First week

Hey everyone, 

I'm sorry that this post is so late, but between the WiFi and figuring out the blog, it wasn't a quick process. Procrastination mixed with uncertainty do not help either. Now that I have these posted, hopefully I will be able to be more consistent. 

Tuesday the 28th was my first day off, and for the most part, Tuesdays will be my break day. The past week has been as eventful as it has been uneventful. I learned to do a variety of things, including taking care of the Livestock guarding dogs here on at the center, feed the cheetahs, clean their pens to name a few.  

Before orientation on Tuesday the 21st, I got to watch a cheetah run. It's exciting, as they let the ambassadors out and run a flag, which is attached to a long line, powered by a motor with two car batteries, around a massive square. Below is a short video showing one of the cheetahs chasing it. It was really cool! It is amazing to see them run, they are beautiful animals. I won't bore you with my orientation though, it more boring exploration of here is this and that, and what they are for etc. Etc.  

After lunch I learned how to prepare the food for the cheetahs. Not the most appetizing thing to do after lunch, but it was certainly interesting. We feed the cheetahs horse and donkey meat that is from retired animals bought from local farmers. They do this because if they caught the meat from the local game, it would quickly deplete the populations. There are around 32 cheetahs at CCF, and using the equines, they go though around 2-3 a week. Once the meat is finished being prepared, we bring it out for the tourists to and follow up by feeding Romeo first, then Ron, following by feeding the girls (Aurora, Rainbow, Hermoine, and Harry), the boys (Little C, Smart Man, and Blond Man), and finally the ambassadors (Tiger Lily, Peter, Kaijay, and Senay) who do a cute little "dance routine" before they are let in and run to grab their food. 

At the end of the day, I helped feeding all the dogs with Becky, the person in charge of the dogs, and another intern, Taylor. Honestly? It's like I never left home! (totally kidding....) 

There are three sections. The first section has Duma, Spot (two sweet older dogs), Teya, Heyidie (two dogs they are trying to currently breed), and Ferat (the big "stud"). The second group contains Aleya (due in a week!), Tylee (sweet ancient dog), Lady and her 8 puppies, and Reppet. And the third group has Kiri and her planet puppies (Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Neptune, and Mars), Amos and Uchi (two older dogs), Nesbit (another male), and Karabib. They are all really sweet dogs and love attention. And the puppies are sooo cuuuute! XD  

Planet Puppies! (Left to right - Neptune, Jupiter, Venus)

Planet Puppies 2 (Left to Right - Mars and Saturn)

Later I helped walk another older dog, Penda, who is blind. From this walk I learned that there are baboons that sometime come by the hotspot and the dorms. This occurred because I kept hearing a strange noise that I could not place for the life of me. (I have never heard baboons interact!) After a point I got nervous since the noise was getting louder and turned around and went back to safety. Maybe if I was walking Hercules it wouldn't be as scary, he at least could chase them down! Ha! 

Thursday I learned that I am also helping Laurie with her horses. Most mornings I go over to the barn around 6:50 (and skip breakfast... Ugh... Whoa is me!!! >.<) and care for and ride one of her horses, Merlin. He is a sweet horse, but a little grouchy when he has food in front of him. When we return we take care of and let out all of the other horses into a huge pasture. It's rather impressive... 

Since I don't yet have a project, in my spare time I have been given lots and lots of photos to go through. I sort through them and organize them into different sections including Grass (includes many common species like warthog, most small birds, and most herbivores), Giraffe, Porcupine, Jackal, etc. So. Many. Pictures.  

I am a bit concerned, I can now say, "Oh! It was easy! It only had 3,000 pictures in it"….  

I've been given USB drives with easily 16,000 photographs in them from camera traps. It's terrifying........   -_-" 

Otherwise, I have been able to go on a few of drives off the CCF center. One was to explore a new route in Bellebino where we were looking for Giraffes and Zebra. Richard, the person who was driving a few interns, Elizabeth and Erin, and me, was concerned because we hadn't seen any Zebras. They ended up being all in a huge herd at the last waterhole and ran away as soon as they saw the car.  

The second was a Game drive, where we had a starting point, and on that route we had to record data about the various animals we saw. This included the species, the number, the distance from the car, etc. It was really cool. Unfortunately, we did not see much besides Francolin birds, and the occasional Steenbok. It was fun regardless, though.  

The third trip was when Whitney (another intern) and I assisted some of the staff, with setting up game traps. We went around and set up game traps pointing towards waterholes in the area, in order to count the species that were coming around. All I could think was, "Please don't let the baboons mess with these cameras..." 

Of course, we didn't have locks, so I volunteered by hair tie to help at least keep the camera traps closed. Hopefully the cameras weren't messed with until someone was able to go back and click on locks!  

Well, this is it for the week, and I, for the most part, am caught up on my blog! (I am cheering on the inside)  

Have a nice week everyone, and enjoy the warm weather, and this view!