Jun 2007

what a week! after leaving the internet cafe on friday, i got to the supermarket and realised that some nice kind fellow had stolen my purse! Luckily i only had less than 20 quid in it. but also my driving license and my bank card, which means that i can't take out money here now. luckily i have travellers cheques for kenya. got bills to pay here to bob and lynne, so will prob have to do a bank transfer or something!

but i had it ok reallly, because at friday afternoon feeding, theresa had her hand very badly bitten. we had to take her to the hospital. unforunately bob had to shoot the monkey because it was out of control, he couldn't catch it in the net and got bitten himself! not sure if i had mentioned him before, but we had called the monkey mad max because he was a bit mad. she is doing much better now,and will prob have her stitches out on friday. she still doesnt have feeling in the side of her hand.and cant really do the cleaning at the moment, but her job is to cut up the food instead now,

i stupidly dropped my contact lens case down the sink but have managed to buy a new one.

watched the rugby again. we lost again!

the owls are doing well, except hector who unfortunatelydied. not sure if he maybe choked on a piece of food, else there was a small fire in the clinic near him after the heater we had been using in there set alight!!! now there is melted plastic on the floor!

there are lots of volunteers here now, i think at last count there is 10 of us! so we have started cleaning the small cages in quarantine.

we had another monkey die, the father from the family. probably from parasites. we are treating all the monkeys for paracites by covering tablets in syrup!

we also had to give the babies medicine, which was a challenge,because while they like jumping on youand annoying you while you clean. they make it very difficult to catch them and givethem their medicine!

looking forward to going to kenya, but will definately miss SA.

A bit late with my update this week on account of me getting to the computer on wednesday and not being able to remember what i have done this week! Not that exciting things didn't happen!

We have had 4 owls bought to us this week,Three from the same lady who says they fell out of their nest, and being unable to fly would have died. Another was bought in with a broken wing, so yesterday we had to fix that up and fingers crossed she will be ok. I have named the first to come in Prisicilla. Each night we have to cut up day old dead chick to force feed to the owls. This is a challenge when they seemto resist being fed by using their sharp claws! Luckily i have my garden gloves to wear for protection, but im sure that before my last week here is over, i will be scratched to pieces!

We also had a kingfisher brought in last week. He was unable to fly. We tried to catch grasshoppers for him, but were unsuccessful, catching just a couple and James almost losing a finger when he tried to feed it! The next day the bird had died.

This especially caused problems because of the 24 children that we had visit last friday. to fill their day we had pl;anned for them to catch grasshoppers for the kingfisher. we still had them do this tho, but lied and said they were for the snakes and to be frozen for birds that get bought in. In the end we feed them to the monkeys, who really enjoyed eating them. One of the girls had caughgt 50+ grasshoppers, because the children themselves eat such insects they were much better at catching them.

we also had the children draw monkey pictures,they were all quite good. They all seemed to enjoy their day,and it is good to have educated the children about their countries wildlife.

We have been having some probelmswith week with the damn monkeys in quarentine escaping. they are smart critters who manage to undo the bolts that shut the doors. not sure why they dont use padlocks on the doors, would save a lot of problems. ONe of the monkeys from quarentine also bit james this week, his lame attempt to get man point, i say!

We had another monkey die from worms. she had been in one of the intro enclosures. it is always very sad. Also one monkey was found dead when Matthew was showing the 2 new german girls around the place, not a nice introduction for them.

It is very cold at night here now, but still warm enough for shorts and skirts during the day. Apparently their worst winter for a while. Hopefully be warmer when i getup to kenya.

We had to go to the bar to watch the rugby last saturday, Englanbd vs SA. Shame we lost, which meant the south africans being very happy! Return leg this sat, fingers crossed for some english glory!

Bob and Lynne returned on sunday from england. they had been over to visit some kids from lewisham who had been over as part of a tv show that will be on channel 4 this month. so look out for it on the tv schedules.

Had a bushbaby get itself into one of the small enclosures, i noticed on my way up to do morning chores. it was the first time i had seen one, they are very cute. matthew caught it and let it go into a nearby tree.