Squirrels, Snakes, Vacation

It has been too long! In my defense I took a lovely week-long vacation from Daktari, and since I've been back it's been super busy! As we approach the holidays we have fewer volunteers, which means more time in the program for me. We have one more week with kids, and then a few weeks of "holiday" - where I am going to stay on site and look after all the animals while the volunteers and the owners are not here. It will either be very easy or very hard, not sure which one yet!

As the holidays approach, we do a lot of talking about celebrations from all over the world. At the end of November, just before I left on my trip, we did a makeshift "Thanksgiving" with all the volunteers. There is one other American here, a 19 year old from Massachusetts named Sofi, and together we brainstormed how we could bring the important parts of the holiday to Africa. Unfortunately there was no turkey involved, but we bought some chickens to eat instead of the previously scheduled ravioli, which we thought was perhaps the least Thanksgiving-y meal possible. After the meal we ate delicious apple crumble and went around the table saying what we are thankful for. It was lovely - we really do all have so much to be thankful for being here at Daktari!

Tonight we are celebrating the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas. It basically means a "Secret Santa" type game with poems and gifts, I think we're skipping the black-face portion though. Do a little google search for Zwarte Piet if you want to know what I mean.

In other news, it is squirrel central around here. They fall from our thatched roofs onto the floor and their mothers don't come get them. We feed them with syringes for a few weeks, then slowly ween them onto solid foods. I never thought I would be comfortable with 4 squirrels running all over me before, but it now seems perfectly normal. At the moment we have released four, have five currently in a cage, and are still syringe-feeding a new baby. Our new baby is still being fed every three hours during the day and every four hours at night - and he still hasn't opened his eyes even though we've had him over a week!

He's currently sleeping in my shirt - Risette and I pass him back and forth all day and take turns feeding him. He's so sweet! My other baby, Buddy, is practically a grown-up now, and no longer needs regular feedings but instead eats in his cage all day. We will release him with his family group of squirrels in the next few days! I snapped this shot of him a few days after I found him on the floor next to my bed, this is in the classroom with the warthogs sleeping in the background:

It's also sort of been snake central around here! While I was gone there was a black mamba, a super deadly snake, in the little hut where we keep our extra animal food. Since then there have been a few boomslangs, a bunch of harmless snakes, and most recently a baby python! Ian brought the python around and let us all try him on:

I suppose I should also update a bit about my trip. I went with another long-term volunteer here at Daktari, Beccs, who is from the UK. We picked up our car on Saturday morning in town and took off driving south to the coast. We were gone a total of a week, and traveled I don't even know how many kilometers. We went to St. Lucia, which is a nice beach town with tons of beautiful wildlife on an estuary, and then to Durban and the beaches around. We did tons of driving and tons of beach time and had a lot of fun. After bush living it was so nice just to sleep in hotels, take long hot showers, use electricity, eat in restaurants, and go shopping. And to the casino. The most exciting news for me is that I drove basically the whole way from Durban back to Hoedspruit (upwards of 13 hours), and I now feel that I have mastered the art of the stick-shift. I tried to pick just a few photos from our trip:

Look! Driving stick on the wrong side of the road! Champion!

 I think we probably saw literally 100 people waving flags on the roadside. SA has lots of these types of jobs that were created to employ people. Sometimes they are waving flags and you literally cannot figure out why. 

 Driving to the beach at Cape Vidal in St. Lucia - just stumbled upon this beautiful white rhino on the side of the road. Rhino was the one animal I didn't see on my last trip to Africa, so I'm thrilled with this sighting! We just drove along watching him for as long as we wanted. 

 We took a boat ride on the estuary in St. Lucia - and were greeted by a pretty amazing hippo show. 

 Sunset from the roof of our hostel in Warner Beach, Kwazulu Natal, just south of Durban. 

 Beccs on the beach at Thompson's Bay, between St. Lucia and Durban. After walking through this crazy hole in a rock, we were on a beach with no one else. It was awesome. 

It was a really lovely trip, and it's lovely to be back at Daktari! Can't believe I leave in only two months!

If you haven't already, and you're interested, you should "Like" Daktari on facebook or follow us on twitter at @Daktariafrica. I'm now in charge of updating both, so it's a good way to stay connected when I don't have time to blog! More soon.