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!  

Cross Continent Travels and CCF First Thoughts

Hey everyone,
I am warning everyone now that I have never blogged before, and this is probably going to be a very rough process as I try to figure it out. I will try to post pictures approximately once a week, but am not going to guarantee anything due to spotty WiFi and depending on how busy I am day to day. Feel free to send advice through facebook. Don't be offended if I don't reply, I can only do so much in a day.
Nonetheless, here we go! :)

It has been over a week since I left Bend, and exactly a week since I arrived at the Cheetah Conservation Fund  (CCF) in Namibia. Traveling alone took me two days and five different flights. I took two quick flights from Bend, Oregon to San Francisco, California, an overnight flight from San Francisco to Heathrow, London, and from London to Johannesburg, South Africa, and a quick flight from Johannesburg to Windhoek, Namibia. It made my arrival all the sweeter! The one nice thing about the overnight flight was that it forced me into the right sleep schedule, and I, for the most part, avoided jet lag.

The driver who picked me up was named Cappi, he was very nice and patient with me, even as I forgot that the passengers sit on the left of the car, not the right here in Namibia (oops). Even a week later I have made that mistake several times. I will get it eventually! And then I will make the mistake when I get back, it'll be hilarious.

The drive took approximately 3 hours. During the trip, Cappi picked up a few things, and at one point stopped at a shopped and picked up some snacks which he was kind enough to share with me. One was a long thin strip of some kind of meat that kind of reminded me of jerky (I've been told it can be compared to a slim jim), and the other was some kind of bacon looking meat. I've been told it is called Diltong (this is probably misspelled), I don't know exactly what type of meat it was made out of, but it was delicious! The drive itself was otherwise uneventful. We saw a few baboons, that of course I didn't have a camera prepared for, and a few warthogs as they ran from the road. About 3/4 of the way to Otjiwarongo, I fell asleep. Even after sleeping on the plane, all the traveling tired me out!

Most of the drive was through the flat land of Namibia. It really is different from Bend, where we have mountains and buttes, with curvy roads. The roads here are relatively straight, and although I knew that they drove on the left side, it still threw me off. I woke up when we reached Otjiwarongo, from there we took a dirt road, which was approximately a 30 minute drive.











Since it was around 3:00 pm, or around 15:00 Zulu time, most of the interns were still out working on various tasks. I was brought around to fill out paperwork. From there I saw a quick video and explored the mini museum they have here about cheetahs and some of the things that CCF has done to help them through the education of the young people and the farmers of this region and around the world. It is amazing to see what CCF has accomplished in 20 years. They have accomplished quite a bit as well as helped not only the cheetah, but with some actions the human and animal community alike.
Exploring the mini museum pranced me through memory lane. Some things I remember, and other things I absolutely don't, of course it has been seven years, and I was only 13, so that isn't really surprising. I do remember the museum, that hasn't changed, and neither has Laurie's house or the barn where she houses her horses. Laurie Marker is the founder of the CCF. I saw Little C, who they were thinking back then would be an ambassador cheetah, and Smart man and Blond man, who were cubs that were brought in before I arrived in Namibia years ago. Now they are 7 years old, and have a large plot of land to run around and hang in all day long. Esha (probably misspelled), a dog I met as a puppy during my first visit, had a litter and one of her pups, Hercules, is kept around as a ambassador Livestock guard dog. He is a bit of a brat, but he is only 9 months old.

Otherwise, the day ended pretty calmly. Around 5 pm, I was shown my room, which I share with two other girls, Bridget and Erin. Bridget is another intern from OSU. Dinner was at 6:30, and I met all the other interns. Ironically enough, all of them are from America. To some extent, I was kind of surprised, but at the same time, I sort of expected it. SO many names to remember. By the end of the week though, I finally had them remembered.

The "Hotspot"

Hope everyone's summer is going well! And sorry for posting these so late! >.<