world..... amazing!
Day 8 at Moholoholo: I'm still rhino sitting. It's 5PM, the end of another very hot day in Africa and it is very peaceful save for Dela who is whinging because she is quite hungry and waiting for her milk, so I do have to keep an eye on her in case she gets a bit impatient.
At Moholoholo, I am not a 'volunteer' but a 'student' which means that not only do I partake in the duties necessary to run the center but I am also expected to learn a lot about animals, specifically African animals of course, Africa and its ways. That is one of the things I most enjoy about this place. You don't only come here to clean enclosures and feed animals, you also go home with a greater knowledge of this environment and the problems they are facing here.
Brian Jones is the manager of Moholoholo. He is certainly a character, rather difficult to describe, a showman certainly, opinionated, extremely knowledgeable, freaks out all the young 'students'. Born and raised in the bush, a white man among blacks, Brian is very much an African man. He is traditional through and through. We are allowed no apparent shoulders or knees, no alchohol, no girls in the boys' rooms and no boys in the girl's rooms, no frivolous magazines, well, you get the idea. He loves to tell everyone how his son in law to be courted his daughter for four years coming to see her once a month only to sit on opposite sides of the sofa. Brian wouldn't 'give' his daughter away until the young man had proven himself in more way than one. A very traditional man. From a very early age, he learned to talk to the lions, the cheetahs, he is an expert tracker and seems to have a clear understanding of the African ecosystem. Part of him is still living in 19th century. This morning, as part of our 'education', he treated us to a conservation talk to which one doesn't necessarily have to adhere but one must give it proper attention and consideration.
He wanted to emphasize that man is destroying the world. That there was a time when wild animals knew no borders. Game reserves and parks didn't exist and animals roamed freely from East to West Africa, from North to South, birds migrated all the way around the world, and so forth. Animals thus had a huge playground and the importance of this is that the ecosystem was regulated by the animals themselves. Everything in nature had a cause and a reason. Since man has started to interfere with nature, that fragile balance is no longer there. And I will describe just one thing which might shock many of you reading this but I will try to say it like he told it and you can all make up your minds. Keep in mind that this is very much an African story. Elephants. As I said, once upon a time, elephants roamed freely and their territory was massive. Now they are enclosed in parks such as Kruger. Instead of roaming in line, they are going around in circles. Kruger's capacity for elephants is 7000. At the moment, more than 16000 elephants are roaming around Kruger park. They are destroying the ecosystem by tearing down the trees (which is what elephants naturally do) and thus destroying the habitat of countless other animals driving some of them to extinction. The elephant population needs to be controlled in this situation. So every so often, a 'trophy' hunt is organized to shoot down an elephant (not at random but according to certain criteria). The money the park charges for this 'privilege' is redistributed to the park for the benefit of all the animals, the meat serves to feed centers like Moholoholo and the money to pay the local rangers who work in the park, thereby also benefitting the local population. So, a win win situation. Now, as I said earlier, this is a typically African situation and one cannot look at it nor judge it with the eyes of Westerners. I still believe that hunting has no reason to be in our part of the world. And while I abhore the idea of an elephant being shot down, I can almost understand what Brian means.
As I am sitting here typing this, the most humongous storm has just begun, sheets of rain streaming down, very scary, loud thunder right above our heads it seems. In fact, the loudest thunder I have ever heard. Drenched, I have just about made it back to my room. A lightning bolt just went through the keyhole of the door pushing the key into the room. How scary is that?!
Well, I will leave you with a very beautiful image, African of course....this afternoon, Lyn, one of our volunteer coordinators, took us on a hippo run, which means that we took the safari vehicle to go and find the hippos in the reserve to feed them. We didn't find the hippos but we did find quite a few giraffes and some zebras who actually came and ate right out of our hands. Another very special moment at Moholoholo.
Cheers everyone
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