It's not for the faint-hearted!

Well, I now know from a first-hand experience that Africa is a brutal place indeed. When I signed up to come here, in the info pack I received, it said “It's not for the faint-hearted!” and this has proved absolutely true.

In my last posting, I spoke about the elephant killing for the purpose of culling. The way I understand it, culling started in the 60's when land owners came in to farm the land and decimated the wildlife. Nowadays, public outcry has made culling illegal in theory, so instead, trophy hunting has been introduced. But in actual fact, the result is the same. The population of certain animals being too great in proportion to the space they occupy, as in the case of the elephants, they are selected according to specific criteria, and shot down.

As I mentioned previously, Brian and the staff here at Moholoholo try to have us experience as much of Africa as possible so include us in most of the events taking place in the wild. Thus, a couple of evenings ago, I went to do one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in my life. We went to cut up the elephant which had been killed that day. We all piled into the trucks, with extra water for the long drive, all weather jackets and whatever else was needed to be out in the wild for over 6 hours, and drove to the site. There, the elephant was lying on its side, two legs had already been cut off, the head was partially cut off along with the tail and one ear. It was a gruesome sight and I was devastated. The guys were cutting and hacking away to try and cut the animal up while the meat was fresh and get as much done as possible before night-time. I took one look at the elephant's eye which thankfully was closed, and I had the feeling I was looking into his soul. Everyone was taking pictures. I couldn't as I also felt that I would be robbing it of its soul, so you won't see any pictures of that when I get them all on Facebook. It was horribly difficult for me to watch, so I just sat in our combi waiting to take the first truck back to the center. At about 7:30 PM, we were ready to go back with the first load, I sat in front, two other students sat in back on the meat on which the rangers had placed a tarpaulin, and we were on our way. Had a flat tyre on the way back, but I guess that's incidental. All the other students got back to the center around 1AM covered in blood. I did help to unload the truck though, and all of us were complimented by Brian for having put in the effort. A graceful gesture on his part. Now just remember, they don't do this for fun, they use every bit of the meat, none of it is wasted. Of note however, the man who actually killed the elephant refused to touch the meat, which disgusted everyone, Brian included.

What else can I tell you? A 2,5 meter python was found in the snake snare the other day and put in a cage in our clinic. He unfortunately escaped and is still lurking somewhere not too far we assume. It is not a venomous snake but rather a constrictor, however I am not happy about it at all and try not to think about it. An ordinary occurrence here, snakes are everywhere. Fortunately, I have not been close to one yet and hope it stays that way until I leave!

Two of our hyenas, Luma and Shade, were finally put together in the same enclosure and seem to be getting along just fine, so that is nice. Our 8 week old sable, Maisy, who is being hand-raised by two of the students, is also doing very well and is gorgeous. Four of the servals here will be released any day now, and the sooner the better because every day I go to clean their foul smelling enclosure, they hiss at me and it is kind of scary. Dela the rhino, is her usual self, happily munching away at the trees. She too is being hand raised by Dave whose fee for staying here is being paid by Dela's future owner, and she will be sent to her new home sometime in May.

As far as my duties are concerned, every morning we start at 7. I go clean Woody and Bubbles' enclosure, two sweet natured blind owls. Then I go on to do the Giant Grey Owls who always look at me with their huge eyes...they actually look very funny, very stoic. Then, we clean the vulture enclosures, with the vultures inside with us. Rosie, a hooded vulture, is so cute, follows us around as we do the cleaning, trying to peck away at our pants or shoe laces. We are also meant to feed the vultures as part of their training program and ours as well, I guess. We put on a leather glove which goes all the way up to our elbow and the vultures are meant to land on it and munch away at the meat we hold out for them and wait for them to fly off our arm. For now, I have only managed to feed Rosie as she is quite light. The other two vultures in my enclosure are simply too heavy for me. But I haven't given up trying! Then, in the afternoon, we feed the owls little chicks, some of which need to be cut up in pieces. That is the one job I'm not willing to do. So as you can see, there are a lot of birds here, not to mention a very full aviary. Something I wasn't expecting when I signed up, not being particularly interested in birds. However, nature is nature, and here at Moholoholo, every form of wildlife is precious.

The rest of my duties involve cleaning the clinic, cleaning the animals' feeding cages and enclosures or camps, as they call them here and we are strongly encouraged to spend what extra time we have with the animals because interaction is important.

The center is enclosed for any number of reasons, safety being the main one. Our breakfast is at another lodge to which we can walk every morning. In the evening, we are driven there as it is too dangerous to walk through the bush at night-time. You never know when you'll bump into a rhino, or a snake, possibly a hippo....And in order to get out of the reserve entirely, we need to go through three gates....beyond that is freedom ;-) Yesterday, we went on a boat trip through Blyde Canyon and actually got to see some hippos from a distance (they are the most dangerous animals in Africa and have caused the most deaths). Then we went to a waterfall and had a great time jumping from up on high into the water. I surprised myself and everyone else by my daring, I was kind of proud actually. And tomorrow, finally, we get to go to.....

Kruger Park! And hopefully see the Big 5! (More on that later!)

Cheers!