Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Daktari! I hope everyone is happy and healthy and that your end of 2011 is as fun and adventure-filled as mine has been. Speaking of adventure.. just after writing my last post I woke up not feeling so great, and by the evening had developed a high fever. I don't know if you've ever had a fever when it's 110 degrees outside, but it is not very fun. I know what you're thinking, and no, I did not have malaria (thank god). I did, however, have a seriously bad throat infection ("massive tonsillitis," in the words of the doctor) and was knocked out for over a week. It took two rounds of antibiotics, two trips to the doctor, and a lot of caretaking from my friends here before I was up and at it again. I was in isolation; completely out of the program for most of the last week of volunteers for 2011. It was really sad because it was a super fun week, and it was my last week to spend time with our three long term volunteers who had been with us for about three months. The schools were already closed by that point, so we invited the children of our local staff to come do the program. It was so fun to see how proud the parents were of their kids, and to give them the opportunity to see where their parents work. One of our staff members, Senior, has a seven year old daughter who she brought for the week. Obviously she could not participate in a lot of the program, but our volunteers had a great time making up activities for her and hanging out with her in the pool. Here's Senior and her daughter, Malebo:

On my last day of health, I went swimming with the kids after lunch. It was a super, super hot day, and we had a really good time. Here's me and one of our favorite kids, Grace, who we also invited for the week:

When I finally emerged from my isolation chamber, all the kids and volunteers were gone. Just a few days later, the directors left for their Christmas holiday, leaving Risette and I in charge of the camp. We have had three families (sponsors and friends of the directors) enjoying a holiday here, who just left today, and we have been working really hard. Taking care of all the animals (including four baby squirrels and a baby warthog) and office work with a bare bones staff is tough, but very satisfying to make sure that everything runs right. Tonight it is just the two of us and one volunteer, Destry, who is helping us take care of the camp while everyone's gone. In a week the whole program starts up again with seven new volunteers and new kids - so I have to try and get some rest in before it gets crazy again! 

I am leaving out a lot of important things, but hopefully I will have time to update again before everything starts up. I will leave you with some more photos of animals around camp! 

It's always one of my favorite things when different kinds of animals eat together. Here we have our blind donkey, Eeyore, two of our tame squirrels, and two guinea fowl all sharing a meal of birdseed together. 

This little guy is a baby warthog named Kevin. His owners went on holiday for the past week, and we got the pleasure of pig-sitting him. He needs a lot of food, and a lot of attention, but it was nice having him around! 

Here I am hand feeding one of our duikers, Lizzy. 

More soon!